AP Poll provides preview of potential for final College Football Playoff rankings

The final College Football Playoff rankings get revealed in about 90 minutes, but the release of the AP Poll just gave us a preview of what we could be looking at.

Of course we’re talking about an unpredictable 13-person committee as opposed to a 60+ person voting group that tends to follow a format. There’s bound to be a difference somewhere. How did the AP Poll have it though? Georgia jumped to No. 2 after its SEC Championship Game victory over Texas with Oregon, the only undefeated team entering the postseason, at the top. The Ducks and Dawgs are followed by Notre Dame, Texas and Penn State to round out the top 5 with Ohio State, Tennessee, Boise State, Indiana and Arizona State completing the top 10.

Those 10 teams are expected to be in the field when announced around noon. So too is Clemson, champions of the ACC coming in at No. 13 per the AP Poll. That would leave one final spot up for grabs with Alabama and SMU thought to be the contenders for it. The Crimson Tide sat at home and watched on conference championship weekend while the Mustangs fell in Charlotte to the aforementioned Tigers. As a result, the AP voters have Alabama at No. 11 and SMU at No. 12.

FULL AP POLL

1. Oregon
2. Georgia
3. Notre Dame
4. Texas
5. Penn State
6. Ohio State
7. Tennessee
8. Boise State
9. Indiana
10. Arizona State
11. Alabama
12. SMU
13. Clemson
14. South Carolina
15. Miami
16. Ole Miss
17. BYU
18. Iowa State
19. Army
20. Colorado
21. Illinois
22. Syracuse
23. Missouri
24. UNLV
25. Memphis

Kirby Smart on the SEC Championship…

Opening Statement: “I’ll start like I traditionally do. This is an unbelievable event and venue. The SEC Championship, we’ve told our players, it’s just incredible in terms of the atmosphere, the opponent you play. I mean, typically for us, it’s been a play in or play out game. I just have a lot of respect for this conference, the universities in it, Greg Sankey, our president, President Morehead, Josh Brooks. The support they’ve given us has given us an opportunity to be at the point we are right now. Texas is a tremendous football program and team. They have got big physical defensive linemen, offensive linemen, and they are a really strong SEC team. But our team never quit tonight, I’m really proud of them. I thought our fan base helped us, so I’m really proud of the win.”

On the importance of an SEC Championship: “I don’t know what to say about that. I mean, you play football to play the game, you know? Like, you play football to win your conference. You’re asking the wrong person about that because I have almost the same number of national championships as I do SEC championships. And I’ve had years I won the SEC that I didn’t win the natty and then years I won the natty that I didn’t win the SEC.  They’re really hard to come by, and I don’t know. I think it’s gonna be interesting, the direction of college football. I hate to say it, but I didn’t think early in the, like, pregame that the game had the same juice. It didn’t have the same atmosphere that I’ve seen it have before. Now, once the game started, and I don’t know if that’s because more Georgia fans know where to tailgate and they’re hanging out outside ’cause they’ve been here for seven straight years and they just hang out till the end, but the atmosphere improved. But it wasn’t as electric early, and I think the game made it more electric because it was a great game. And the games that have been played in this venue for the conference championship are incredible. For people to devalue that over a playoff, I just don’t see it that way. I value SEC championships. I hold them in high esteem because the work it requires to do that is incredible.”

On Georgia’s resiliency: “Yeah, I think Mike (Bobo) said it best when I was talking about our team. I said, ‘Man, we’re beat up, we’re tired. I was talking to our staff this week about how to practice. This week was just absolutely absurd for Sark and I because we’re trying to sign a signing class in the middle of a championship game week, which is one of the craziest things ever. And Mike said, ‘We’re mentally fatigued, but we’re one of the [most] mentally tough teams that we’ve ever coached. Now I’ve had more physically tough, I’ve had more physically talented, but I don’t know that I’ve ever had a more mentally tough team. They just keep coming and keep coming, and they never say die. I have a lot of respect for the leaders in that room because of what they’ve been through, probably the hardest schedule in the history we’ve ever had. And they endured it, they came out on top, and they fought their way through it.”