PROVO, Utah — After suffering its second defeat of the 2024 season last week, BYU dropped to No. 19 in the fourth College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday by the CFP selection committee.
The Oregon Ducks (11-0) remained at No. 1 after bye week, with Ohio State (10-1), Texas (10-1), Penn State (10-1) and Notre Dame (10-1) rounding out the top five. Miami (10-1), Georgia (9-2), Tennessee (9-2), SMU (10-1) and Indiana (10-1) go 6-10 in the rankings.
The first year of the 12-team playoff features the five highest-rated conference champions earning automatic berths. The four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded one through four and will receive a first-round bye. The fifth conference champion will be seeded where it was ranked or at No. 12 if it is outside the top 12 rankings. The eight teams seeded No. 5-12 will play in a first round with the higher seeds hosting the lower seeds either on campus or at other sites designated by the higher-seeded institution.
Oregon from the Big Ten is projected as the top seed in the playoff, with the SEC's Texas and ACC's Miami as the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, respectively, while No. 11-ranked Boise State of the Mountain West projected as the next-highest would take the No. 4 seed . SMU out of the ACC, a team BYU defeated 18-15 in Dallas earlier this year, is No. 9, in the rankings, projected in the at-large field. Read more about the new CFP format.
Five Big 12 teams appeared in the rankings released Tuesday, led by Arizona State (9-2) at 16, Iowa State (9-2) at 18, BYU (9-2) at 19, Kansas State (8-3) at 24 and Colorado (8-3) at 25.
In its second season in the Big 12, BYU enters the final week of the regular season in a four-way tie atop the league standings at 6-2 along with Arizona State, Iowa State and Colorado.
View the entire CFP rankings from Tuesday.
This season BYU has earned its 6-2 Big 12 record with a dominating 38-9 triumph over then No. 13 K-State at LaVell Edwards Stadium, followed by a wire-to-wire 34-28 road win over favored Baylor. BYU then earned a 41-19 victory over Arizona and a dramatic 38-35 win over Oklahoma State in back-to-back home games before leading start to finish for a 37-24 victory over favored UCF and achieving a come-from-behind 22-21 rivalry triumph over Utah in consecutive road victories. The Cougars suffered their first loss of the season to Kansas in a 17-13 heartbreaker before coming up two yards short of victory in a 28-23 setback at ASU on Saturday.
BYU concludes the regular seaon on Saturday hosting Houston at LaVell Edwards Stadium with kickoff set for 8:15 p.m. MT on ESPN.