CU Buffs fall big in playoff ranking, need a lot of help
Nov 26, 2024, 6:28 PM
Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images
The Colorado Buffaloes fell big in the College Football Playoff ranking on Tuesday after losing to the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday.
The Buffs will need to win, get help to get to the Big 12 Championship and then win that while getting help around the country to make it to the 12-team tournament.
CU fell from last week’s posting of No. 16 down to No. 25. So now the Buffs are worse than where they started, coming in at No. 20 in the first CFP Rankings. The new format of 12 teams keeps CU alive for the event which will kick off on Dec. 20. But the new rules don’t just put the top dozen teams in the field, it promises positions to some of the conference winners. So if Colorado can get back to the Big 12 Championship Game, there’s a chance.
The Buffaloes’ final regular season game comes on Friday at 10 a.m. against Oklahoma State. Colorado is favored by 17 points for their Senior Day contest.
The final ranking that will ultimately decide the dozen comes out on Dec. 8, meaning Tuesday’s was the fourth of six rankings slated to be shared over the next several weeks.
It’s hard to see Colorado getting into the CFP field at this point, let alone the Big 12 title game but there’s still a scenario where the Buffaloes can make it happen.
The four highest-rated conference champions get a bye past the campus site games in the first game. The winners will never get re-seeded but those second-round games will all be at neutral sites and are being hosted by the Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. The winners then play in the semifinal hosted by the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl with the winner of it all decided on Jan 20 in Atlanta’s National Championship Game.
This is just the third season the Buffs have ever been ranked in the College Football Playoff rankings. CU charted every week the poll was available during the program’s magical 2016 season, climbing as high as No. 8 before losing the Pac-12 Championship Game. Colorado was also ranked during the shortened 2020 season. The CFP rank has been the go-to one for season’s end since 2014, ultimately the current incarnation and the previous Bowl Championship Series (BCS) aim to determine a true champion of college football so that a situation like the Buffaloes’ 1990 title can never be shared with another program again.
