Tulane appears to control its own College Football Playoff destiny after the latest round of rankings shake-up.
The No. 24 Green Wave (8-2, 5-1) entered the latest top 25 released Tuesday evening by the CFP Selection Committee, the team’s first such ranking of the season.
Most importantly, coach Jon Sumrall’s squad the the only Group-of-Six representative on the list, a distinction that would earn a playoff berth if it can win the next three weeks and become the nation’s highest-ranked conference champion outside of the Power Four.
“I haven’t watched that many other people play,” Sumrall said earlier Tuesday during an extended brushing aside of standings and rankings discussion. “I watch us play, and I watch whoever we’re getting ready to play play. And then after that I don’t really know who else is out there. I mean, I’ll just be very candid. There’s some days I feel like we’re one of the bottom 25 teams in the country watching us play. So if we want to start feeling comfortable or casual about somebody wanting to vote us in the top 25 teams — there must be a lot of bad football going on if we’re one of the top 25 teams. There must be some really bad football being played right now in college football.
“We’re average. We’re an average team. We get every six or seven days on the schedule, the week, to either promoite ourselves or embarrass ourselves, and we’ve done that before. So we better get ready to play. I watched us practice today. I think we’re average.”
Tulane visits Temple (5-5, 3-3) this weekend for a 2:45 p.m. kickoff before hosting Charlotte (1-9, 0-7) on Nov. 29.
Wins in those games would secure a spot in the American Athletic Conference championship game ahead of the final CFP rankings.
“I haven’t watch the selection show one time this year, so I probably won’t (tonight),” quarterback Jake Retzlaff said Tuesday. “And I bet you if we get ranked, it’ll pop up on my phone one way or another, so, like I said, it doesn’t matter. And like coach talked about, the last three American teams to get ranked all lost the next week, so maybe they are gonna hold a grudge against us or something, I don’t know. But that’s why it’s important that no matter what happens in any ranking that anybody thinks, is’ about going out and winning the next week.”
CFP COMMITTEE RANKINGS — TUES., NOV. 18
1. Ohio State (10-0) — steady
2. Indiana (11-0) — steady
3. Texas A&M (10-0) — steady
4. Georgia (9-1) — up 1
5. Texas Tech (10-1) — up 1
6. Ole Miss (10-1) — up 1
7. Oregon (9-1) — up 1
8. Oklahoma (8-2) — up 3
9. Notre Dame (8-2) — steady
10. Alabama (8-2) — down 6
11. BYU (9-1) — up 1
12. Utah (8-2) — up 1
13. Miami (8-2) — up 1
14. Vanderbilt (8-2) — steady
15. USC (8-2) — up 2
16. Georgia Tech (9-1) — steady
17. Texas (7-3) — down 7
18. Michigan (8-2) — steady
19. Virginia (9-2) — steady
20. Tennessee (7-3) — up 3
21. Illinois (7-3) — previously unranked
22. Missouri (7-3) — previously unranked
23. Houston (8-2) — previously unranked
24. Tulane (8-2) — previously unranked
25. Arizona State (7-3) — previously unranked