BYU football: Where are the Cougars in the latest College Football Playoff rankings – Deseret News

BYU football is climbing the rankings.

The undefeated Cougars are ranked No. 6 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, up three spots from their placement at No. 9 last week.

BYU was ranked No. 7 in the latest iteration of the AP Poll and No. 8 in the Coaches Poll.

"This is a correction by the committee," Greg McElroy said on ESPN. "They messed up last week. ... Now the committee does what they should have done."

The Cougars' No. 6 ranking is now the highest in program history — in the CFP rankings — besting the No. 9 ranking BYU held last week, which itself was record-setting as the highest BYU had previously been ranked by the CFP was No. 13, in both the 2020 and 2021 seasons

All-time, BYU has now been ranked in the CFP rankings 13 times.

As a reminder, since its debut in 2014 the CFP rankings have determined which teams will make it into the College Football playoff, which was previously a four-team playoff and is now a 12-team affair.

Where the AP and Coaches polls have long held a historic place in college football, the only rankings that matter currently are the CFP rankings.

In the 12-team playoff format, a top 12 ranking doesn't guarantee a spot in the playoff, however.

The five highest ranked conference champions are guaranteed berths in the 12-team playoff, with the four highest ranked conference champions being seeded That is expected (though not technically guaranteed) to be the champions of the ACC, the Big 12, the Big Ten and the SEC and then the highest ranked champion of one of the five Group of Five conferences.

The remaining seven playoff participants will be determined by the rankings, regardless of conference.

Who else is ranked that matters, right now, for BYU? None of the Cougars' remaining opponents — Utah, Kansas, Arizona State and Houston — can be found in the CFP rankings and only the Sun Devils (7-2) have a winning record, which limits the opportunities available for BYU to continue to impress the playoff committee.

BYU has defeated a pair of ranked opponents already in No. 14 SMU and No. 16 Kansas State, wins that are doing a lot for the Cougars in ESPN's Strength of Record metric .

"BYU has escaped a couple times this season. It is hard to win football games. .. BYU's path, they have a tough road," Joey Galloway said on ESPN.

If BYU wins out and plays for the Big 12 title, the likelihood is that they will play against No. 17 Colorado, though Iowa State, Kansas State, Arizona State and West Virginia are all still in the mix.