CFP Bubble Watch: Miami, BYU and the Big 12 Face Questions After Week 10

The second College Football Playoff rankings arrive Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET, and the CFP bubble has two teams sitting right on the cut line. ESPN’s latest bubble watch projects Kentucky as the No. 10 seed and Texas Tech as the No. 11 seed, the last two at-large teams in the 12-team field.

A week ago, those two were nowhere near each other. Kentucky was sixth in the first rankings, and Texas Tech was 15th. One team slid toward the line, the other climbed up to it, and both now face a November with very little room for error.

Each Power Four conference has its own last team in and first team out in the projection.

Kentucky is leaning on its résumé

Kentucky’s case rests on what it built in September and October. The Wildcats rank in the top six in ESPN’s strength of schedule and strength of record metrics, and their wins over South Carolina, LSU, and Oklahoma still carry weight in the committee room.

The loss at Tennessee hurt their SEC title hopes, and the Allstate Playoff Predictor gives Kentucky only a 36.5% chance to reach the playoff. For a team on the right side of the CFP bubble, that number says a lot. The last chance at a signature win comes Nov. 21 at Missouri, where ESPN’s FPI gives Kentucky a 38.3% chance to win, and a third loss would leave very little to argue with.

Texas Tech climbed into the CFP bubble

Texas Tech got here partly on its own and partly on timing. The 8-1 Red Raiders own wins over Arizona and Houston, including a 28-26 win over the Cougars that keeps aging well, and they rank 14th in ESPN’s strength of record. They also moved up by default when Ole Miss, LSU, and Ohio State each took a third loss in Week 10.

The path is simple to describe and hard to finish. The Big 12 champion is guaranteed a playoff spot, and Texas Tech is the most likely team to face Utah in the title game. Before that come back-to-back road trips to Oklahoma State and Baylor, and the FPI gives Texas Tech less than a 50% chance to win in Stillwater. A second loss would almost certainly push the Red Raiders out.

The Big Ten is down to two

The Big Ten has only Indiana and unbeaten UCLA in the projection, while the SEC has five teams. Ohio State is 6-5 in its last 11 games dating back to last season, which is a rough look for the conference that pushed hardest for a 24-team playoff.

UCLA is the Big Ten’s last team in at 9-0, which sounds odd until the numbers come out. The Bruins rank first in strength of record but 43rd in offensive efficiency, and three of their opponents, Cal, San Diego State, and Nevada, rank 93rd or worse in the FPI. They still have the best chance of any team to reach the Big Ten title game at 68.3%.

Iowa is first out, and the Hawkeyes may be the team to watch Tuesday night. They have four wins over teams above .500, against Michigan, Washington, Wisconsin, and Northwestern, and their defense ranks seventh in ESPN’s efficiency numbers. They were 19th in the first rankings.

BYU and Wake Forest need help

BYU’s spot on the CFP bubble comes down to the Group of 6. Even if the committee keeps the Cougars at No. 12, they would be out, because Boise State is projected to take that spot as the top Group of 6 team. The Broncos have a 63.7% chance to make the playoff, while BYU has a 19.1% chance to reach the Big 12 title game, fourth-best in the league.

Wake Forest ranks sixth in ESPN’s overall efficiency, but its strength of schedule sits 68th, and its last win came against FCS Merrimack. The Demon Deacons visit SMU on Saturday with a 59.4% chance to win, per the FPI, and an ACC title would put them in the field. A second loss, especially at SMU, would not.

The safest team in the bracket might be the one that just lost. Miami fell to Notre Dame on Saturday and still has a 97.6% chance to reach the playoff, the best of any team in the country.