The College Football Playoff committee has yet to join us this season, because it does not love us enough. You know who does love you? SB Nation's committee, which has absolutely no power whatsoever to alter anything about the Playoff, but which does weekly Playoff rankings anyway. No one can stop us!
Here are this week's ballots:
| #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | |
| Alex Kirshner | Alabama | Michigan | Washington | Clemson |
| Bill Connelly | Alabama | Michigan | Washington | Clemson |
| Bud Elliott | Alabama | Clemson | Louisville | Michigan |
| Dan Rubenstein | Alabama | Michigan | Washington | Clemson |
| Jason Kirk | Alabama | Michigan | Clemson | Louisville |
| Luke Zimmermann | Alabama | Michigan | Clemson | Washington |
| Matt Brown | Alabama | Michigan | Washington | Clemson |
| Richard Johnson | Alabama | Michigan | Washington | Clemson |
| Ryan Nanni | Alabama | Clemson | Michigan | Louisville |
| Sarah Hardy | Alabama | Clemson | Washington | Michigan |
| Steven Godfrey | Alabama | Washington | Michigan | Clemson |
| Wescott Eberts | Alabama | Michigan | Washington | Louisville |
Slap those together, and you get this field, with many changes still to come:
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7337161/SBN_SEL_Bracket_207.0.jpg)
Alabama is a pretty obvious No. 1 at this point, and Ohio State falls out of our top four after a loss at Penn State.
The other three are undefeated Power 5 conference favorites. In Week 9, both Clemson and Washington have chances to possibly move up (or out), with road games against top-20 teams Florida State and Utah, respectively. (Michigan's playing Michigan State, which -- as weird as it is to say -- can't really result in anything that would impress much of anybody.)
At the moment, Louisville's our first team out, despite losing to Clemson earlier in the season.
Joining Dan Rubenstein this week to talk about all this is Luke Zimmermann (jump ahead to the 40-second mark):