Prediction and seeding for the 12-team College Football Playoff after Week 5 of 2024

Now that we are five weeks into the college football season, the true contenders and contenders are beginning to emerge. The SEC is showing its dominance as always, while the Big Ten is following suit like the little brother that just can’t quite catch up yet.

Some teams fell out of the rankings this week, like Utah, who suffered their first loss of the season against Arizona while their starting quarterback Cam Rising remains on the sidelines due to an injury that Kyle Whittingham just doesn’t want to talk about.

However, a defeat in a season no longer means the death knell for teams as it once did. The new 12-team playoff means we could see teams with two, possibly even three losses. Teams can also have automatic bids to win their conferences, so while a lot would still have to happen, South Carolina could do it with an automatic bid.

With another week of football ahead of us, here is the latest College Football Playoff prediction from Garnet and Cocky.

There’s a new No. 1 in town, and Alabama did everything right to get there. The Crimson Tide played the Georgia Bulldogs in the game of the year, if not the best college football game of all time. It seemed like Alabama was running away with it until the Bulldogs showed some fight in the second half to make a game at the end. However, Alabama was able to prevail and claim the victory.

The Big 12 is in complete disarray, with the top three teams projected to win the conference suffering at least one loss. Kansas State looks the best right now with Utah struggling and Oklahoma State mathematically out of contention with two losses.

Penn State climbs into the rankings with a win over ranked Illinois and is still undefeated this season. Ole Miss fell quite a bit in the rankings after losing at home in The Sip to unranked Kentucky. Missouri also managed to climb back into the rankings after being another undefeated team, although the lead is narrow as they still struggle even with their wins.

UNLV comes into play as a new candidate for the Group of Five as they are undefeated and are doing better with their new quarterback after Matthew Sluka opted to redshirt the remainder of the season and will most likely end up transferring because of it there are no problems with the university. Despite all the drama of the past week, the Rebels went out and destroyed Fresno State looking like an even better team.