AP Top 25 Takeaways: 3 top-10 blowouts reshape playoff race
On a Saturday that reshaped the College football Playoff race, three top-10 matchups produced three lopsided games that left Auburn, Miami and Oklahoma with well-defined paths to the final four.
Out: Speculation about two SEC teams making the playoff. In: Speculation about a two-loss team making the playoff.
Thoughts, takedowns and takeaways from Week 11 of the college football season.
The only thing missing from this Miami beat down of No. 3 Notre Dame was Jimmy Johnson on the Hurricanes' sideline calling for a blocked punt in the fourth quarter.
The seventh-ranked Hurricanes won some games early this season they probably should have lost, started believing they were good and now they actually are that good. Funny how teams evolve.
Baker Mayfield passed for 333 yards against one of the best defenses in the country in TCU and now has four weeks to work on that Heisman Trophy acceptance speech and avoid throwing away an award that's pretty much his to lose.
Can we take Auburn coach Gus Malzahn off the hot seat now or nah?
The question was: Can Georgia win if a defense forces freshman Jake Fromm and the passing game to do the heavy lifting? Auburn was the first team to force the Bulldogs into that position and the answer was: Absolutely not.
So forget about all that two SEC teams in the playoff stuff, right? Not so fast. Georgia is locked into the conference championship game. If the Bulldogs were to beat an unbeaten Alabama in Atlanta, leaving both 12-1, that whole two-SEC-teams thing is still on the table. But Auburn didn't help.
The top-ranked Crimson Tide will take over that spot when the new playoff selection committee rankings come out Tuesday after escaping Mississippi State in Starkville to set up a winner-takes-the-SEC-West Iron Bowl in two weeks.
The next three? Miami, Clemson and Oklahoma in some order. Auburn, with two losses, is in the on deck circle with Wisconsin.