The College Football Playoff selection committee has plenty of shuffling to do.
Four undefeated teams lost on Saturday, making for what should be a significant shakeup in the CFP rankings that will be released Tuesday night. LSU, TCU, Michigan State and Memphis were all taken down, three of them by at least two touchdowns. That means Notre Dame, a 42-30 winner over Pittsburgh, could take LSU's spot in the rankings' top four. Oklahoma State figures to make a significant jump after a 49-29 win over TCU, while Michigan State is braced for a tumble after losing to a Nebraska team that entered Saturday at just 3-6 on the year.
A loss for a Michigan State team that has looked beatable for much of the season was inevitable, but this one was a tough swallow, as MSU couldn't generate any magic after a controversial Nebraska touchdown pass with 17 seconds left. Spartans coach Mark Dantonio had little to say about that play after the game.
The only certainty is this: Clemson isn't budging from the No. 1 spot. Not after giving Florida State its CFP pink skip, 23-13.
Here are eight other things we learned from Week 10 in college football:
2. Gators nearing ceiling. In his first year as Florida's coach, Jim McElwain has maximized the talent at his disposal better than anyone could have hoped. There is no other way to assess the Gators' 8-1 record, and the SEC East title it clinched Saturday with a harrowing 9-7 win over visiting Vanderbilt, after a dismal 7-5 mark a year ago. Yet the very win that put UF in the SEC title game exposed, to a large extent, that this Florida team has a ceiling that hangs somewhere below a College Football Playoff berth. An inconsistent offensive line that has been just barely good enough for most of the season was manhandled Saturday. A stout UF defense carried the day, but it will take more than Florida's offense has to give to win an SEC title, much less a national championship. The Gators will hang around the playoff conversation for as long as they have a "one" in the loss column, and given the turnaround McElwain has engineered, they deserve the positive exposure that goes along with that.
But the UF talk won't get past the water cooler.
3. Jim Harbaugh is in his own world. Actually, we learned that long ago, but the Michigan coach is always finding mystifying ways to prove it. Case in point: Saturday, with a 25-point lead over Rutgers, he went for a two-point conversion (and got it) in the second half. Why? Harbaugh's explanation defies all. "That's what the chart says to do, so we went with that. Playing the percentages," Harbaugh said, according to NJ Advance Media.
4. Clemson is for real.It will be another month before any team is in the College Football Playoff officially, but you can stamp Clemson's place in the top four with much assurance after Saturday's 23-13 win over FSU. Why? Here's all that stands between the Tigers and a 12-0 regular season: 3-6 Syracuse, 3-6 Wake Forest, and 3-6 South Carolina. And if they get that far, they won't let the ACC title game get away from them.*
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5. Tar Heel turnaround. As impressive as Florida's turnaround has been, North Carolina's has been just as surprising, if not more. The Tar Heels are 8-1 after a 66-31 win over Duke on Saturday, a year after one of the worst defenses in college football dragged UNC to a 6-7 season.
6. Alabama's run defense is freakishly good. OK, it's always good, but this group put itself on another level Saturday in allowing Leonard Fournette just 1.6 yards per carry. Nobody has run the ball on Alabama all season, and if LSU can't, nobody else will, either. After Saturday, UA is allowing just 75.8 yards rushing per game.
7. Irish in? Notre Dame's 42-30 win over a bowl-bound Pittsburgh team should be enough for the Fighting Irish to crack the top four of next week's CFP rankings.
8. Hackenberg hype. Nothing's changing at this point when it comes to Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg's season. He posted more of the same pedestrian numbers in a 23-21 loss to Northwestern on Saturday (21 of 40 for 205 yards, no TDs, one INT). If you're a Hackenberg believer and blame his offensive line, you have an argument. If you think he's just an absurdly overrated passer, you've also got an argument. He was sacked twice and hurried twice on Saturday, which a good day relative to PSU's typical pass protection.
9. Stanford's McCaffrey riding hot streak. Make it seven consecutive 100-yard games for Stanford RB Christian McCaffrey, whose team is closing in on a possible Pac-12 title. McCaffrey gashed Colorado for 147 yards Saturday, and threw a touchdown pass just for show. Oregon and Cal figure to be likely 100-yard victims the next two weeks, after which Notre Dame could stand in the way of 10 straight for the sophomore.
*Follow Chase Goodbread on Twitter **@ChaseGoodbread*.
