Where is Utah State in the rankings?

The release of this season’s first College Football Playoff Rankings is coming up soon. On October 30th, a whole slew of teams will have a much clearer picture as to how the rest of the season will go. The Playoff Committee will release only six polls, starting next week, and making the first poll is vital, especially for Group of 5 teams. Of the previous four G5 representatives in a New Year’s Six bowl, three appeared in the first week of the Playoff Rankings.

There’s also reasons to care about the Playoff Rankings beyond being selected for a NY6 bowl. The rankings are involved in the tiebreakers which determine the host of the Mountain West title game, plus a number of smaller bowls refer to the rankings in selecting their own bowl teams. Hypothetically, if Utah State and Fresno State were both to run the table to finish the season, the rankings would be the ultimate tiebreaker with no head-to-head matchup. USU’s fate for the title game and subsequent bowl would be heavily impacted by the Playoff Rankings.

That being said, there’s more to the Playoff Rankings than the Playoff Committee. A whole slew of different polls and computer rankings are used to help the Committee determine which team should be slotted where. To make it easier for you to see where Utah State may end up, here’s a collection of several reputable rankings, ratings, and polls which the Committee may refer to in their selection of rankings.

AP Poll: 27th

USA Today Coaches Poll: 27th

Jeff Sagarin Ratings: 44th

Massey Ratings: 34th

S&P+: 30th

ESPN FPI: 41st

CBS 129: 34th