College Football Playoff Projection field thins at season midpoint

When it comes to the four-team College Football Playoff, the toughest position to be in is fifth. But this week it's tougher being one of the 123 FBS teams that didn't receive a vote in the Football Four Playoff Projection.

Our 13-person panel awarded votes to a season-low five teams this week, with Alabama capturing the projected top seed with a season-high 51 voting points. The Tide received 12 of 13 first-place votes and project to face Clemson in one semifinal, a matchup that would pit coach Nick Saban against Dabo Swinney, the person many envision as his eventual successor in Tuscaloosa.

The other projected semifinal would pit No. 2 seed Ohio State against No. 3 Michigan in a rematch of their regular season-ending matchup.

"We might be having a discussion about whether such a one-loss runner up — say the Ohio State-Michigan loser or an 11-1 Louisville — is more deserving than a 12-1 or 11-1 champion of another major conference," said panelist Eddie Timanus. "Such a argument might come into play if, say, Colorado wins the Pac-12 or Oklahoma goes on to sweep the Large Dozen-minus-two."

Washington, idle last Saturday, slid out of the top four to fifth this week while appearing on two fewer ballots (.015% of the available voting points) than Clemson. Clemson was the projected No. 3 seed the past two weeks.

This week's full results:

The Playoff Projection panel is based on the College Football Playoff selection committee's model and includes Timanus, former FBS coaches Frank Beamer, Tommy Bowden and Rich Brooks, former FBS athletic directors Mike Alden, Bill Byrne and Jim Livengood, WWE Hall of Fame announcer Jim Ross, and USA TODAY Sports college sports staff members Nicole Auerbach, Paul Myerberg, George Schroeder, Daniel Uthman and Dan Wolken.

The Playoff Projection is in its fourth year. Each panelist enters a four-team ballot, with four points awarded for a No. 1 vote, three for a No. 2, two for a No. 3 and one for a No. 4. The projection is purely a mock selection with no bearing on the Playoff selection committee's decisions.