ASU Football: Sun Devils debut at No. 14 in CFB Playoff rankings

(Photo: Scotty Bara/WCSN)

Arizona State has some climbing to do if the team hopes to qualify for the first-ever College Football Playoff, as the team came in at No. 14 in the first rankings released by the CFB Playoff selection committee. The Sun Devils will have to climb to the top four of the rankings by the end of the season for consideration in the playoff that will begin with a pair of semifinals games on New Year’s Day.

That’s not too tall of a task at all for ASU, as the team still has five regular season games remaining and a potential trip to the Pac-12 Championship, which the Sun Devils will go to if the team wins its remaining scheduled games.

Still on the schedule are home games against No. 17 Utah and No. 10 Notre Dame, as well as a road trip to face No. 12 Arizona in a regular season finale.

The rankings, determined by the CFB Playoff selection committee, were released in an ESPN special on Tuesday night and will be updated weekly through the remainder of the regular season.

The final rankings will be released on the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7 and the semifinalists in the CFB Playoff will also be announced. The 2014 Pac-12 Championship Game is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 5 and will be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.

In effect, the addition of the CFB Playoff selection committee rankings makes the Associated Press Poll and the Amway Coaches Poll essentially meaningless, as neither contribute to the rankings or bowl selections any more.

Among the notables on the 13-person CFB Playoff selection committee are former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, retired college coach Tyrone Willingham and USC athletic director Pat Haden. Retired NFL quarterback — and father of two Superbowl winners — Archie Manning is on the committee as well, but has taken a leave of absence in this first year to undergo and recover from a planned surgical procedure.

While it may appear like a tall task for ASU to climb 10 spots into the top four of the CFB Playoff rankings, the team’s road is actually relatively simple to figure out. Win its last five regular season games and then begin December with a victory in the Pac-12 Championship.

That’s easier said than done, as Utah and Arizona will each have a chance at knocking ASU from its path to the Pac-12 South crown, and a matchup against either No. 5 Oregon or Stanford in a Pac-12 Championship away from home makes for a far-from-easy road for the Sun Devils.

If there’s a game on the schedule that the Sun Devils can afford to lose, its a matchup against No. 10 Notre Dame on Nov. 8. A narrow loss to the highly-ranked Fighting Irish likely wouldn’t drop ASU much in the rankings and wouldn’t affect the team in its race for the Pac-12 title.

Still, a second loss would be hard to overlook on ASU’s playoff résumé and a victory for Notre Dame could essentially cement the team’s place in the top four, taking one more spot away for the Sun Devils to potentially snag.

ASU head coach Todd Graham summed it up even more succinctly on Monday:

“We have a great schedule with these last few games and all you have to do is win them,” Graham said. “We win the next four conference games, we will be in San Francisco. We win the next five conference games, we will be in Pasadena.”

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