Iowa Football: Hawkeyes Hold At 17th in Latest College Football Playoff Rankings

The Hawkeyes closed out their home slate with a senior day win 19-10 over Illinois last weekend. That was expected. Unfortunately for the Hawkeyes, much of the rest of the top-25 also went as expected last week.

In total, only 3 previously ranked teams lost this week. One of those was #8 Penn State losing on the road at #2 Penn State. With no losses in front of them costly enough to drop teams below Iowa, the Hawkeyes enter the final week of the regular season with the same ranking as a week ago: #17

Despite Iowa being unchanged, there was some movement elsewhere. In fact, we have a new #1. As mentioned, #2 Ohio State notched a top-10 won over Penn State. That was enough to leapfrog LSU for the top spot. For their part, PSU fell just two spots to #10.

However, previous No. 6 Oregon also lost. Their defeat at the hands of an unranked Arizona State dropped them all the way to #14. With two top-10 teams falling, Minnesota climbed up to #8 this week. And Iowa State’s win over Kansas was enough to drop a spot to #23, just behind USC.

Here’s a look at the full rankings:

Some Observations:

• Iowa is again the second-highest rated 3-loss team behind only Auburn.
• The Hawkeyes’ 3 losses have come to the #10, #12 and #13 teams in the country.
• Iowa has wins over #8 Minnesota and a road win over #23 Iowa State.
• The Big Ten again leads all conferences with 6 teams ranked in the top-25 with the lowest being #17 Iowa.
• The Big Ten is again tied with the SEC at 3 teams in the top-10, though the SEC’s are all in the top 5. Both conferences have 5 teams in the top-15.

The Hawkeyes will look to make one final push up the rankings as they take on unranked Nebraska at 1:30pm CT on Black Friday. The game will be televised on BTN. The Hawkeyes are currently favored by 6.