WSU checks in at No. 21 in first round of College Football Playoff rankings

PULLMAN – Washington State faces an uphill climb to reach the College Football Playoff.

That’s the indication from the first round of CFP rankings, which slotted WSU at No. 21 in Tuesday’s reveal show on ESPN. The Cougars (7-1) are nine spots out of the 12-team field, which is expanding for the first time this season.

New rounds of CFP rankings will come out the next four Tuesdays until the final field is revealed on Dec. 8.

WSU, which is No. 20 in the AP poll, has four regular-season games remaining – home vs. Utah State on Saturday; at New Mexico on Nov. 16; at Oregon State on Nov. 23; and home vs. Wyoming on Nov. 30. The Cougs will almost certainly need to win all four to give themselves an outside shot at making the field, but even in that scenario, they would need help from teams above them.

It’s likely WSU needs to win those four games by convincing margins to overcome a middling strength of schedule and get some losses by teams ranked above them. The Cougars’ best win this season is a 37-16 win over Texas Tech (6-3), which is also their only win over a current bowl-eligible club.

After that, WSU’s best win might be a 24-19 Apple Cup victory over Washington – which, at 5-3, is still fighting for bowl eligibility. Beyond that, none of WSU’s wins would seem to catch the eyes of the CFP committee, even if the Cougars finish 11-1.

For WSU, it’s another unfortunate byproduct of getting left behind in the Pac-12. The Cougars can rack up wins by the bushel, but short of going 12-0, there may not be much they can do to move the needle. Their schedule includes eight games against Mountain West opponents, six courtesy of a Pac-12/MWC scheduling agreement that provided WSU and OSU with games for this season, and they dropped a game against Boise State, which is No. 12 in the first CFP rankings.

To make the 12-team field, the Cougs would benefit from losses from teams above them, including No. 15 LSU, No. 16 Ole Miss, No. 17 Iowa State, No. 18 Pitt, No. 19 Kansad State and No. 20 Colorado. The first two teams out of the initial rankings are No. 13 SMU and No. 14 Texas A&M.

If the Cougars do win out, ESPN gives them a 34% chance to make the field, a figure generated using ESPN’s Football Power Index to simulate the college football season 200,000 times.

The top 12 in the first round of CFP rankings:

1. Oregon

2. Ohio State

3. Georgia

4. Miami

5. Texas

6. Penn State

7. Tennessee

8. Indiana

9. BYU

10. Notre Dame

11. Alabama

12. Boise State