If Friday night lights in Tempe with rivalry bragging rights on the line were not exciting enough, the latest College Football Playoff rankings found a way to raise the stakes.
For the first time since 2014, both Arizona State (8-3, 6-2 Big 12) and Arizona (8-3, 5-3) enter the Territorial Cup ranked in the Top 25. The Sun Devils, following a 42-17 victory at Colorado, jumped from No. 25 to No. 20 in the latest batch of rankings released Tuesday.
The Wildcats finally broke into the rankings with a resounding victory of their own, toppling Baylor 41-17 and sneaking in at No. 25.
This is the first time Arizona has appeared on the College Football Playoff rankings since the end of the 2023 season, when the Wildcats finished 10-3 with a win over Oklahoma in the Valero Alamo Bowl. In that season’s Territorial Cup, the Wildcats smoked the Sun Devils in Tempe, 59-13, as quarterback Noah Fifita threw for a career-high 527 yards and five touchdowns.
Then, former Wildcats coach Jedd Fisch left Tucson to take over the helm at Washington, making Arizona unexpectedly the next domino to fall in the wake of former Alabama coach Nick Saban’s retirement.
Arizona couldn’t avoid the tailspin in year one under coach Brent Brennan, finishing just 4-8. The Wildcats revamped their roster and coaching staff during the offseason, including bringing in former Arizona State defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales for the same role, and suddenly, the Wildcats are red-hot.
On the heels of a four-game winning streak, the Wildcats are nationally relevant once again, and taking down the Sun Devils in Tempe on Friday night would send a message to the rest of the Big 12 heading into bowl season.
“They’re playing as good of football in our league as anybody right now,” ASU coach Kenny Dillingham said of the Wildcats. “They won 10 games two years ago. Their quarterback is the same quarterback. Their free safety (senior Dalton Johnson), who is the most valuable player on their defense, is the same kid. They have another defensive back who’s been there forever.
“The core of that team is still there. It’s not a shock they’re having this amount of success.”
Speaking of the Big 12, ASU and Arizona are the fourth and fifth-ranked teams within the conference, respectively. Texas Tech stood pat at No. 5, as did BYU at No. 11. Utah survived a 51-47 slugfest at home against Kansas State, thanks to the heroics and wheels from quarterback Devon Dampier, a Phoenix native.
The selection committee doesn’t seem to have much respect for Kansas State, despite the effort, dropping the Utes to No. 13 and boosting Miami to No. 12, reigniting the weekly debate with the Hurricanes and No. 9 Notre Dame. Thus far, the committee has ignored the head-to-head bout between the teams in Week 1, which Miami claimed 27-24.
The Big 12’s best chance to secure a top-four placement and a first-round bye lies with the Red Raiders, trailing only Georgia, Texas A&M, Indiana and Ohio State. Should the Red Raiders win the Big 12 championship, a shift within the top four that would result in Texas Tech moving up is likely. Indiana and Ohio State could be on a collision course for the Big Ten title game, where the loser could drop from the top four. Texas A&M could lose in the SEC title game, and Georgia, as of now, isn’t slated to even make it to Atlanta for conference championship weekend.
Still, Texas Tech hasn’t been able to crack the top four yet this season. The selection committee has plenty of respect for the Red Raiders, given their high ranking, and the movement of Arizona State, Texas Tech’s only loss, but how close are the Red Raiders to moving up one more spot?
“I’d say at No. 5, they are very close to No. 4 and very close to No. 6,” College Football Playoff chair Hunter Yurachek said in a media teleconference call. “That’s not to be funny. Texas Tech is a really good team. Their margin of victory leads the country at 33.8. They have 10 wins (by) 20-plus points. They are in the top five in relative scoring offense and relative scoring defense. They are a really strong team, as are Georgia and Ole Miss and Oregon, the one-loss teams right there.”
The Big 12 is a bit of a wild mess, but Texas Tech has been at the top of the standings since throttling Brigham Young. BYU, with a victory over UCF on Saturday, would schedule the rematch in Arlington, Texas. The Cougars lost in blowout fashion to the Red Raiders during the regular season, 29-7, and that has seemingly kept the Cougars just on the outside of the playoff picture.
“There’s a difference when a team gets beat 70-7 versus a team that gets beat by a walk-off field goal,” College Football Playoff executive director Rich Clark said. “When the committee is watching that game, there’s always an assessment of how well they played in the game, and if they do lose, how badly did they lose? Were they competitive in the game or were they not? I would say that it’s a factor.”
Sun Devils fans will be closely watching BYU’s Saturday matchup with UCF, assuming ASU takes care of business against its bitter rival, Arizona. Arizona State is still alive in the Big 12 hunt, but its odds did take a hit after Houston unexpectedly fell to TCU last weekend. Houston’s loss meant a four-way tie, in which ASU would hold the tiebreaker, was no longer possible. A three-way tiebreaker with BYU and Utah is less favorable.
Two scenarios exist where the Sun Devils, with a win of their own, can back into another Big 12 championship appearance in the heart of Texas.
Scenario 1:
- BYU loses at home to UCF
Scenario 2:
- Texas Tech loses on the road to West Virginia
- Utah loses on the road to Kansas
Seems simple, but it’s not. The Sun Devils don’t control their own fate, and the likelihood of either scenario coming to fruition is slim.
Dillingham, surrounded by endless discourse of “will he, won’t he” leave the Sun Devils for another coaching job and the latest buzz around the potential transfer of star quarterback Sam Leavitt, has one goal in mind: winning the 99th Territorial Cup.
“This is a one-game season,” Dillingham said he told the team. “We finish the regular season (9-3), we get a bonus game right here, and then whatever’s after that. That’s how I view it.”
Zooming out from the duel in the desert, the CFP selection committee will have some interesting questions to answer next week, after the regular season concludes. No puzzle is more interesting than the situation surrounding Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin.
Kiffin, the 50-year-old coach in his sixth season with the Rebels, is the belle of the ball in this season’s coaching search, which includes openings at powerhouse programs such as Florida, LSU, Penn State and Auburn.
While his Rebels sit at No. 7 in the rankings, rumors have swirled that Kiffin’s family has taken visits to Gainesville, Florida, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to scout the area and test the waters, signaling some interest in a potential move.
While live on ESPN on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Kiffin denied reports of an ultimatum set by the Ole Miss administration, in which athletic director Keith Carter requested a decision from Kiffin before Friday’s Egg Bowl against Mississippi State to prepare for a potential coaching change before the College Football Playoff.
Last Friday, Carter released a statement on X where he revealed that he and Kiffin had “positive conversations” about moving forward together at Ole Miss. However, his last line in the statement was rather ominous.
“An announcement on Coach Kiffin’s future is expected the Saturday following the game.”
Typically, a teased announcement about a coach’s future is not an indication that said coach is returning. If he were, there would not be any reason to wait around and let the chaos continue to unfold.
The bigger question: If Kiffin is no longer coaching at Ole Miss as the Rebels move into the College Football Playoff, should that impact their seeding?
Yurachek, caught off guard by the question, balked at the idea.
“We’ll take care of that when it happens,” Yurachek said after a lengthy pause. “I mean, we don’t look ahead. The loss of a player, loss of a key coach is in the principles of how we rank the teams. But again, we don’t have a data point for Ole Miss without their head coach.”
Following that line of thinking, in 2023, the last season of the four-team playoff, Florida State finished with a perfect 13-0 record. However, quarterback Jordan Travis went down with an injury late in the season, sidelining him for the remainder of the season. The Seminoles went on to beat Florida in the season finale and then defeated Louisville to win the ACC championship.
Yet, when Selection Sunday rolled around, the Seminoles were bumped from the playoff in favor of 12-1 Alabama because the committee felt the loss of a key player, like Travis, changed the perception of the team’s strength.
Now, the 2025 selection committee is not the same as the group that made that decision two years ago. However, Yurachek’s reasoning implies the same logic might be used if Kiffin were to walk away or be barred from coaching the Rebels in the postseason.
“It could be considered by the committee,” Yurachek said.
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