Washington State moves up six spots to No. 19 in latest College Football Playoff rankings

PULLMAN – Two days after jumping six spots in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, the Cougars did the same thing in the weekly College Football Playoff rankings.

Washington State came in at No. 19 when the CFP rankings were released at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon. There’s no discrepancy between the CFP rankings and the AP poll, which also has the Cougars ranked 19th at the moment.

The same can’t be said about all of the WSU’s counterparts in the Pac-12 Conference. USC, for example, is ranked No. 15 in the AP Top 25 poll, but checked in four spots higher, at No. 11, when the CFP rankings were released.

WSU (8-2, 5-2) and USC (8-2, 6-1) are theoretically out of the College Football Playoff picture, but most think the Washington Huskies still have an outside shot of making the four-team playoff for the second year in a row. UW (8-1, 5-1) is ranked No. 9 in both the AP poll and the CFP rankings, though the Huskies still have at least two tough tests in front of them, playing Stanford on the road this weekend and WSU two weeks from now in the Apple Cup.

The Cardinal were ranked No. 21 in last week’s edition of the CFP rankings, but fell out with a 24-21 loss to the Cougars in Pullman. Arizona, previously ranked No. 22, also fell out due to a 59-37 loss to USC in Los Angeles.

The top-five of the CFP rankings didn’t change this week, with Georgia claiming the No. 1 spot, followed by Alabama, Notre Dame, Clemson and Oklahoma. Ohio State and Penn State both fell seven places with losses over the weekend, meaning TCU, Miami, Wisconsin, UW and Auburn would round out the top-10.