When the College Football Playoff committee unveiled its initial rankings Tuesday night, there wasn’t as much of a question about UCLA’s No. 12 ranking as there was about where the Bruins were placed compared to their crosstown rival.
USC was slotted three spots higher, directly behind Pac-12 Conference leader No. 8 Oregon, and the league had five representatives total along with No. 14 Utah and No. 23 Oregon State. Much of the reaction stemmed around UCLA’s wire-to-wire, 42-32 home win over then-No. 11 Utah compared to USC’s 43-42 road loss in Salt Lake City the following week.
In the Associated Press Top 25 poll, USC and UCLA are ranked Nos. 9 and 10, respectively.
When asked about UCLA and USC in a media teleconference, CFP committee chair Boo Corrigan said the 7-1 teams were viewed differently in terms of the manner of those defeats. UCLA was unable to push Oregon in its 45-30 loss in Eugene, while USC was upended by Utah inside the game’s final minute.
“As we're looking at everything that we do, wins obviously trump what we're doing, but as we look at a loss, we're going to look at everything about it,” Corrigan said when asked about teams with close road losses.
