The Cougars plunged eight spots, to No. 14, following their first defeat of the season, a four-point loss to unranked Kansas. Notably, one-loss BYU is now a spot behind one-loss SMU even though the Cougars won the head-to-head meeting in Dallas early in the season.
If their relative position holds through the conference championships, the Broncos would finish ahead of the Big 12's four ranked teams: No. 14 BYU, No. 16 Colorado, No. 21 Arizona State and No. 22 Iowa State. That would force the Big 12 winner to play a road game in the opening round.
The situation is highly fluid with two weeks of regular season games remaining, plus championship weekend. But the issue to monitor from now through the CFP's grand reveal on Dec. 8 is whether any of the Big 12 teams ranked below Boise State will overtake the Broncos.
Meanwhile, Boise State is tracking to face unranked Colorado State in the Mountain West title game. A victory in that matchup might not enhance the Broncos' resume, leaving them vulnerable to a weaker position in the CFP rankings.
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