Keeping track of top-25 results, with postseason notes on each game as it goes final.

We’re now days away from the first College Football Playoff rankings of 2018, and Week 9 promised a mix of table-setters and potential upset spots, with 15 of 20 active ranked teams playing away from home. Every ranked team is either away from home, hosting a team with a winning record, or both. Yikes!

Below, we’re keeping track of each top-25 game’s impact, both before and after final scores, mostly paying attention to CFP committee business, not highlights and stuff.

Remember the things the committee has mostly demonstrated it rewards: wins over final top-25 teams, wins over bowl teams, road wins, dominant wins, weirdly excusable losses, being Alabama, and not being a mid-major. It does not care what your opponent’s AP ranking was at kickoff.

All rankings AP, for now. All times ET on Saturday, unless noted. Final scores in bold.

Probably important

Games in which the winning team will likely have a pretty high-quality Week 9 victory by season’s end. Or: really meaningful upsets.

• No. 7 Georgia (6-1) vs. No. 9 Florida (6-1) in Jacksonville, 3:30, CBS: The winner’s very likely the SEC East champ, and the loser still has a good chance at a New Year’s Six bowl. Been a while since the Cocktail Party had stakes like that!
• No. 14 Washington State (6-1) at No. 24 Stanford (5-2), 7, P12N: The winner’s your Pac-12 North favorite (and probably thus your Pac-12 favorite), but still has to get past Washington.
• No. 17 Penn State (5-2) vs. No. 18 Iowa (6-1), 3:30, ESPN: Readers of this space saw this fact coming a week ahead of time: the winner of this game has a good path to the NY6.

Maybe important

Games in which the winner will probably have beaten a decent bowl team. I’m being somewhat generous to a few of these unranked teams, as far as chances of making a bowl go.

• No. 2 Clemson (7-0) at Florida State (4-3), noon, ABC: I don’t yet have FSU finishing .500, but the Noles have improved since their disastrous start.
• No. 6 Texas (6-1) at Oklahoma State (4-3), 8, ABC: The Longhorns are quite overrated right now, and their fans would likely be furious with the committee if it’d already published rankings. But a road win over a decent team is available all the same.
• No. 12 Kentucky (6-1) at Missouri (4-3), 4, SECN: Say Florida beats Georgia and UK beats Mizzou. The Wildcats would officially lead the SEC East in late October. What a time.
• No. 13 West Virginia (6-1) 58, Baylor (4-4) 14: WVU bounces back nicely and looks like the best bet to face Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship.
• No. 15 Washington (6-2) at Cal (4-3), 4:30, FS1
• No. 16 Texas A&M (5-2) at Mississippi State (4-3), 7, ESPN: A&M vs. LSU for a New Year’s Six spot isn’t hard to envision.
• No. 19 Oregon (5-2) at Arizona (3-5), 10:30, ESPN
• No. 20 Wisconsin (5-2) at Northwestern (4-3), noon: With a win at home and help elsewhere, the Wildcats would officially lead in the Big Ten West in late October. What a time.
• No. 22 NC State (5-1) at Syracuse (5-2), 7, ESPN2

Important for the Group of 5 race

Since the committee’s essentially showed non-power teams aren’t eligible for the Playoff, let’s have a separate section for the race to be the top-ranked mid-major champ.

• No. 10 UCF: Idle
• No. 21 USF (7-0) at Houston (6-1), 3:30, ABC/ESPN2: USF’s a pretender right now, but controls its destiny regardless.
• Georgia Southern (7-1) 34, No. 25 Appalachian State (5-2) 14: The Eagles are now the Sun Belt’s last NY6 hope (theoretically, but bear with me), a year after going 2-10.
• Buffalo: Idle
• Fresno State (6-1) vs. Hawaii (6-3), 10:30, ESPN2: S&P+ LOVES Fresno heading into this game.
• San Diego State (6-1) at Nevada (4-4), 10:30, ESPNU
• UAB (6-1) at UTEP (0-7), 7:30, ESPN+
• Utah State (6-1) vs. New Mexico (3-4), 4, Stadium

Probably not important

The committee tries not to care about your wins over teams that finish with bad records, though you can get some credit for winning on the road or really laying it to folks. So for the ranked teams here: just don’t lose!

• No. 1 Alabama: Idle! Free day! The cruel reign takes an intermission!
• No. 4 LSU: Idle
• No. 3 Notre Dame (7-0) vs. Navy (2-5) in San Diego, 8, CBS: Apologies for jinxing the Irish by putting this game down here. Option teams cover huge spreads, and Navy plays Notre Dame tough.
• No. 5 Michigan: Idle
• No. 8 Oklahoma (6-1) vs. Kansas State (3-4), 2:30, Fox
• No. 11 Ohio State: Idle
• No. 23 Utah (6-2) 41, UCLA (2-6) 10