Editor’s note: The Athletic 134 is a weekly ranking of all FBS college football teams.

The first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff was an absolute success.

Regardless of how the bracket plays out, it has already accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do. More regular-season games had more stakes. New faces made the field. The first-round games on campus will be electric. And the field appears wide open. It’s everything we wanted. Good job, everyone.

As for the bracket makeup itself, I don’t necessarily agree with every seed, but the committee got the right group. SMU was the correct decision over Alabama, at least in the current system where conference championships remain very important. Alabama’s wins were better, but its losses were worse. In the end, pulling a championship game loser out in favor of a three-loss team with bad losses would have upended the point of conference races. It was a close call. It was the right call.

Coming off conference championship weekend and ahead of the postseason, there was a shakeup at the top of this week’s penultimate edition of the Athletic 134.

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My philosophy is to reward conference championship game winners and not ding the losers too much, except when they play each other. As a result, I have the same top seven as the committee. I said a week ago that a strong performance against Oregon would move Penn State above Notre Dame, and that’s what the Nittany Lions delivered in a 45-37 loss. Georgia’s second win against Texas jumped the Bulldogs up to No. 2, but I can’t drop the Longhorns much for an overtime loss.

The bottom end of the top 10 is different from the committee’s choices. Boise State and Arizona State move up to No. 8 and No. 9 with dominant championship wins against top-25 teams. SMU fell to No. 10 as a result of its loss to Clemson, but only because it was jumped by two other teams that played. While Arizona State has a blowout win against a Wyoming team that gave Boise State problems, the Sun Devils’ two regular season losses, compared to Boise State’s one last-second loss at No. 1 Oregon, keeps the Broncos ahead.

GO DEEPER

In defense of the College Football Playoff’s funky seeding format

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Like SMU, Indiana fell back two places because it was jumped by two teams that had lopsided wins against top-25 opponents. Indiana has no such wins. The Hoosiers are still in my field, but their lack of quality wins left them open to getting jumped. Alabama remains the last team out of my 12-team CFP field.

Clemson moves up to No. 16 with its last-second win against SMU, but the Tigers stay behind South Carolina because of their loss to the Gamecocks a week ago. Army jumps up to No. 22 with a 35-14 win against Tulane, and UNLV falls to No. 24, jumped by Clemson and Army.

GO DEEPER

Alabama snubbed? The Crimson Tide’s case for Playoff inclusion

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Tulane remains at No. 30 after the AAC title game loss to Army. Sun Belt champion Marshall jumps up to No. 40 after a 31-3 win against Louisiana.

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Jacksonville State climbs to No. 60 with a 52-12 win against Western Kentucky in the CUSA title game, and Ohio moves up to No. 73 after beating Miami (Ohio) to win the MAC. The Bobcats stay behind Kentucky because of their 41-6 loss to the Wildcats in Week 4.

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The Athletic 134 series is part of a partnership with Allstate. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.

(Photo: Loren Orr / Getty Images)

The Cincinnati Bengals have had some crushing defeats this season, but something finally went their way to cash a 23-20 win over the Dallas Cowboys on “Monday Night Football.”

The Bengals snapped a three-game losing streak, moving to 5-8 on the season. Meanwhile, the Cowboys’ win streak of two games comes to a halt and they are also 5-8 on the year. 

At the two-minute warning, the Bengals were in their own zone after a potential game-winning drive went awry. Facing fourth-and-27, they had no choice but to punt, and things got much worse when Cal Adomitis blocked the punt which should’ve given the Cowboys perfect field position to take the lead late in the game. 

Then, that big Bengals break came for Zac Taylor’s squad. 

Amani Oruwariye thought it was smart to try and recover the bouncing ball as it was making its way downfield, but he was unable to field it cleanly. 

Since it touched Oruwariye, the Bengals could recover and regain possession, and that’s exactly what happened as Maema Njongmeta fell on the ball at the Cincinnati 43-yard line to give Joe Burrow and his crew another shot at taking the lead. 

JOE BURROW PLAYS COY WHEN ASKED ABOUT $3 MILLION BATMOBILE PURCHASE: ‘DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT’

Just three plays later, Burrow found ol’ reliable, Ja’Marr Chase, on a short pass where he made a Cowboys’ cornerback miss, and he was off to the races for a 40-yard touchdown to make it 27-20 after the extra point. 

That capped another “Monday Night Football” highlight reel for Chase, who finished the game with 177 yards on 14 catches with two touchdowns, which also included the first for the Bengals on the night. 

Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb (88) makes a touchdown over the Cincinnati Bengals in the first quarter during Monday Night Football at AT&T Stadium in Arlington,Texas on Monday, December 9, 2024. (IMAGN)

Cooper Rush and the Cowboys did have enough time to move downfield for a potential game-tying drive. But on fourth-and-7 near midfield, Rush overshot Jake Ferguson and the ball hit the turf, sealing Dallas’ fate as a loss. 

CeeDee Lamb, who scored the game’s first touchdown and had 93 yards on six catches, was jumping up and down because he was wide open in the middle of the field. Rush didn’t see him, and thus the result. 

Burrow’s night was another spectacular one, as he went 33-for-44 for 369 yards with three touchdowns – the other a catch-and-run by running back Chase Brown in the first half – as well as an interception.

For the Cowboys, a positive trend continued for Rico Dowdle despite the loss, as the young running back rushed for a game-high 131 yards on just 18 carries. Since taking over the lead role in the backfield, Dowdle has really turned it on late in the season. 

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase (1) and wide receiver Tee Higgins (5) celebrate Chase’s touchdown in the first quarter of Dallas Cowboys during Monday Night Football at AT&T Stadium in Arlington,Texas on Monday, December 9, 2024. (IMAGN)

Both of these teams might not be in playoff position with four games remaining, but a primetime thriller was seen at AT&T Stadium where the Bengals finally tasted victory again. 

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Stephen Barbee has resigned after seven seasons as football coach at Long Beach Poly.

That opens up a job at a school that has won 20 Southern Section championships.

It is a tougher job than in a previous era, because private schools have been taking away players and attendance boundaries play a major role.

But Poly is Poly, with lots of talent around campus.