College Football Playoff picture gets nuts on dizzying Saturday

In the afterglow of a 38-31 win at Rutgers that lifted Illinois to 8-3 — and was so exciting in the late stages that it stole some thunder from higher-profile college football matchups of the day — Illini coach Bret Bielema was feeling the import of the moment.

And then some.

“We got ranked [25th] in the CFP last week,” he said. “I expect us to climb. Crazy things can happen.”

Sorry, not as crazy as the notion of these Illini sneaking into the 12-team College Football Playoff. With all due respect to Bielema and his better-than-expected team, that’s about as likely to happen as Central Illinois hosting a Summer Olympics.

But there will be a lot of movement reflected in the next CFP rankings, and it was a dizzying Saturday on that front.

Ohio State put Indiana in its place in a top-five game won by the Buckeyes 38-15. But what is that place, exactly? When the Hoosiers gifted OSU a second touchdown via a special-teams disaster in the first half, it felt a lot like they were seeing themselves out the playoff door. But that was before No. 7 Alabama was upset at Oklahoma, before No. 9 Ole Miss went down at Florida, before No. 14 BYU was dumped at Kansas — and those were just a few of the teams behind the Hoosiers that had miserable days. Turns out it’s far too soon to discount the very real possibility four Big Ten teams will be in the playoff field.

Speaking of the Big Ten, how very close Penn State came to losing, too. The No. 4 Nittany Lions squeaked out a 26-25 win at Minnesota despite trailing for much of the game. Would a two-loss PSU have gotten in? We’ll never know unless the unthinkable happens next week against Maryland.

What will the rankings look like on Tuesday? Oregon, Ohio State, Texas and Penn State will remain the top four. Notre Dame, which blew out unbeaten Army 49-14 at Yankee Stadium, should slide up to No. 5, followed by Miami, Georgia and Tennessee. Indiana should remain in the top 10. Remember, though: The highest-ranked foursome of conference champions will claim the top four spots in the bracket, which will push some playoff teams down a couple of notches — and leave one of two unhappy contenders on the outside looking in.

THREE-DOT DASH

• ENDINGS DON’T GET CRAZIER than Illinois’ last-ditch drive at Rutgers. Trailing 31-30 with 14 seconds left, the Illini missed a 58-yard field-goal try by the width of a large barn but got a reprieve because Scarlet Knights coach Greg Schiano had called timeout. The Illini went for it on fourth-and-13 instead and Luke Altmyer found Pat Bryant for a catch-and-run that went the distance.

“We never flinched for a second,” Altmyer said.

But they did flinch. Bryant himself had a false start on fourth-and-8, setting up the fourth-and-13. The Illini flinched, held, roughed — you name it — on a terrible day in the penalty department. They played awful run defense. They missed a PAT that could have been the difference in the game. They didn’t play well at all — yet they won. That’s progress, isn’t it? . . .

• OHIO STATE ALSO LOCKED UP college football’s troll of the year award for a postgame scoreboard display poking fun at Indiana coach Curt Cignetti. Earlier this season, the ultra-confident Cignetti boasted about his career, “I win. Google me.” After he lost, an Ohio Stadium videoboard flashed a newspaper-style display with the all-caps headline, “BUCKEYES WIN??? GOOGLE IT!” . . .

• MINNESOTA’S P.J. FLECK committed coaching malpractice with 5:51 to go against Penn State. With his team four points behind and facing a fourth-and-8 in the red zone, Fleck ordered up a field goal that made it 26-25. The Nittany Lions got the ball back and proceeded to run out the clock. This isn’t the NFL, dude. . . .

• NORTHWESTERN’S BOWL HOPES died with a non-competitive 50-6 loss at Michigan. Wasn’t the Wildcats’ David Braun Big Ten coach of the year last season? If he got an A-plus for his work then, he gets at best a C for being 4-7 in a weird season without a true home field. Back to reality for the Cats. . . .

• NOTRE DAME’S MITCH JETER wasn’t perfect against Army, but we’re giving him game MVP for the Irish. Sure, he’s just a kicker who missed multiple field-goal tries, but there are rules about Jeters, MVPs and games at Yankee Stadium. . . .

• MY HEISMAN TOP FIVE entering Week 14 are (1) Colorado WR/CB Travis Hunter, (2) Miami QB Cam Ward, (3) Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty, (4) Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel and (5) Indiana QB Kurtis Rourke.