The Big Ten is in trouble, College Football Playoff trouble. Boiled down, it looks like this: The conference may be one Ohio State loss away from being knocked out of the playoff altogether.Thanks to Purdue’s upset of previously No. 3 Michigan State, everyone in the Big Ten has at least one loss. That’s not a good place for a conference to be in entering the second week of November. The Buckeyes will likely be the unanimously highest-ranked Big Ten team this week; they are in the new College Football Power Rankings. For now, that makes Ohio State the Big Ten’s best chance to advance to the playoff.Michigan State took a tumble at Purdue that may have knocked it out of the playoff chase. The Boilermakers are getting good at that, beating their second top-five opponent this season (Iowa being the other) and 17th all-time as an unranked team, most in FBS history. Michigan might be in the best position despite its relatively low ranking. It absorbed that Michigan State loss and once again finds itself tied with the Spartans, a game behind the Buckeyes in the Big Ten East. Beat Penn State, and yes, Ohio State down the stretch, and the Wolverines could vault into a playoff spot themselves. This is a big deal with expansion a complete jump ball and the Big Ten having missed two of the last four playoffs.Elsewhere in the Power Rankings, Oklahoma jumped Cincinnati despite it being an off week for the Sooners due to the Bearcats’ recent level of play. It’s one thing to want to be a playoff team, but as CBS Sports bowls expert Jerry Palm wrote Sunday, a team like Cincinnati needs to play like one, too.Here’s how the Power Rankings look with four weeks left in the regular season.Out: Auburn, Fresno State, Kentucky, SMU
