Alright, Iowa, you are starting to flirt with some serious College Football Playoff contention. Sitting at 7-2, the Iowa Hawkeyes are three wins away from getting to 10-2, which sets up quite the scenario for the committee.

Does a 10-2 Iowa get in? I'm not saying it's a lock, but it's pretty hard to envision a world where the Hawkeyes are left out. That journey begins this week when the newest College Football Playoff rankings come out. Iowa will climb after beating Northwestern, but how high?

Iowa Football Rankings

The Hawkeyes are trending up in pretty much any ranking or metric you look at. After some early-season hate from ESPN FPI, the Hawkeyes climbed to No. 18 in those metrics, which is closely in line with the AP Top 25 and the Coaches Poll.

AP Top 25

The AP Top 25 poll is coming around on the Iowa Hawkeyes. After a slow climb, Iowa took a sizable jump in this week's poll. Iowa jumped five spots from No. 21 to No. 16. The only question here is why Iowa is behind USC. Iowa beat Northwestern on the road. USC was on a bye. Hmmm.

Coaches Poll

Like the AP Top 25 poll, this week's Coaches Poll was friendly to the Iowa Hawkeyes and has them inside the top 15 of the rankings. The Hawkeyes find themselves at No. 15 in the Coaches Poll heading into a matchup against Purdue.

Where will Iowa fall in the CFP rankings?

Before this past weekend, which saw plenty of shakeups across the board, the Hawkeyes were sitting at No. 19 in the College Football Playoff rankings. That is bound to improve solely based on a road win over a 6-2 Northwestern team. That's the first piece of this puzzle.

The next piece is seeing who Iowa should be ahead of. Ahead of Iowa is a group of teams that the Hawkeyes belong ahead of. Ole Miss, Ohio State, LSU, and Missouri all lost this weekend. Ole Miss, Ohio State, LSU, and Missouri all have three losses at this point.

BYU has two losses, but one is to undefeated Utah, so my gut tells me the Cougars remain ahead of Iowa, which I don't take too much issue with. The others listed above, though, have no business being ahead of Iowa. Does that mean the committee will use common sense?

This week's rankings will be telling. Does the committee value winning games? Or do they want to play the game on spreadsheets and with metrics? My gut tells me Iowa isn't rewarded as much as it deserves. I predict Iowa will be at No. 16 in this week's rankings.