Another weekend, another crazy day of college football.
Michigan State had a clutch kick to beat Ohio State, LSU’s plummet continued with its third-straight loss, Gary Patterson made a head-scratching decision to go for two in the third quarter at OU, and The Citadel shocked South Carolina.
And every game impacts the College Football Playoff. The latest top-four in the official CFP rankings that will come out this Tuesday are rather easy to project, honestly. Clemson, Alabama, Iowa and Notre Dame will be the four teams announced.
Will it look like this in a couple of weeks? Nope. Take that to the bank. How am I so sure?
Two games: Notre Dame at Stanford and Iowa vs. Michigan State in the Big Ten Championship game. Rather, I should say, two losses. Because the Irish and Hawkeyes are going down.
Clemson and Alabama will not lose again between now and December 6, leaving them as the top-two seeds. What will remain is a mess in sorting out the next two teams, picking among several one and two-loss teams, all of which have an argument.
Once Notre Dame and Iowa lose, they will be thrown into a gaggle of teams that include Baylor, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Stanford, Michigan State and Ohio State. Eight teams considered for two spots.
Let’s project, starting with deductive reasoning. First, the easy ones to eliminate — Iowa, Ohio State and Notre Dame, you lost very late in the season. Thanks for coming. Stanford – you lost early, then decided to add another loss to your resume after gaining momentum. Two losses and you’re out.
Adding one of the remaining teams is simple – Big Ten champ Michigan State will get in with one loss. The good news for the Big 12 – one of you is getting that fourth spot.
But who?
Bedlam will decide this one. If Oklahoma wins over Oklahoma State, the Sooners will get the nod. And don’t give me this argument that their loss came to weak opponent. The bottom line – it came in a rivalry game and that does hold water when it comes to a more even playing field for one game. And it happened in October.
The wild card here is if Oklahoma State wins Bedlam and Baylor beats TCU. Who gets the spot? Does it automatically go to the team that wins the tiebreaker (Baylor) and is official conference champion? I have a feeling the Bears would get the nod, basically because neither team played anyone with a pulse in the non-conference schedule (so that’s a wash) and the committee really likes conference champions.
This combination will most-likely give us a tremendous playoff. Baylor or OU playing Clemson and Michigan State playing Alabama is as delicious as it gets.
Who am I kidding? Anyone who thinks they have it figured out doesn’t know college football very well. The one thing you can expect is to expect the unexpected. The Iron Bowl is this weekend, along with so many other great games. I’m going to stick with my predictions but won’t be surprised if they are completely wrong.
