Playoffs?

Now that we’re in November, I finally feel like it’s time to start talking about the CFP – yes, the committee released its rankings last night and yes, they’re predictably valueless, name-brand garbage. Ranking teams based on what they’ve done so far is asinine: the Big 12 still hasn’t played any of its marquee games (a savvy bit of scheduling, at least in terms of valuable late-season exposure, consider Baylor’s three-game stretch of Oklahoma, @ Oklahoma State, and @ TCU in a three week span) and judging teams off an incomplete resume means nothing, especially when each individual result is so crucial.

We should be looking at things differently; the rigidity of traditional rankings doesn’t make sense – it should be a question of “which team will have deserved it?” At this point, it’s impossible to know. Consider some of the games this weekend:

• Florida State @ Clemson. Both of these teams have dominated the ACC in the recent past – this Atlantic division contest feels like the de facto ACC Championship game and undefeated Clemson’s toughest remaining test.
• TCU @ Oklahoma State. Neither team has lost, though both have looked plenty suspect on the defensive side of the ball; it’s easily the toughest opponent either team has faced thus far and should provide some clarity atop the Big 12 regardless of who wins.
• LSU @ Alabama. The most-anticipated SEC contest of the year pits LSU – still undefeated and boasting a complete-looking squad – and Alabama, who would effectively be eliminated from CFP contention with a loss.

It’s not that ranking Alabama fourth overall is nonsensical (I mean, it is nonsensical,* but it doesn’t really matter) – of course, the Tide will have made a compelling case for a bid if they eventually win the SEC. They haven’t done so yet. Necessarily, one of LSU and Alabama will be taking a big hit to its evolving body of work this weekend: if Bama holds serve at home and defeats Leonard Fournette and company (far from a given, seeing as how they’ve lost a home game to a less-than-elite Ole Miss team already), we could be looking at two one-loss SEC West teams at the end of the year; if LSU wins, they’ll be in prime position to run the table the rest of the way… unless they lose to Ole Miss, who still just has one loss in conference play and holds an invaluable tiebreaker over Alabama.

The race for the division title in the SEC West could still go in so many different directions and it’s important to consider that while projecting the playoff race. The committee’s willful choice not to look ahead makes the rankings disingenuous; I get that they’re not in the business of predicting games (and, by extension, not in the business of predicting the playoff) and any discussion of the top four right now – or, even better, “if the season ended today” – pointedly forgets that there’s still much, much more football to be played. There won’t be six undefeated teams between the Big Ten and the Big 12, like there is now. Imagining a reality in which there are is stupid.

*Alabama’s best wins are against Tennessee (4-4, #17 in F/+), Wisconsin (7-2, #23), and Texas A&M (6-2, #26). Georgia (5-3, #45) was ranked eighth in the AP poll when Alabama went into Athens and routed the Bulldogs; we now know that UGA is pretty trash… does the committee think they’re good? Do they think Tennessee’s good? Do they remember that Alabama lost to Ole Miss (7-2, #15)? I mean, a weekly rankings TV show is a shameless ratings grab but still. STILL.

[After the JUMP: actual analysis(!)]

Clemson’s actually maybe the best bet and, no, stop laughing, seriously—

The thing is, since we’re in November and have a fairly decent sample size of results to judge by, we can predict how the conference wars will play themselves out. I’m going to move forward with a couple of assumptions about what I think the committee will do at the end of the day:

• No mid-major team has a prayer of getting in unless the football gods ratchet the chaos slider up to 10. Sorry Memphis, you’re really fun but life’s not fair.
• It’s going to be really hard to get two teams from one conference in. As much as the committee (based on its demographics) has a vested interest in maintaining the current hegemony of the Power Five conferences over the Group of Five, so too does it have an obvious inclination to spread bids around between the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and ACC. The Big 12 was thrown into an existential crisis last year when its two co-champions got the short end of the stick; if a team that doesn’t win its conference gets in at the expense of the champions of two different conferences, the push for a change in the playoff structure will be extremely strong – the outcome that the committee would least like to see.
• Undefeated teams will get in. Florida State was knocked to the #3 seed last year after an underwhelming undefeated season and ACC title, but they got in and it’s really hard to envision a scenario in which an undefeated P5 team misses the playoff – seeding is inconsequential at that point.
• There’s no precedent on whether a two-loss conference champion would make it in over a different champ with one loss, so we’ll see if the committee’s arbitrary criteria would allow for that to happen. Definitely can’t rule it out at this point.

With those in mind, here’s a rundown of the playoff landscape:

SEC

Undefeated teams: LSU

One-loss teams: Florida, Alabama

Two-loss teams: Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Mississippi State

Two SEC West games are critical here: LSU @ Alabama on Saturday, and Ole Miss @ LSU two weeks after that. The possible outcomes there are: LSU winning both, which would likely give them an undefeated regular season; Alabama beating LSU and LSU beating Ole Miss, which would put a one-loss Alabama team in the SEC championship game and position LSU as the one-loss team most likely to get a bid without a conference title; Alabama beating LSU and Ole Miss beating LSU, which would put the three into a tie with no clear tiebreaker. [EDIT: as a few commenters pointed out, Ole Miss would actually win the tiebreaker in this scenario as they would have beaten Alabama and LSU and would hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over both.]

Florida would be a very serious contender if not for the suspension of starting quarterback Will Grier – as it stands right now, the Gators are in pole position to win the SEC East and finish with just one conference loss, but it’s hard to see them beating Florida State and whatever team escapes the SEC West buzzsaw in Atlanta.

Big Ten

Undefeated teams: Ohio State, Iowa, Michigan State

One-loss teams: none

Two-loss teams: Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin, Northwestern

Magic 8 ball says “ask again later,” but the big remaining games are Michigan State @ Ohio State, Ohio State @ Michigan, and Iowa vs. OSU/MSU/UM in the Big Ten title game. At the risk of being too reductive: if Iowa wins out, they’re in. The East is still too much of a mess to sort out, especially if Ohio State loses to one or both of the Michigan schools. U of M and Penn State are obviously on the outside looking in, but they each just have one conference loss and could make some noise in the event of a random upset or two – remember, OSU and MSU have looked far short of invincible against some shoddy opponents.

Big 12

Undefeated teams: Baylor, TCU, Oklahoma State

One-loss teams: Oklahoma

Two-loss teams: none

The Big 12 is anyone’s guess: all four of the above teams have yet to play each other. November’s gonna be lit.

Pac-12

Undefeated teams: none

One-loss teams: Stanford, Utah

Two-loss teams: UCLA

As a whole, the Pac-12 has underwhelmed this season: USC is the top team according to F/+ (#9), but they have three losses already and have fired their coach – the next highest-rated teams are Stanford (#12), Utah (#18), and 4-4 Washington (#19, whose computer rankings are partially inflated by a 49-3 rout of Arizona).

Still, the Pac-12 South is seemingly Utah’s to lose; they’ve already played USC (and lost), but as long as they don’t trip up against a trio of generally mediocre opponents – Washington, Arizona, and Colorado – a November 21 home game against UCLA could seal a division title and a one-loss regular season. If they lose that game, UCLA becomes the favorite, but they follow up that game with another road contest against USC.

Stanford’s path to the Pac-12 North title and an undefeated conference season is pretty clear, but their home date against Notre Dame to close the season is shaping up to be effectively an elimination game for either one-loss team and the winner would seem to be in pole position for a playoff spot if they take care of the rest of their schedule.

ACC

Undefeated teams: Clemson

One-loss teams: Notre Dame, Florida State, North Carolina

Two-loss teams: Pittsburgh, Duke

Clemson (yes, that Clemson) is currently the number one team in the CFP and F/+ rankings and may just be the most complete team in college football. What a time to be alive. If we take Dabo Swinney at his word and assume that their Clemsoning days are behind them, the only thing standing between them and an undefeated regular season is this weekend’s game against Florida State at home – and the Noles will be dealing with injuries that kept QB Everett Golson and RB Dalvin Cook out of last week’s game (though both will be back for this week). If FSU pulls the upset, the rivalry game against Florida takes on massive stakes.

The ACC Coastal seems unlikely to produce a playoff contender but hey, look, there’s North Carolina with just one loss and a schedule that’s pretty manageable from here on out. The Heels have really turned it around on defense with new coordinator Gene Chizik and could theoretically make some noise later if they win against Duke this weekend, but UNC still ranks just 34th nationally in F/+ so they’re far from a serious threat to make the playoff. The ACC Coastal is competitive, but still not good, so Clemson can rest easy about a potential ACC Championship game.

As for Notre Dame, they will have compiled a great resume if they win out, but between road games against Pitt and Stanford, the chances of that aren’t great.