No conversation about the College Football Playoff this week can start with anything other than the Big 12 in general and Oklahoma State in particular. Is the Big 12 the most likely conference to be left out of the Playoff right now? How will the selection committee view Oklahoma State’s loss to Central Michigan? Not being a member of the committee, I can’t completely answer that; but I can definitely tell you what is most likely.
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We actually have a precedent for what happened with Oklahoma State this past week. Actually, there are many precedents, but there is one in the CFP era. Last year’s Miami-Duke game had a similar ending. Unfortunately for us, that game was in Week 9, before the committee posted any rankings. Duke also lost the next week, which makes anything I can say just speculation. Duke was 6-3 at the time with no good wins and two losses to ranked teams. The committee did not rank the Blue Devils. Had Duke been 7-2, we would have had some evidence as to whether the committee actually treated the loss like a loss. Because of what happened in Week 10, though, we have no way to know. Bill Hancock hinted that the committee can treat this Oklahoma State loss like a win. But even if it is a win, it’s a bad close win over a MAC team.
The Big 12 in general is an easier issue to discuss. The prognosis is not great right now, but there is still definite potential. Baylor has Baylor’s classic non-conference schedule, which leaves no room for error in the season. Texas looks good early, but there’s a long season ahead and being close to the Playoff would be a big jump for a program that has struggled recently. Oklahoma has a loss and has Ohio State coming up, which could put the Sooners in a quick 2-loss hole. I will touch on it more next week if Oklahoma loses, but even with these two losses it would be too soon to completely write the Sooners off.
Remember two years ago, though, when all of the Big Ten contenders had embarrassing opening weeks to the season, to say the last. Michigan State was beaten by Oregon, Ohio State looked awful against Virginia Tech, Wisconsin had lost to LSU to open the season, and Nebraska needed an Ameer Abdullah miracle to get past McNeese State. Pundits were writing off the Big Ten as a whole. We all know what happened next. I’m not quite saying that the Big 12 needs someone to win out from this point forward to make the Playoff, but it would definitely help. What the Big 12 does need is for a team to step up in a big way and impress in the final 12 weeks of the season. If that doesn’t happen, it is very likely that the Big 12 won’t put a team in the Playoff this season.
Week 2 CFP Implications: Teams Eliminated from College Football Playoff Contention
It’s still early to eliminate teams from the Playoff, really, as just about anything can happen over the course of a 12-game season. My rule about eliminating teams is that it’s not my place to predict games; a team is only eliminated if it has no chance at the CFP–even if it runs the table. Most Power 5 teams, at least at this stage of the season, will have a chance at the Playoff with two losses and a conference championship, though it may take some chaos to get there. Last week, the only teams that I feel comfortable eliminating are Group of 5 teams that have suffered losses or P5 teams that lost to an FCS team. This week, I am happier to branch out a tiny bit and knock out teams that have a bad loss and won’t gain enough respect even by miraculously running the table (in other words, goodbye Kansas). We will whittle our way down to about six or seven teams (only four, if we’re really lucky) by the end of conference championship weekend. But we will do it slowly. The goal is to accurately eliminate each team while never eliminating a team too early–I don’t ever want to have to “un-eliminate” a team.
AAC: Temple, Tulane, UCF, UConn, SMU, Tulsa
ACC: Virginia
Big 12: Iowa State, Kansas
Big Ten: Northwestern
Conference USA: Only Marshall and Southern Miss are not yet eliminated
Independents: UMass, BYU
MAC: Only Toledo, Western Michigan, and Central Michigan are not yet eliminated
Mountain West: Only Air Force, Boise State, and San Diego State are not yet eliminated
Pac-12: Washington State
SEC: none
Sun Belt: Only Texas State and Georgia Southern are not yet eliminated
This week, we eliminated 28 teams, putting our total of eliminated teams at 52. We are almost at half of FBS eliminated, though eliminations will slow down a little now that almost all of the lower Group of 5 teams have taken a loss and won’t make the Playoff. We have knocked off very few P5 teams, as scenarios (albeit some pretty unrealistic ones) exist that lets just about any 2-loss P5 team into the Playoff. For example, take Kentucky. The odds against the Wildcats winning out are astronomical; it won’t happen. But if it does, they would be in the Playoff. Thus, I won’t eliminate them until that possibility is removed. I’m not here to predict games, just to tell you what the CFP picture looks like.
Group of 5 fight heats up
There are some quality teams in each Group of 5 conference, including Toledo and Western Michigan in the MAC, Southern Miss and Western Kentucky in Conference USA, and Georgia Southern and Appalachian State in the Sun Belt. The AAC stands above them all, though, with Houston leading the way and other talented teams not too far behind. East Carolina and South Florida in particular, from the East Division, look like they may be able to put up a fight if they reach the AAC Championship Game. Houston is the only G5 team truly fighting for a Playoff spot as of now, though, and it really looks like the AAC will once again get the G5 spot in a New Years’ Six game.
Watch out for the Mountain West, though. The conference is not quite as good as in its heyday, but Boise State and San Diego State are both very talented teams. We may very well see both of them ranked at some point during the season, and if those two meet in the Mountain West Championship Game the winner may be looking at an NY6 bowl even with Houston ahead of them. There’s a long way to go in this season, though, and we may well see plenty of upsets in both the AAC and MWC, opening up doors for other teams to push through.
The Rest of the Country
It is still way too soon to start eliminating conferences from the Playoff race or anointing any. We often (perhaps intentionally) forget during the beginning of the season, but only teams make the Playoff, not conferences. The separation between teams will mostly come during conference play, as that is the bulk of the season. We sometimes have a conference with results that stand out (like the Big 12 this year), but for the most part, we will figure out our Playoff teams based on conference play.
There is jockeying for position and things that we can notice this early in the year, though. For example, the ACC is currently the best-positioned to put two teams in the Playoff, with a loaded ACC Atlantic division. The division has three teams currently in the Top 10, each of which plays at least one quality non-conference opponent. The Big Ten East has Ohio State and Michigan, but Michigan does not have a strong enough non-conference schedule to really make a Playoff case if it doesn’t win the Big Ten. I have to stress, as always, that anything can happen and it’s a long season; maybe a team with a weak non-conference schedule like Michigan could be so dominant (against everyone but Ohio State) to warrant a Playoff spot anyway. It’s not likely as of now, but it’s far from impossible.
What to Look For in Week 3
Week 3 obviously has several big games. I just want to highlight what I look for and what I like to point out in this section. Take, for example, Florida State against Louisville. It’s important because it’s a matchup of Top 10 teams and will probably have a major impact on the ACC Atlantic race. That’s all it needs, right? Of course not. When I look at that game, I also see the fact that Houston will play Louisville in November. If the Cougars want a shot at the Playoff, having Louisville being as strong an opponent as possible will be huge. I see more than just that, too. Florida State plays both Florida and Ole Miss in non-conference play. If the Gators want to try to get in the Playoff without winning the SEC, or if they pick up two losses en route to an SEC title, they need Florida State to be a top opponent in November. That means they want the Seminoles undefeated, or at least impressive-looking in losses. In contrast, though, Ole Miss needs Florida State to be out of the Playoff picture, because if the Rebels drop , and they are in a battle for a Playoff spot in November, they can’t afford for Florida State to be compared to them directly for that spot. So, while Ole Miss needs Florida State to stay respectable enough that the loss doesn’t look bad, it also needs Florida State out of the Playoff picture.
This is part of the true meaning of the CFP’s (and the old BCS) motto of “every game matters.” Sure, some matter more than others, but every team is connected in ways that aren’t immediately apparent. The Playoff picture is muddy and complex and every game affects it in so many ways, though it gets clearer and clearer as the season goes on and we have more information.
Aside from the obvious (Ole Miss/Bama, USC/Stanford), an important storyline to keep an eye on this week will be the Big Ten. The conference has three very high-profile games next week, with Ohio State visiting Oklahoma, Michigan State visiting Notre Dame, and Nebraska hosting Oregon. The conference has a few other P5 games also, but keep an eye on all of the Big Ten games this week. Much like I said about the SEC before Week 1, this is the Big Ten’s chance to grab the narrative of the season. If the Big Ten wins all (or almost all) of these games, it will be viewed as the most dominant conference in the country. Lose them all, and the conference will be seen as unable to keep up with the real power teams. And remember, in the world of the College Football Playoff and its selection committee, perception is often just as important as reality when judging teams.
