This past week of College football caused quite a shakeup in the playoff race as Tennesse remained unbeaten and defeated Alabama for the first time in 15 years.
While the above scenario is the most popular one circulating on Twitter. The same situation could happen in the Big ten as well. In the Big Ten, it appears we are heading for a top 5 undefeated matchup of OSU vs Michigan in November. Whoever wins that game would most likely win the Big ten since the west has been underperforming this year.
So in summary, college football could have the following scenario to end the season.
Alabama 12-1 (Sec Champion, loss to Tennessee,)
Ohio State/Michigan 13-0 (Big ten champion, loss to OSU/Michigan)
Georgia (12-1 Sec, runner-up, loss to Alabama )
Ohio State/Michigan 12-1 (loss to OSU/Michigan)
Tennesse 11-1 (loss to Georgia)
This scenario also can be disrupted by the possibility of UCLA potentially being a 13-0 Pac-12 champ, Clemson being a 13-0 ACC champ, and TCU being a 13-0 Big 12 champ. I do not believe we will actually get to this scenario as UCLA and TCU seem bound to drop one at some point. Clemson I think would be an exception to this as they have been the most impressive of those three and would have the easiest remaining path to a conference championship.
If I’m to make a prediction now I think the playoff will look like the following.
- Ohio State (13-0 Big Ten Champ) 2. Clemson 13-0 ACC Champ 3. Alabama 12-1 SEC Champ 4. Georgia 12-1 SEC Runner Up
The goal of the playoff is to select the best 4 teams to play for the championship. If we are truly picking the best four teams and excluding the idea of “automatic bids”, I think there is an argument to be made a one-loss Big-ten or SEC team should get in over an undefeated Pac-12 or Big-12 team.
It’s a tough scenario for Tennesse and Michigan as they fall victim to their best wins being out of their division. The committee really values the conference championship games whether we like it or not, and they won’t put a team in the playoff who at least didn’t play in the conference championship.
The committee is also obsessed with the SEC and could very likely exclude undefeated conference champs from the Big 12 and the Pac 12 in order to get two SEC teams in.
It’s a good thing we have the expanded playoff on the horizon as it appears we are heading for more parity in college football. In the expanded playoff this chaos wouldn’t be much of an issue and it would all play itself out. For now, we have the four-team playoff, and there is nothing we can do about it. The committee is going to have some interesting decisions to make going forward and I’m excited to see what they do.
Scramble Sports 