We did not expect this. Few did, or few should have. Texas A&M beat Alabama last night. Texas A&M, who struggled against Colorado, who lost to Arkansas, who lost to Mississippi State at home—those guys beat Alabama.
It’s an incredible win for Jimbo Fisher and the Aggies, and thrill should be the prevailing emotion, but there are some already lamenting, because if you’ll remember, this was supposed to potentially be the year in College Station, and with those two losses already under the belt, winning over Alabama’s unlikely to get those guys more than the thrill that comes from winning over Alabama. Again, it’s a substantial thrill, but the hope had been that this would have playoff implications for A&M, and it’s unlikely it does. They’re still tied for last in the SEC West after three conference games.
But, again, the thrill. What a win.
We’ve talked before about how the number of undefeated teams has been high in recent years, and how what we think of as chaos is more normal than it might feel in the playoff era. With that acknowledgment acknowledged…this is chaotic. This is chaotic enough that we might get one or more unusual playoff participant. Let’s dig into that.
A good place to start is what qualifies as an unusual playoff participant, and a good way to define that is to look at the buckets that have earned teams playoff berths in the past. We’ve had 28 playoff teams now, and each has fallen into one of the following categorizations:
- Undefeated Power Five/Notre Dame team (11 out of 11 possible teams)
- One-loss Power Five conference champion (14 out of 15* possible teams)
- One-loss Power Five not conference champion (3 out of 11* possible teams)
I’ve included the asterisk in there because we include 2014 Baylor and 2014 TCU in the not-champion bucket, since they weren’t treated as conference champions by the committee that year, when the committee needed an easy out to eliminate one or two teams and the Big 12 gave them co-champions to deal with.
This is telling. There’s a clear cutoff where you make the playoff, and a clear next bucket the committee turns to, and generally, the dice have fallen in a place where this makes for a clear four playoff participants.
Now, let’s see who can still get to these markers. Here’s who has a shot at each bucket, and we’re going with the most technical definition possible:
Undefeated Power Five/Notre Dame team:
- Georgia
- Oklahoma
- Oklahoma State
- Iowa
- Michigan
- Michigan State
- Wake Forest
- Kentucky
These come from four conferences, so we could theoretically get one of the easiest playoff fields ever, but in the Big Ten, Ohio State’s still the favorite, and in the ACC, Clemson’s still the favorite, and the Big 12 teams have been suspect/that conference championship’s always a rematch, and Georgia may well have to deal with Alabama in the SEC Championship, and Alabama clearly has some issues but one would imagine the odds would be tight on that one if things go as generally expected from here.
One-loss Power Five conference champion:
- Georgia
- Oklahoma
- Oklahoma State
- Iowa
- Michigan
- Michigan State
- Wake Forest
- Kentucky
- Alabama
- Ohio State
- Oregon
- Arizona State
- Penn State
- Mississippi
- Baylor
- North Carolina State
- Pitt
- Boston College
A larger list, with some of our contenders roped back in. Theoretically, we could get five of these teams, or five of these teams and the bucket above, but again, there are reasons to believe every champion except maybe Georgia and Oklahoma will end up with two losses, and if it comes down to an undefeated Cincinnati and a one-loss champion from this ACC…I don’t know if the committee can or will deny the Bearcats.
That’s a big hypothetical, though. On multiple levels.
One-loss Power Five not conference champion:
- Georgia
- Oklahoma
- Oklahoma State
- Iowa
- Michigan
- Michigan State
- Wake Forest
- Kentucky
- Mississippi
- Baylor
- Boston College
- Notre Dame
This is a weirder bucket (though it might prove relevant), and it does open us back up to the BYU argument, but after yesterday, I’m guessing that’s dead on arrival barring the disintegration of western society (or, you know, multiple three-loss Power Five champions). Notre Dame enters the edge of the picture, but we lose all the one-loss teams except for Mississippi (lost to Alabama, could lose an SEC West tiebreaker at 11-1), Baylor (lost to Oklahoma State, could lose a Big 12 tiebreaker at 11-1), and Boston College (lost to Clemson, could lose an ACC tiebreaker at 11-1). This might be a consequential bucket, but it’s not consequential yet.
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Will we get four teams from these buckets? I’m not sure. The “chalk” way for this to go would be for Georgia to run the table, for Oklahoma to run the table, for Ohio State to run the table, and for Oregon to run the table. Ohio State and Oregon are on thin ice, with Ohio State’s schedule and Oregon’s ability to win games causing problems for each, but Ohio State falling could mean a simple handoff to Iowa, and Arizona State provides a backup plan for the Pac-12 (ASU should maybe be the primary plan, because ASU might be better than Oregon even if they don’t have that sensational win in Columbus to their credit). Another chalky scenario would involve a one-loss Georgia, a one-loss SEC champion Alabama, an undefeated or one-loss Big 12 champion Oklahoma, and a one-loss champion out of either the Big Ten (where Michigan and Michigan State and Penn-State-I-guess are options in addition to Iowa and the Buckeyes) or the Pac-12. Again, I don’t have the number on this likelihood right now.
If we don’t get four teams from those top two buckets, or from all three (it’s far from proven whether the one-loss-not-P5-champion bucket actually always trumps these next buckets), the committee would have to turn elsewhere. And these are the two most prominent buckets for elsewhere:
Two-loss Power Five conference champion:
I’m not going to list all these teams, but Clemson’s back on the table here for those who fear a similar field to years past (this is a fear of mine, I am afraid of a Clemson/Alabama/Oklahoma/Ohio State playoff, I do not think this is entirely unreasonable of me to fear).
Undefeated Group of Five team:
- Cincinnati
- SMU
- Coastal Carolina
- San Diego State
- UTSA
It’s possible there’s no world where the non-Cincinnati teams on this list get in. It’s also possible there’s no world where Cincinnati gets in. We’ve only been doing this for seven years. That’s a tiny sample, in ways. We’ve only had six undefeated Group of Five teams over that stretch, three were last year in a pandemic-shortened season, and one was Western Michigan (who’s a decent comp for UTSA if that materializes). Really, UCF’s the team in question here, and for memory’s sake, one of those three one-loss-not-P5-champions was 2017 Alabama, who made it in over an undefeated UCF. It’s telling that UCF was ranked 12th that year and 8th the next year (because it shows that multi-loss teams, champions and otherwise, were ahead of them). It’s telling that Cincinnati was 8th last season. But Cincinnati won at Notre Dame, Notre Dame has a clear path to 11-1 even if they aren’t favored to get there, and Cincinnati is sky-high in the AP Poll, which isn’t perfect but does do some gauging of the narrative, which the committee seems to care about.
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SO. Where does that leave us?
Well, if we keep using the “contenders” and “factors” dichotomy (contenders = teams it’s reasonable to think will make the playoff, factors = teams it’s reasonable to think could make the playoff), we’re probably here:
Contenders: Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama
Sorry, guys. Bama’s still in this until they lose again. They’re still Bama. Nick Saban’s still Nick Saban. The Tide goes to Starkville next week and then doesn’t face another significant test ‘til Arkansas comes to Tuscaloosa the weekend before Thanksgiving. There’s a very good chance they enter the SEC Championship 11-1, with a shot at making the SEC a two-bid league again. They’re on comparably thin ice to Ohio State and Oregon, and Georgia looms large, and to be entirely fair some of these teams who are factors might have better probabilities (this is an important point—Iowa, for example, might have a better probability, but the mechanics of that are that Iowa still needs to win games, plural, as an underdog and these others probably do not), but these are the teams who hold serve, and yes, Alabama’s still one of them.
Factors: Cincinnati, Iowa, Michigan, Arizona State
Welcome, Arizona State. Farewell, Penn State and BYU. BYU was always a hesitant inclusion (I say “always” but they’d only been in this bucket for a week or two), but they’re gone now unless we get something really surprising from the committee’s first rankings. Penn State still has a path, but they couldn’t get past one of the medium steps on it, which was winning at Iowa.
Iowa might be an underdog in Madison at the end of the month. Iowa might be an underdog in Lincoln at the end of the season. I don’t think they will be, but it’s one of those things where the line might surprise people. Their signature achievements to date are beating an Iowa State team that couldn’t beat Baylor and beating a Penn State team that lost its quarterback midway through the game and still almost held on (this is a good thing to remember regarding Penn State—if they beat Ohio State, or if they go 10-2 and we’re really hunting for teams, the committee might forgive this loss via the Kelly Bryant Rule™, which says that if the committee wants to, it can forgive losses if a quarterback went down, something we learned existed in 2017 when Bryant went down and the Tigers lost to Syracuse). That doesn’t spell “contender” at this point. They need things to go right.
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Alright, we’ve covered a lot of this implicitly, but let’s go around the country now:
SEC
Did you hear Texas A&M beat Alabama?
Beyond that, Mississippi won a heck of a game against Arkansas, while Kentucky thwomped LSU in Lexington to move to 6-0. Georgia pounded Auburn on the plains to move to 6-0 themselves, and next week we’ve got Kentucky @ Georgia while Bama regroups and goes to Mississippi State.
Big 12
Remember thirty years ago, when Oklahoma came back against Texas yesterday afternoon?
Man, what a day of college football we had.
It really does feel like it happened in a different week, but the Sooners were on the ropes, and then they were suddenly off the ropes, and then they were suddenly beating the ever-loving shit out of the collective Texas Longhorn psyche. It was the most decisive last-second victory you could script, with 25 fourth-quarter points from OU keeping Lincoln Riley’s team on track. It was one of those videos of a train hitting a parked car. It was likely the saddest thing some people have ever seen.
The Sooners are clearly flawed, but they’ve got time. They host TCU next week while Oklahoma State goes to Austin.
Big Ten
Down goes Penn State at the hands of Iowa. Michigan escapes Nebraska’s clutches. Ohio State made turtle soup. Michigan State won at Rutgers.
Sparty’s a funny piece of this, sitting with Wake Forest and Kentucky in a state of confused bliss. They go to Indiana next week while Iowa hosts Purdue. The others are idle.
Pac-12
Arizona State took care of Stanford on Friday night while Oregon rested this week. Big one for the Sun Devils on Saturday in Salt Lake City. The Ducks host Cal on Friday night.
ACC
Wake Forest came back to beat Syracuse in overtime. This doesn’t affect anything nationally but Florida State beat UNC??? Questions there all around. FSU 2-0 in their last two.
Cincinnati, Notre Dame
Notre Dame escaped Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, which was arguably more important for Cincinnati (who beat Temple 52-3 on Friday) than it was for the Irish themselves. Cincy needs a top-ten Notre Dame if they can get it.
In other allies-of-Cincinnati news, SMU survived a resurgent Navy to move to 6-0 and keep AAC dreams of two top-20 teams alive.
The Bearcats host UCF on Saturday.
Group of Five Undefeateds
BYU exits the mix, losing at home to Boise State. Others (Wyoming, possibly more) exit this mix. Coastal Carolina (who beat up Arkansas State), San Diego State (who beat up New Mexico), and UTSA (who survived Western Kentucky) remain.
FCS
We mentioned a few of these on Friday, so to fill you in: North Dakota State took care of Northern Iowa. Southern Illinois shocked South Dakota State in overtime. Villanova toppled James Madison. Dartmouth survived Yale. What does all of this mean? Wouldn’t you like to know (my take is that NDSU is reassuming its throne).
