It was coming for USC eventually, and now we know that with certainty. These Trojans were not good enough to make the College Football Playoff, even with Caleb Williams at full health. That defense just couldn’t keep up.
And so, we’re on to the final eight FBS conference championships, and we think we have our four teams locked, but it’s worth asking how locked they really are.
Our model agrees with the consensus, which says that Georgia and Michigan were already guaranteed spots and that Ohio State is now almost 100.0% locked in and that TCU is, similarly, almost 100.0% locked in. That’s after 10,000 simulations, many of which involve TCU losing by a wide margin or Georgia or Michigan going down or some combination of all three.
But, as we were recently reminded, our model can be wrong.
The big question at the moment is what would happen if TCU loses, and specifically what would happen if TCU loses by a lot. Unlike USC, TCU has a top ten win to its name and didn’t enter this weekend with a loss already on the team sheet. This, combined with the lack of a great alternative (our model gives USC a 0.3% chance of making the field and Alabama and Tennessee each a 0.1% chance, with USC’s driven up by the committee’s unexpected love of the Trojans in these latest rankings), is probably enough. But is it? Ultimately, that’s up to the group of people in the meeting room. Humans. Subjective, swayable humans. Maybe they’ve already agreed. Maybe they’re waiting to see what happens.
We shouldn’t neglect the possibility Georgia or Michigan goes down, and there’s a chance—a small chance, but a chance—that an upset by LSU or Purdue could lead to a reevaluation of the conference in which it happens. You could see the committee watching LSU take down the Dawgs on a day TCU also loses and saying, “Wow, the SEC really is that tough. If we’re supposed to take the four best teams, isn’t that Alabama and not TCU?” Similarly, you could see the committee watching Purdue take down the Wolverines and saying, “Michigan was not that good. They’re still in, but we can’t justify putting the Buckeyes in as well,” then turning elsewhere. I don’t think any of this will happen—I don’t think Michigan will lose, I don’t think Georgia will lose, I don’t think TCU will get blown out, and I don’t believe the committee would revisit the order of teams who aren’t in play this weekend (or allow USC to stay ahead of Ohio State with their deficiency so publicly on display). But we just don’t know.
So, it’s on to Saturday. There’s a lot to play for. Conference championships are one of the biggest accomplishments in college football. But the playoff field is probably set.
