Another week in the books. Another week through. And now, another week spent waiting on cancelations and schedule changes and talk of moving the playoff back or of changing it somehow, with the added ecosystem escalation of college basketball approaching while the rate of coronavirus deaths likely rises, lagging behind the rising infection numbers. And yet, we learned some things.
Wisconsin Didn’t Miss a Beat
Wisconsin may well be better than last year’s Wisconsin, which you may remember played with Ohio State in Indianapolis, coming one half short of adding a lot of drama to the CFP Selection Show.
Whether they’re better or not, the Badgers don’t seem to be any worse than they were before their covid-induced hiatus. Which makes the following question loom larger: If a Wisconsin opponent suffers an outbreak, will the Big Ten reconfigure the schedule or do away with the rule requiring teams to reach six games to play for a conference title?
Hopefully, of course, it won’t come to this. But that question’s pertinency is rising.
The Pac-12 Has No Qualms
The Pac-12’s playing now, and they aren’t going to not play if they can help it (at least for the time being—as with all things this year, this could turn on a dime). Cal plays UCLA this morning in Los Angeles after each team’s opponent was forced to cancel due to too many active coronavirus cases.
There’s a case to be made that Oregon, who survived a first-half scare in the Palouse, now must keep eyes on not just their opponent for a given week, but potential substitute opponents. This is true for the whole of the Pac-12, of course, but Oregon’s the closest to playoff contention of the twelve.
Smatterings of Contention
- Notre Dame beat Boston College, and did it without too much trouble after a bit of a white-knuckle first quarter. Was it comfortable enough not to change where they would stand were they to lose a rematch to Clemson? Probably. Avoiding close wins might be a big deal for the Irish.
- Cincinnati took care of business against ECU, and now heads to Orlando to play UCF with the CFP committee preparing its first rankings of the year.
- Marshall and Liberty won, remaining alive as undefeated teams we feel obligated to mention despite the absence of a realistic path for them, as things stand (though things, as we know, can shift).
- Miami and Northwestern won, holding our attention in the sense that we continue to wonder whether we should be taking them seriously, especially with Miami one Clemson slip-up and no Miami slip-ups from a backdoor ACC Championship berth. Northwestern, for its part, hosts a certain crew of Badgers on Saturday.
- Indiana neatly dispatched with Michigan State, setting up a much-hyped affair in Columbus next weekend that, while likely to end in mutilation, is not guaranteed to end in mutilation.
- Florida dominated Arkansas, further clearing their path to an SEC Championship date with Alabama, one which might be more competitive than tradition would dictate (and could set up a dream chaos scenario in which Alabama, Florida, and A&M all have one loss).
Hold on tight.
