On Friday, we talked about playoff scenarios. We looked at 144 of them. To get the number down to 144, we assumed Florida would win this weekend.
Whoops.
The shoe-toss covered for how bad Florida played. The Gators played bad. And it doesn’t just affect them.
But that wasn’t the only game that happened. Coastal Carolina narrowly escaped Troy. USC narrowly escaped UCLA. Georgia blew out Missouri. Colorado fell to Utah. BYU neatly beat San Diego State. Northwestern took care of Illinois. Buffalo and San José State won.
Enough happened and the field’s simple enough that conference-by-conference seems the best way to go, so conference-by-conference is the way we shall go, beginning with…
The SEC: The Ramifications of Florida’s Demise
How’s everyone affected by this? Well, a hypothetical Alabama loss to Florida next week suddenly looks both 1) less likely and 2) more damaging. Could Bama still make the field with a loss to the Gators? Certainly. But it’s not as near a no-brainer as it was yesterday morning.
Next up is Texas A&M: Texas A&M’s résumé was built on two things: 1) Having beaten Florida, and 2) Having avoided playing anyone else all that good, with the exception of Bama, which wiped its bottom with the Aggies. Now, the Florida loss doesn’t look as good, and the possibility that the committee will at least revisit A&M’s résumé and on-field play bodes poorly for Jimbo Fisher’s squad (or it bodes well—does A&M really want to lose by 40 to the Tide?).
There’s also, of course, Florida. It’s possible Florida could still make the field by beating Alabama, but again, it doesn’t look as certain that they would make it, and it looks even more unlikely that they win.
And then there’s Georgia, whose domination in Columbia may have been offset by one of their losses suddenly looking unsightlier. The Dawgs remain out of all but the strangest of possibilities.
Overall, it’s hard to overstate how bad Florida’s loss was. I mean, LSU was bad this year. They’re next to Washington State in some Vegas power ratings. The shoe-toss did not lose that game. It just helped finalize the disappointment.
The ACC: Business as Usual
North Carolina treated the Hurricanes like a drizzle (I’m sorry), which isn’t all that impactful to the playoff but could help Coastal Carolina get a New Year’s Six berth in the event Clemson loses to Notre Dame and takes the ACC’s Orange Bowl spot from UNC. But yeah, ACC’s still just waiting on next weekend, trying to get two teams in. Clemson and Notre Dame are both probably helped by Florida’s lost.
The Big Ten: Nothing Much to See
Northwestern beating Illinois keeps it at least plausible that the committee would let the Wildcats in with a Big Ten Championship. But that’s a very fringy possibility, because, you know, Northwestern is a lot worse than Ohio State.
The Big 12: Waiting…
Oklahoma State’s blowout of Baylor may help the league a bit, making better one of Iowa State’s losses and one of Oklahoma’s wins. It’s marginal, but they need every little bit, and depending what numbers the committee’s looking at, it could help.
The Sun Belt is of interest to the Big 12, and not just as a terrifying memory. Louisiana-Lafayette beating Coastal Carolina next weekend could go a long way for the I-35 corridor if Iowa State does beat Oklahoma. Yes, it’s weird that ULL isn’t ranked ahead of the Cyclones, or that Coastal isn’t at least ranked ahead of the Cyclones, and everyone should acknowledge that but we also have to deal with the reality the committee’s given us.
The Pac-12: USC?
I was a bit of a jackass on Twitter last night towards ESPN, and while they deserve it, I also don’t like getting #MadOnline, so I feel bad about repeatedly calling their data science “shit.” To be clear, I don’t know how unreasonable their USC projection is, but I do know their Clemson projection is unrealistic. I also don’t fully get how their FPI playoff predictions differ from that Allstate Playoff Predictor, and I’ve yet to see them explain it. But again, to make the point clear: It should damage your credibility if you pump out bullshit and say it’s ok because it came from a model. My guess is we’ll never have to have this fight, but it’s a good reminder for The Barking Crow to really do our due diligence and demonstrate why you should trust our models. We’ll be working on our transparency going forward, in an attempt to further distance ourselves from ESPN.
But that’s all beside the point. The point is that USC probably does have a chance if they win next weekend, and we really don’t know how large that chance is. It would be easier for the committee, perhaps, to put USC into an open spot than to put in Iowa State or Oklahoma or Texas A&M, so keep that in mind.
The Sun Belt!
There are two ways to look at Coastal Carolina’s weekend, and we should look at both of them.
The first is that the Chants had no margin for error, needed to blow out Troy, and didn’t do that, legitimizing the narrative that Coastal couldn’t hang on a field with any of the other playoff teams (that’s probably a fair narrative, for what it’s worth, but it also raises the question of whether the most deserving teams should make the field or if the best teams should make the field, and if it’s the latter, it raises the question of how much season needs to be played at all—and we should note that they were also ten-point dogs against BYU).
The second is that Florida losing might open some doors for a team that’s done about everything anyone could ask from them (they had no way to know scheduling Kansas was a bad idea).
Hopefully they at least get a New Year’s Six bowl. Even if they get rocked. They deserve that stage. And BYU winning does help the cause.
Cincinnati?
The Bearcats may have had a door open with that Florida loss, but one would assume they’d need quite the performance against Tulsa, in addition to getting that door opened in the first place, which is less likely than not.
Other Group of Five
San José State and Buffalo remain undefeated, and one would imagine at least Buffalo will be ranked this week, with Jaret Patterson set to receive Heisman votes. San José State will get their Boise State test in the MWC Championship after an earlier cancelation of that matchup. Good for both programs (and Buffalo is intriguing as a rising program when we remember Khalil Mack came out of there).
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Overall, it does appear we’re headed for Alabama playing Notre Dame in one semifinal and Clemson playing Ohio State in the other, but if the Irish can beat Clemson again or if Clemson blows out Notre Dame or if Florida beats Alabama or if Northwestern stuns Ohio State or if some combination of all those things happen, doors will open.
We’ll see. (and Covid may yet have its say)
