Sometimes the best regular season games are those which set the stage for a postseason rematch. We saw this in baseball this season, when the Astros and Rangers’ quarrel in July got baseball fans dreaming about exactly this ALCS. We’ve seen this in the NFL time and again, when division rivals split a regular season series en route to a playoff rubber game. In the NHL and NBA, the quantity of playoff matchups makes the phenomenon something common. In college football, we might be seeing it this year.
Washington defeated Oregon, but it was close. It came down to a few late-game plays: Oregon’s fourth down stand at the goal line; Washington’s fourth down stand near midfield; Washington’s lead-taking two-play touchdown drive; Oregon’s deliberate two-minute drill to set up what would become a missed game-tying field goal attempt. There were plenty of other decisive plays beforehand, as there always are. Washington stopped Oregon at its own goal line to close the first half. Oregon picked off Michael Penix Jr. to set up that stand. There were few gamebreaking plays, but teams don’t combine for nearly one thousand yards without picking up some big chunks of yardage. Penix was slightly more efficient than Bo Nix, and Penix scored more touchdowns (for whatever that’s worth), but Penix didn’t decisively outplay his counterpart. His Monday morning status as the Heisman favorite isn’t something he owes to having demonstrated himself to be a better quarterback than his potential runner up. It’s because he won. Had Oregon won, Nix would be the one listed with shorter than even odds.
Where this leaves Washington is a straightforward place. Washington, like Oklahoma and Florida State, has the lead in a power conference and has a loss to give. If the Huskies go down in Los Angeles or Corvallis, or if they fall at home to Utah, it shouldn’t matter much beyond rivalry and seeding implications. Washington’s job remains to win the Pac-12 and make the playoff, and if they win the Pac-12 at 12–1, their playoff chance isn’t much worse if they win it at 13–0. Entering the Pac-12 Championship at 12–0 would be better than entering it at 11–1, but Washington’s headed towards what will likely be six more games as a favorite before their conference’s final conference championship game.
Oregon is left in a similarly straightforward place, but it’s not as fun a seat to occupy. Oregon needs to win out, period. They can’t lose again if they’re going to make the playoff, and it’s possible they need to win out to make the Pac-12 title game as well. USC—as Movelor, our model’s rating system, has been saying—isn’t good enough to compete for the Pac-12 title unless everyone else is worse than they appear, and USC made its strongest case to that effect on Saturday night. Oregon State might be good enough, though, and Utah could be good enough, especially with whatever little boost Cam Rising gives them if he does return this season. Oregon has to play all three of those teams within the state of Oregon, and UCLA’s layup of a schedule outside the remaining USC contest creates a risk that by either head-to-head against the Beavers or Utes or a convoluted tiebreaker to UCLA, a two-loss Oregon could miss the Pac-12 Championship. At this point, Oregon does not have a loss to give in its quest to achieve either of its primary goals.
Like Washington, though, Oregon is likely to be favored from here in every game they play, right up to what would be a dramatic rematch of Saturday’s game on a Las Vegas Friday night in December. The gun’s on the wall. Washington and Oregon really might fire it. Twelve games have to go right to give us this perfect form of a rematch, and that is so many isolated events, but the probability—something like 1-in-16—is big enough to be seen with a naked eye, and we’re at the time of year where things that are improbable become probable in a matter of a couple weeks. Washington won the first leg. Their work is not at all done.
What else happened in college football’s Week 7, and where it leaves the playoff race, with our model’s playoff probabilities to guide that second part:
The Big Ten’s Big Three: Ohio State (56.7%), Penn State (56.8%), Michigan (50.4%)
Who’s the best between Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan? We may never know. The three begin their round robin this week, and at the end of it we could see an even three-way split. The probability of all three of these teams making the playoff together is only about 1-in-20, but that’s big enough to be real, and the probability of that three-way split is much larger than that.
This week? All three dominated, as all three have mostly been doing all year. Ohio State smoked Purdue. Michigan smoked Indiana. Penn State smoked UMass. Thus far this year, these three teams have played like the three best teams in the country. Movelor has them 1st (Ohio State), 2nd (Penn State), and 3rd (Michigan). SP+ has them 1st (Michigan), 2nd (Ohio State), and 8th (Penn State). ESPN’s FPI has them 1st (Ohio State), 3rd (Penn State), and 4th (Michigan). Maybe there are some illusions going on and the schools’ collective schedules all are worse than they appear, but those illusions could work the other way as well. At the very least, we’re about to get some answers regarding where the teams stand relative to one another. Penn State goes to Columbus on Saturday.
Under SEC Investigation: Georgia (31.8%), Alabama (12.2%)
After finally looking convincing against Kentucky, Georgia went up to Nashville, underwhelmed and lost their star tight end for multiple weeks. Brock Bowers was hurt early, and the program announced this morning he’ll undergo something called TightRope™ Surgery to address the ankle sprain. How long he’ll be out remains to be seen, but it’s possible he won’t play against either of Mississippi and Tennessee in November. If Georgia plays like they played without Bowers in Saturday’s second half, or if Georgia plays like they played with Bowers against South Carolina and Auburn, those are going to be dangerous games for the Dawgs. They were never in serious danger against Vanderbilt, but that is hardly an accomplishment, and Carson Beck looked, aptly, like a child without his security blanket. This team’s ceiling is higher than that of anyone else, and they might reach it, but they haven’t played that well so far. They’re back into question mark territory.
While that was going on in the Music City, Alabama was having trouble of its own at home, allowing Arkansas back into things after taking a 24–6 lead, then never taking Arkansas back out of things until the very, very end. This Tide team isn’t bad, but they are far from great, and they either must improve or continue to survive one-score games in perpetuity if they’re going to get to the playoff doorstep. It’s possible—this is Alabama, it’s possible—but the drawbridge is malfunctioning in Nick Saban’s castle, and it’s not the only thing struggling to work.
One clarification here: The SEC is not bad. Its top two teams are both flawed, one probably fatally, and no one else is close to national championship caliber. It also contributes a third of the country’s top 20 teams, a quarter of the top 30, a quarter of the top 40, and a quarter of the top 50. No other league can say those things. The SEC is not strong at the top, but it remains the nation’s best league when you look all the way down through the bottom.
Driving the Playoff Freeway: Florida State (51.2%), Oklahoma (44.2%), Washington (34.3%)
All three of these teams have higher playoff probabilities than Georgia right now. Maybe our model’s wrong, but our model has Georgia better than all three of these teams, and by comparable margins to where SP+ and FPI have them. Some of this is ceiling—these three are all magnitudes closer to their ceiling than Georgia is to its own—but a lot is remaining schedule. These three have gotten to the point where they only need to take care of business to reach a national semifinal.
We’ve talked about Washington, and Oklahoma was idle, but Florida State deserves more than passing mention, because Florida State played its best game since Labor Day Sunday, and maybe even a better game than that one. The Seminoles pulled away a little late, but they put up 535 yards of total offense while holding Syracuse—very likely a bowl-eligible team—under 4.5 yards per pass and 3.5 yards per rush. Florida State dominated every facet of the game, and while Movelor and the rest would not call FSU better than Oklahoma, the ACC is so much worse than the rest of the Power Five that FSU doesn’t need to be better than Oklahoma to be marginally more playoff-likely. If FSU wants to win a national championship, it’ll have to be more than a fringe top ten team, but it doesn’t need more than that to make the College Football Playoff.
Digging In: Oregon (18.5%), Texas (12.5%)
Oregon and Texas are in very similar positions, with the lone exception being that Oregon’s probably just as good as Washington and Texas is probably not as good as Oklahoma. There’s time for that to change, though, or for those involved to prove otherwise, and after Texas’s week off, each of these two has six games in which to take care of business and earn a conference championship invitation. In almost all scenarios, both still control their fate.
North Carolina: North Carolina (9.7%)
UNC didn’t play especially well against Miami, but Tez Walker had a productive game and the Tar Heels pulled away, remaining undefeated while looking ahead to an absolute cakewalk of a next three games. We won’t know whether UNC’s a serious playoff contender for a long time, but unless they utterly implode, they’re going to be in the picture into November.
Breathing: Oregon State (5.7%), Tennessee (4.1%), Utah (2.9%), Mississippi (2.5%), Duke (1.9%), Iowa (1.5%), LSU (1.2%)
There are a lot of one-loss teams, but they don’t all have a 1-in-100 chance of making the playoff. These seven are among the crop, with Iowa and LSU climbing into the mix. What each was up to, plus respective thoughts:
- Oregon State hammered UCLA at home, leading 36–17 after three quarters and not letting it get much closer. The Beavers have a tricky two games on the road ahead (in Tucson and Boulder), but they’ve got a week off first. They’ve made it this far with some sort of playoff dream intact. That’s an accomplishment, even if the Washington State loss looks even more disappointing now than it did at the time.
- Tennessee survived Texas A&M, and it’s possible A&M is one of those teams you just have to survive. The Vols still are not what they were last year, but they aren’t a bad team, and if they upset Alabama on Saturday—something that is possible—they’re going to hop into the second ring of focus.
- We’ve become comfortable acknowledging Utah is not what they could have been, with the offense atrocious even after accounting for Rising’s absence. But it’s hard to quit them when they stuff teams like they stuffed Cal. Saturday, we get to see if they can stuff USC again. They’re not going to get there in pretty fashion, but it’s possible they’ll make the playoff. It’s possible.
- Lane Kiffin’s Mississippi had the weekend off. We still don’t know what we have here, but the LSU victory isn’t looking like it was a formality, and if Georgia continues to play vulnerably, it’s possible these guys will ultimately be the ones who break the camel’s back.
- It’s impossible to know whether Duke missed a beat or not in Riley Leonard’s absence, but they slammed the door on NC State in their return to action after the Notre Dame loss, reminding everyone watching at home that this team’s calling card is still its defense, first-round quarterback prospect or not. Leonard’s status on Saturday night in Tallahassee only matters so much. Duke’s a good team with him and without him. But he does make a difference, and there are scenarios where that difference is the difference between a season-changing upset and a first conference loss. What would be fun is if Duke beat FSU with their backup (Henry Belin IV) and the committee had to figure out what the injury forgiveness equivalent is when the team wins anyway.
- Iowa shut down Wisconsin on Saturday and scored enough points to make that stand, and in the process, they may have won the Big Ten West, something which could afford them a slingshot’s playoff chance heading into the Big Ten title game. What’s mind-boggling about Iowa is how good they could be if they were even a little less terrible offensively. If you upped their offensive rating to the FBS average, SP+ would have them on the edge of the top ten. What a waste of an incredible defensive group.
- LSU hung 48 on Auburn, making it the third straight week the Tigers came within two points of 50. The defense is weak. But the offense is good enough to give them a chance against anybody, and an 11–2 SEC champion would get a long look, especially if the expected chaos hits elsewhere.
Comatose: USC (0.7%), Louisville (0.3%), UCLA (0.0%)
Louisville’s loss was worse, but USC’s was a bigger departure from the narrative. Each demoted a power conference team to one-loss territory, but it’s not the same one-loss territory as that occupied by the teams above. Louisville’s loss is potentially unforgivably bad, coming by multiple scores at Pitt. USC’s loss isn’t horrible—Notre Dame is great defensively and pretty good overall, similar in their level of playoff optimism to these two teams—but USC isn’t a very good team. USC is outside the Movelor top 25 now. FPI and SP+ are kinder to the Trojans, but neither has them good enough to be favored against Washington or Oregon, even if the game does or were to happen at home. Beat Utah on Saturday and they’ll most likely rise into the territory above, but even that’s probably not much better than a 50/50 shot. Which is why they’re here. They’re alive, but it’s not looking good.
As for UCLA? They did not have a loss to give. Theirs was an expected loss, but it brought finality with it.
Undefeated!: Air Force, James Madison, Liberty
These three all remained undefeated, Air Force by escaping Wyoming, JMU by pounding Georgia Southern, and Liberty with a good Conference USA win at Jacksonville State. Liberty and Air Force have similar respective playoff probabilities to postseason-ineligible JMU (FBS transition), but that is not at all the point. The point is that going undefeated is awesome whether it puts you in a specific postseason game or not. Good luck, Falcons and Dukes and Flames. Don’t let pro sports mentalities, those which say the postseason is the only thing worth a thing, get you down.
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Other miscellany, in something resembling chronological FBS order and then through the FCS:
- Tulane and Fresno State keep hanging near Air Force, but Air Force holds the Group of Five keys. Wyoming is in position to have a chance, and played well on Saturday night, but they’re still rather unlikely to finish atop those five collective leagues and get the New Year’s Six bid.
- Colorado’s loss to Stanford was bad, and not just because of the comeback. Movelor has the Buffs as the worst team in the Pac-12 again. That’s probably a little wrong, but then again, they did lose to Stanford at home. Deion Sanders has made a ton of progress, but there’s a long way to go.
- Options for Big 12 spoilers are many, but West Virginia is no longer atop the pack after losing to Houston after a magical final minute. Iowa State has an advantage among the four non-Texas teams with one conference loss, in that their loss came to Oklahoma and not someone else, but Kansas State is back to being the likeliest to break up the Red River Rematch.
- Ohio losing to NIU threw a wrench in the MAC picture, but that wrench actually did more to settle things than it did to make them messier. Toledo controls the West. Miami Ohio leads the East but still has to go to Athens. With NIU in the West, Ohio still has the same conference title path it did before the disaster, but its margin for error is mostly gone.
- How about Arizona? Goodness. What a step forward that program’s taking this year. What a bad development for Pac-12 contenders who still have to play them (that’s Oregon State, UCLA, and Utah).
- Good for Mizzou for getting back on track. Being 6–1 in the SEC is no joke. Kentucky’s meltdown, meanwhile, was a little galling. They had that game in the early going and did not take it off the table, completely falling apart offensively and then lighting their shattered husk on fire.
- It’s one of those things where it’s hard to tell whether North Dakota is good or North Dakota State is bad, but the likeliest explanation for UND whooping NDSU is that the Fighting Hawks have finally cracked the MVFC’s second tier, the first category belowbeing the national championship favorite. At the very least, they are right there with the Bison. That is immense growth, and it is also a major opening of the door by the folks in Fargo.
- Montana’s rally continued, the Griz taking their road show triumphantly through the Kibbie Dome. They’ve got a week off now, then a tuneup against Northern Colorado, and then we get another awesome Big Sky game when they host Sacramento State. Unfortunately, that one will not be in the late-night slot on ESPN2.
- Harvard’s into the Movelor FCS top 25. St. Thomas took a terrible loss at Drake and gave up many of their rights to Pioneer League contention. Jackson State lost to Alabama State, and the comedown from the Prime era is complete, as that likely shuts the door on making the SWAC Championship.
- In the race for worst Division I team, Mississippi Valley State remained every so narrowly ahead of Presbyterian, getting their first win of the year in a trouncing of Arkansas-Pine Bluff just as the Blue Hose improved to a shocking 4–3, upsetting Dayton on the road in overtime. By the end of the year? It’s possible no one will view either as the worst. Together, the pair is rapidly closing the gap on UAPB and Valparaiso. Watch this space.
