I’m going to kick this column off with my thoughts on Ohio State-Michigan, talk about the situation for each of the conferences heading into champ week after that, and then finish with my expectations of what the committee will do come Tuesday night for its playoff rankings. This is going to be fun, so I’ll spare you without much further preamble.
One quick note is that I reference a few coaching changes in here. These are moving very quickly, so info may be outdated by time you read it, but it’s all accurate as of 11:30am eastern on Sunday morning to the best of my ability. Also, I imagine a lot of people will want to read the Ohio State recap and skip right to the playoff talk at the end (which I do think is worth your time), but jump around by conference as you please:
LITTLE BROTHER IS PUT BACK IN ITS PLACE
Well, well, well.
We can finally put all of the bullshit, all of the chicanery, all of the chest-puffing, and all of the fake tough guy acts to bed.
Michigan got stomped on Saturday. Ohio State spent all week talking about keeping its routine and preparing for this like any other Big Ten game on the schedule – not that this is “just another game”, because the outpouring of emotion from the Buckeyes on the field and on the sideline showed that it wasn’t, but because Michigan is just an extremely pedestrian team and program.
Ohio State continued its load management practices from much of the season; the Buckeyes gave 53 combined reps to its third and fourth string tight ends, played four different running backs, and got extensive reps for third-string receivers Bryson Rodgers and David Adolph (the latter a walk-on). They could make sure the star players were getting rest and staying sharp for the games that would be a real threat down the road, because Michigan never was.
Other than a chunk play on the scripted first drive and a short-field field goal opportunity from an uncharacteristic interception by Julian Sayin on his second passing attempt, the Wolverines never seriously threatened the Buckeyes in the Big House.
Bryce Underwood couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn and their eight figure quarterback finished just 8-of-18 for 63 yards and a pick. Jordan Marshall dropped the ball every time it came his way and had to tap out of the game because he got bruised up a little. Michigan finished with ZERO second half rushing yards and was completely dominated on the line of scrimmage.
Ohio State defensive end Caden Curry was asked after the game about how Ohio State was defending Underwood and some of the first words out of his mouth were “We just had to make him play quarterback.” Because Michigan has surrounded a five-star quarterback talent with a mediocre offensive line, complete zeroes in the receiver room (darling Andrew Marsh had zero receptions and a drop on one target, he was completely locked up), and running backs who are scared to get hit and their only offensive philosophy is yelling #SMASH, there was never any world where the Wolverines would have sustained offensive success on the Buckeyes.
That total lack of physicality was exposed for Michigan all day. The Wolverines did not produce a single pressure against Ohio State’s offensive line. They allowed 140 yards after contact on the ground as Buckeye running backs surged for first downs through whimpering, mewling Wolverines time and time again. The Buckeyes reeled off a 20-play, 81-yard, 12-minute scoring drive where they ran the ball 16 times – completely telegraphed runs with star wide receivers on the bench for much of the drive. Michigan knew what was coming and they could do nothing to stop it.
Jaishawn Barham, the star edge rusher and outside linebacker, was credited with zero solo tackles, zero pressures, zero targets in coverage. He was just out there getting a little exercise. The most contact he made all day was head-butting a referee and drawing an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
If we’re being honest, that’s all Michigan really planned for all day. It was beyond apparent that they had no business being on the same field as Ohio State when football was being played. Even the tomfoolery part of their gameplan didn’t work out.
The Wolverines coordinated a little picket line on the block M at midfield after losing the game, giving them a great front row seat in the cuck chair to watch the Buckeyes celebrate in the south end zone while Stadium Ohio rang out through the Big House. Maybe they all spent some time listening to Mr. Brightside together and decided they wanted to experience that for themselves?
They waited in the tunnel after the game, trying to pick a fight with Ohio State after losing until police had to clear them out. That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who follows the Michigan program, because they have a severe little brother complex and constantly start fights in that tunnel (Free the Michigan State #TunnelEight btw) where they know they’ll be broken up by cops or coaches after a little empty shoving. When it came time to be physical on the football field, they had absolutely nothing to offer.
Ultimately, this is what you get when you get too high on your own supply and hire a mascot of a head coach like Sherrone Moore. When you employ a man who believes that slogans are strategies in football, you get a team that gameplans more for fights after the game and worries about flag planting than they do trying to do anything stop their rival completely dominating them on their home field.
I hope Sherrone stays there for a hundred years. I hope that Oakley-wearing douchebag Wink Martindale keeps coaching the defense. I hope they never learn to hire any serious assistants because the current guys were Sherrone’s drinking buddies when he was the offensive coordinator. I hope that Bryce Underwood doesn’t transfer to somewhere that can actually develop him as a quarterback. I hope they keep convincing themselves that they have a birthright of developing three-stars into competitive football players and didn’t just have a brief fluke of history with a good strength coach.
Mostly, I hope Michigan continues to enjoy their seat in the cuck chair as they feel the slow degradation of the football product the further away they get from the Jim Harbaugh tenure. I hope they enjoy watching Ohio State win back-to-back national championships. I hope they’re ready for more years ahead of Bo Jackson running through their fucking faces and Julian Sayin dropping bombs over their domes. I hope they keep talking about the good old days and don’t confront themselves with the reality of a fading program that will soon slip back into the irrelevance it had for the better part of a decade just a few short years ago.
I know that I’ll be smiling the whole time.
THE REST OF THE B1G
INDIANA IS IN: The Hoosiers were already in the playoff before they absolutely housed Purdue in the Old Oaken Bucket game, but now they’re booked for the Big Ten title game. I cut the game off after Mendoza the younger dashed down the sideline for a huge rushing gain to set up a Khobie Martin touchdown and extend the lead to 49-3. At that point, Indiana had outscored Purdue 115-3 in the last seven quarters of football they had played. That’s ugly, man. This is a great football team though. It’s been an incredible season and they dominated the way they should in this one, even if Fernando Mendoza didn’t have his sharpest game. It’s an incredibly well-rounded football team.
OREGON IS IN: The Ducks had a late-arriving resume this year, in the season that no game on their schedule – other than the home loss to Indiana – before November was really against a meaningful team. Some of that is in retrospect (Penn State’s collapse wasn’t predicted), but much of the slate was against teams that are poor programs and weren’t expected to be any good.
They’ve certainly made up for it in November, however, securing four consecutive wins over conference opponents over .500 with an average margin of victory of 15 points. The final bullet point in that resume was the road win at rival Washington on Saturday evening. Playing without star receivers Evan Stewart (out all season) and Dakorien Moore (out for all of November) and still racking up these wins has been impressive and I think credit is owed to Dante Moore as a passer and Malik Benson and Jeremiah McClellan for stepping up to fill the gap.
Oregon will be a playoff team and they’ll likely host one of the ACC/Group of Five champs in the first round. This was a good coaching job by Dan Lanning in a season with a lot of youth and inexperience throughout his roster.
NEBRASKA’S WET FART FINALE: What a limping finish to the season for Nebraska, which lost three of its final four games and four of its final six to finish 7-5 on the year. Dylan Raiola’s injury is tough to deal with, of course, but that had nothing to do with letting Iowa possess the football for more than two-thirds of the second half. The Huskers are 2-10 in November under Matt Rhule after three seasons.
WHAT IS MICHIGAN STATE’S WHOLE DEAL? I don’t really have anything to say about Sparty’s win over Maryland, but the confusion around their coaching situation is hard to decipher. I’m writing this segment on Saturday night and I am fascinated to see if they choose to move on from Jonathan Smith and who they would get if they make that move. I don’t think these are waters I would want to swim in today if I were them, no matter how bad Smith is.
FRAUD SEASON IN THE SEC
OLE MISS PUNCHES ITS TICKET: Ole Miss opened the SEC action for the week on Friday afternoon, securing a 38-19 win in the Egg Bowl that may or may not have been Lane Kiffin’s last game leading the Rebels – he declined to comment during his postgame interview with ESPN and end the sideshow.
Mississippi State is not a good football team, but I was impressed with first-time starting quarterback and freshman Kamario Taylor. You may ask yourself why Jeff Lebby failed to start Taylor until the final game of the season, but this is the only game he coached in all season where food was at stake at the end.
The Ole Miss passing attack was brilliant, led by De’Zhaun Stribling’s two excellent receiving touchdowns and the dagger from Deuce Alexander for 88 yards and a score to put the game out of reach. Kewan Lacy and Trinidad Chambliss acquitted themselves well too on that side of the ball, with Da’Shawn Womack looking like a wrecking ball for the defense. Good win and that playoff ticket is punched.
Of course, all of the drama has come after the game has ended. While I write this on Sunday morning, we’re still awaiting official word of Kiffin’s near-certain departure for LSU and the details of what that may bring – will he coach in the playoff? Will he be poaching Ole Miss’ players for a conference rival while he does it? It’s a sideshow situation that Kiffin has brought on himself and that his agency, CAA, has fanned the flames of with their clients Kirk Herbstreit and Nick Saban working the propaganda effort on behalf of the agency. Very nasty situation.
PEACH STATE SNOOZER: While nominally a close game that ended with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets having a shot with a Hail Mary to tie in the final second, my god was it boring. Georgia rushed for more than 200 yards on the evening and could have had many more – they had just 11 called rushes in the second half with a few Gunner Stockton scrambles sprinkled in. You can pin it on the offensive line injuries piling up if you want, I won’t argue but it still wasn’t the right call.
Stockton was bad. No other way to call it. He was 11-of-21 for a hideous 70 yards and an interception through the air and had 54 non-sack rushing yards on 13 carries. In a bizarre reversal of recent fortune, Georgia Tech’s defense actually played well, but it looked to my eye like the accumulation of dozens of car crashes over the course of the season finally caught up to Haynes King and derailed the offensive effort.
Georgia is in the playoff, for better or worse. And later on in the evening, they learned they’d be returning to Atlanta next week and playing for the SEC title as well.
AGGIES GET THE BELT: Man, it’s about fucking time. Texas A&M was just not a scary football team. They feasted on a bunch of teams that fired their coaches and limped by without having any real identity or major advantages against talented teams; certainly not against well-coached ones. The Aggies were the product of one of the country’s weakest schedules and I never trusted them.
That was borne out when the Longhorns beat them in Darrell K. Royal on Friday night. You can point to Texas’ 17-point run to open the second half, highlighted by Arch Manning’s off-target touchdown pass to a wide open Ryan Wingo stretching out to haul it in; you can point to the 35-yard touchdown run from Manning that extended the Texas lead after an answer from the Aggies; you can look at Michael Taaffe’s red zone interception of Marcel Reed with three minutes remaining – or Kobe Black’s encore interception on A&M’s next offensive play.
Whatever that was, that was a hell of a win for Texas and it was a loss that A&M was due for.
Reed loves putting the ball in harm’s way and he hadn’t been punished for it nearly enough during the season. I do not think he has either the physical tools upside or the smarts and awareness on the field to earn the Heisman hype or general reputation he had been given. He’s an above average college quarterback who escapes well from pressure, that’s it. He makes bozo decisions every game.
Do the Longhorns belong in the playoff? Absolutely fucking not. They shouldn’t have lost to Florida or gotten the belt put on them by Georgia after being choked out by Ohio State in the opener. But A&M was owed a beating and they got it.
Could they get in the playoff? I think it’s extremely unlikely. They’ll jump Michigan and maybe Utah. Even though Texas beat Vanderbilt, which was ranked two spots ahead of them, head-to-head and added a marquee win this weekend, Vandy also blew out Tennessee and should be safely ahead of the Longhorns. Alabama will slide, but not below Texas. BYU, Miami, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma should all remain in front of them as well, boxing out the Longhorns from any potential postseason bid. I hate all the whining.
OKLAHOMA ESCAPES, GOES DANCING: The Sooners are in the playoff after their neck-and-neck win over LSU on Saturday afternoon. In a game that only totaled 30 points, every single score either changed or tied for the lead. LSU had a chance to go win the game, driving inside the Sooners’ 30 inside the final two minutes down four before they failed to convert a 4th-and-2. The Oklahoma defense annihilated the Tigers’ passing attack while their own offense struggled mightily and turned the ball over three times. That’s basically the story of their season, but they’re going to the playoff after that win.
ALABAMA ESCAPES AUBURN: The Tide will play Georgia in the SEC title game for the fourth time in eight years; that game has featured at least one of those two teams for the 12th consecutive season.
I think the Tide suck. I thought their 27-20 win in Jordan-Hare had Greg Sankey’s fingers firmly on the scales with a number of ridiculous calls going against Auburn to protect the conference’s postseason hopes. The Tigers also did themselves few favors, with seven drops and two fumbles in this game.
Alabama is the same team they’ve been all season – a potent passing attack leads the way for them when Ty Simpson plays well, which has been a coin flip this season, and little else besides that. I don’t really care if they beat Georgia for the SEC title, given that Kirby Smart has lost seven of his eight games against them since arriving in Athens, but they are not a serious football team. They can’t protect the quarterback, they can’t run the ball, and the defense is pedestrian. I am so sick of them.
TIME FOR STOOPS TO GO? Mark Stoops and his Kentucky Wildcats were annihilated by rival Louisville in the season finale, losing 41-0 to a reeling Cards team that had lost three straight prior to that matchup. I don’t think Kentucky is in a position to actually fire Stoops given how active the coaching market is, but I wonder if he thinks about hanging ‘em up soon.
FRAUDULENT TENNESSEE FINALLY OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND: At long last, our long national nightmare is over. The Tennessee Volunteers finish their season at 8-4 without a single win over a team above .500 and we can only hope that they are finally pushed out of the playoff rankings. Vanderbilt whooped their ass, 45-24, in Neyland after ripping off a 24-3 second half run. I don’t think the Commodores have any shot at the playoff, but they had one of the best seasons in school history and the Clark Lea extension is well-deserved.
THE ACC’S JESTER’S PRIVILEGE
SMU BOWS OUT: Good god, everyone in this league is just fucking allergic to playing winning football. The Mustangs trailed Cal 31-14 on the road one play into the fourth quarter, rallied with a 21-point run to take the lead with barely over two minutes to play, allowed the Golden Bears to march 75 yards in seven plays in barely more than 90 seconds, and missed a game-tying field goal in the final seconds to lose in regulation. SMU’s loss knocks them out of ACC title and playoff contention and opens the door for a much funnier outcome.
AGAINST ALL ODDS, DUKE REMAINS ALIVE: The 7-5 Duke Blue Devils came into the weekend needing help to get to the ACC title game, but SMU gave it to them. Despite being outgained by nearly a hundred yards, Duke secured a three-score win over in-state rival Wake Forest with the Demon Deacons putting the ball on the turf five times and losing three of them (in addition to Robby Ashford throwing a pick). This is not a very good Duke team at all and they will not be favored to win the ACC, but you have to ask yourself if the hand of God is meddling in the conference’s affairs to produce the funniest possible outcome.
VIRGINIA TAKES CARE OF BUSINESS: For all of the funny business we saw from other ACC contenders over the weekend, the Hoos were having none of it. Virginia came out at home, doubled up their rival on yardage, forced two turnovers, controlled the ball for nearly two-thirds of the game, and choked them out to a 27-7 win that was a shutout until garbage time. The Cavaliers have won nine of their last ten games and get a rematch with a Duke team they beat by 17 points on the road just a couple weeks ago. What a season for Tony Elliott.
MIAMI DUNKS ON PITT: For all of the (completely valid) talk about Carson Beck’s elbow being cooked and how much he fell off throughout the season, he was the best version of himself during the Hurricanes’ 38-7 win at Pitt. 23 of Beck’s 29 passing attempts came within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage with an average depth of target of just 5.9 yards on the day, he was accurate, the quick passing game generated 173 yards of YAC, and the offensive line kept him clean. That’s the formula for Miami, in addition to ruining Mason Heintschel’s day and sacking him five times on 18 pressures. The Hurricanes will need some help from the committee to have any shot at the playoff, but this was a very good season finale from them.
NOTRE DAME MIGHT BE IN? The Irish took care of business against Stanford on Saturday night, survived a brief injury scare to Jeremiyah Love (who returned to the game), and finished off their season with ten consecutive wins. They have two losses to top 12 teams by a combined total of four points. Unfortunately for them, one of those losses is head-to-head against another 10-2 team vying for a playoff spot. I am fascinated to see what happens.
BIG 12 REMATCH SET
JALON DANIELS BEEFS IT: Critical mistake after critical mistake was made by sixth-year quarterback Jalon Daniels in his final college game, a 31-21 home loss to Utah. He threw three picks in the game, all in the Utah red zone. An INT early in the fourth quarter where he tried to throw ball away and out of the end zone after an amazing Daniel Hishaw run to set Kansas up for a scoring opportunity was a real gut punch and it led to a 14-point swing. Utah responded with a 4-play, 80-yard touchdown drive to go ahead 17-14. Kansas marched all the way down inside Utah’s 10 again on the following drive with the chance to take the lead back, but Daniels threw a pick six in the flats with his receiver not getting his head around to look for the ball.
The Utes threw the eventual haymaker blow on a 48-yard pass from Devon Dampier to Larry Simmons, sealing the game and ending Kansas’ hopes for an upset and a bowl bid. It felt like a perfect encapsulation of Daniels’ career.
Utah had an ugly end to the season, with back-to-back struggles against the Kansas schools, failing to seize the opportunity to finish with a bang and put on some style points in the playoff at-large conversation. They are also out of the Big 12 championship field, which was set on Friday night, leaving them praying for chaos.
TERRITORIAL CUP KNOCKOUT: Arizona secured an excellent win in the Territorial Cup rivalry on Friday night, forcing five turnovers from the Jeff Sims-led Sun Devils and controlling the ball for more than 40 minutes. Sims accounted for all five turnovers, fumbling twice and throwing picks. That game ended Arizona State’s hopes of appearing in the Big 12 championship game for a back-to-back appearance and booked BYU’s ticket to the conference title game before they even kicked off against BYU.
BIG 12 TITLE GAME IS SET: After those first two results, the Big 12 title game matchup was set before Texas Tech or BYU kicked off on Saturday afternoon. Both still took care of business, however, with the Red Raiders winning 49-0 at West Virginia and BYU eventually pulling away to win 41-21 vs UCF. The first result between these two was far from thrilling, but I think BYU is deserving of a shot in the playoff. They have built an incredibly impressive resume over the last several weeks.
AAC GUARANTEED A PLAYOFF BID
NORTH TEXAS IS IN: The Mean Green punched a ticket to play for the AAC title – and, in all likelihood, the Group of Five’s playoff spot – with a 52-25 win over Temple on Friday afternoon. They kinda took it easy in the second half, allowing 18 of Temple’s 25 points after they had built a 35-7 lead at halftime, but Drew Mestemaker and Caleb Hawkins were as brilliant as we’ve come to expect from the two freshmen. I don’t think anyone in the G5 has a team capable of hanging with the power leagues this year in the playoff, but North Texas would be the most fun to watch try, and I think they’d muster up some threatening drives. It’s a shame that those two stars will likely go with Eric Morris to Oklahoma State or otherwise hit the transfer portal market.
TULANE IS IN: The Green Wave will join North Texas in the AAC title game after an extremely comfortable 27-0 win over Charlotte. Tulane held the 49ers to just 140 yards of offense and more than tripled them up in yardage. Two turnovers in Charlotte territory, a third right around midfield, and a missed field goal kept this score lower than the blowout it truly was, but I don’t think that matters to anyone in New Orleans. The committee has made it clear that Tulane is in the playoff if they beat North Texas. The question now is if Jon Sumrall will coach them as he moves to the Florida job; Bruce Feldman has reported that he’ll be allowed to, but we’ll see.
ALL SET UP FOR ARMY-NAVY: Unfortunately, Navy’s excellent road win at Memphis on Thanksgiving night won’t earn the Midshipmen a berth into the AAC title game, but it was still a banger. Back-to-back wins over Memphis and USF have really impressed me and this was a great season that will culminate in their annual matchup against Army in two weeks.
The Black Knights had an excellent win of their own, snapping UTSA’s 25-game conference home winning streak in San Antonio with a go-ahead touchdown pass in the final three minutes of the contest. The Roadrunners had been a buzzsaw at home all season and this was an excellent result for Army to have some confidence going into that matchup with Navy.
SOUTH FLORIDA FINISHES ON A HIGH NOTE: The Bulls will also be kept out of the AAC title game after losing two road conference games by a field goal each to Memphis and Navy earlier in the season, but they slapped Rice around in a 52-3 win on Saturday night. This was, in all likelihood, Alex Golesh’s final game coaching South Florida as he moves on to Auburn.
MWC – FUCK IT, LET THE COMPUTERS PICK
We were treated to a couple of absolute bangers in the Mountain West on Black Friday.
The final minutes of San Diego State’s double overtime loss at New Mexico felt like a rollercoaster. The Aztecs had a chance for a game-winning field goal in the final minute, but were taken out of field goal range when Jayden Denegal was sacked by New Mexico on a botched handoff that turned into a broken play. New Mexico took the cowardly move off trying to get off the field rather than winning in regulation, but surely felt vindicated when Massillon native Austin Brawly picked off Denegal on the first play of overtime… right up until New Mexico had a turnover of their own and fumbled in a goal-to-go situation on their first overtime possession.
The Lobos ended up sealing the game in double overtime, largely off of the back of an incredible one-handed touchdown catch, but the Friday afternoon affair felt like pure cocaine until that moment.
Boise State also had a banger, closing on a 15-3 run with a touchdown in the final three minutes to complete a comeback victory, 25-24, at Utah State and secure themselves a share of the regular season title alongside San Diego State, New Mexico, and UNLV; the Rebels whooped rival Nevada’s ass on Saturday night.
Unfortunately, the league defaults to various computer power rankings to determine its conference champions, so after this excellent and exciting season, we will be stuck with Boise State hosting UNLV for a conference title because SP+ and “SportSource Analytics” said so.
C-USA BANGERS
The two games that settled the Conference USA title matchup were decided by one score each.
Jacksonville State prevailed at home, 37-34, over Western Kentucky in a matchup where the Gamecocks rushed for more than 300 non-sack yards on the ground. A chip shot field goal as time expired broke the tie and put Jacksonville State over the top, earning them the bid to the conference title game.
Kennesaw State’s finish, a double-overtime victory over Liberty, was even more dramatic. Incredibly, despite featuring three scores in the two overtime periods, there were just seven plays from scrimmage run after regulation. Each of the first three overtime possessions resulted in one-play touchdowns.
The Owls and Gamecocks are both great success stories from recent transition from the FCS to the upper level and I’m excited for their matchup.
TRAVESTY IN THE MAC
The MAC conference title game is set. Western Michigan booked its ticket as the sole leader atop the conference by beating Eastern Michigan, 31-21, in Ypsilanti on Tuesday night and had to wait for Saturday afternoon to learn the Miami of Ohio would join them at Ford Field.
It is an absolute joke that the RedHawks will play for the conference title. They finished at 6-2 in league play, tied for second with Toledo and Ohio. They lost head to head to both, but the MAC’s tiebreaker rules will send them to the championship game due to record against common conference opponents. It is ridiculous and a travesty, but whatever.
SURPRISE-FREE SUN BELT
A ho-hum Saturday in the Sun Belt went about as we expected. James Madison beat the overloving shit out of Coastal Carolina, 59-10, on the road despite having already clinched the Sun Belt East. I’d say they were gunning for style points in the arms race for the Group of Five playoff spot. Maybe that will be two playoff spots if Duke wins the ACC, I’d certainly be interested in seeing it.
Troy won by 10 at Southern Miss, but that’s just a formality to see who gets the opportunity to lose to JMU.
WHAT WILL THE CFP COMMITTEE DO?
The committee has a handful of questions on its hands going into championship weekend:
- How far do you drop Texas A&M after a loss to rival Texas by two scores?
- How do you handle the Notre Dame-Miami head to head result?
- What happens if Duke wins the ACC?
HOW FAR DOES A&M DROP?
I started with this question but I don’t think it really matters, it’s more about the danger it represents for the committee. I would guess that A&M drops to the six spot, Oregon moves up to five, Texas Tech to four, and Georgia to three. You can pull the common opponent card for A&M against LSU, which it blew out on the road, compared to Ole Miss and Oklahoma struggling with the Tigers on the road.
I don’t think you can put A&M ahead of Oregon given Oregon’s superior strength of schedule and power rankings/efficiency numbers (they love that shit) and the way they’ve finished the season with momentum. A&M has the better win (Notre Dame), but Oregon has more quality wins and the better loss (Indiana vs Texas).
Here’s the scary part for the committee: if that’s the move you make, what do you do if Georgia loses the SEC title game? Ohio State and Indiana are both going to be top four seeds and receive playoff byes. If Texas Tech wins the Big 12 championship over BYU, they’ll be getting a bye. Georgia will obviously have one if they win, but what if they don’t? Are you really going to jump Alabama all the way from the ten seed (if they even sit that high, more on that in a second) to a top four seed and a bye for beating Georgia a second time? Would they really leave the SEC out of the top four seeds entirely?
If they were ranking it honestly, I don’t think the SEC would deserve a top four seed if Georgia lost to Alabama. If you put A&M at the five seed, rather than the six, it saves you from the situation by just being able to slide the Aggies into the top four if Georgia loses, but would anyone really believe they deserve it? They haven’t won against a serious football team since September.
If you do stick A&M at six, you might face an apocalypse situation where Georgia and Texas Tech both lose and you’re faced with putting three B1G teams in the bye positions.
I would guess they resolve this by putting A&M at five over Oregon to save themselves from the situation, but I will be fascinated to see how it goes.
HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE MIAMI-NOTRE DAME HEAD-TO-HEAD?
I posted about it on the boards previously, but X user CFBKings posted an interesting statistic with regards to the committee’s handling of head-to-head rankings.
In 2024, there were seven head-to-head results among top 25 teams who finished with the same record. In all seven cases, the H2H winner was ranked ahead of the loser. In last week’s rankings, there were six teams in the top 25 with the same record and a H2H results; only Notre Dame lost the H2H and is ranked ahead of its opponent, Miami.
I dug into previous seasons and found five other examples of the committee ignoring H2H result and placing the loser of a matchup ahead of the winner when the two had the same record. In four of those instances, the lower-ranked H2H winner had lost multiple games in November. Only one of those instances has happened in the last eight years. There has never been a case of the committee leaving a team with a head-to-head win over an opponent with the same record out of a spot in the CFP, only ranking them below them in non-playoff positioning for the top 25.
All that is to say, leaving Miami below Notre Dame in the rankings when neither plays a game for championship weekend would be breaking the decade of precedent we have in the CFP.
So what are we going to do about it?
I don’t think the Irish have such a bulletproof resume that they MUST be in. I think they are one of the 12 best teams in the country by eye test, but USC is their only big win. Miami beat them on the field. Miami beat common opponents Pitt, NC State, and Stanford by wider margins; Notre Dame beat Syracuse by a wider margin, another common opponent. Notre Dame has better losses, but both have two losses by one score each, and how much should “better losses” matter when you have a head to head result? Not very much at all, to me.
I believe that the committee will respect the head-to-head and position Miami ahead of Notre Dame this week. I also don’t believe that the committee wants to leave Notre Dame out of the playoff entirely. How do you square that circle? You can’t do anything with the top seven teams, all of which are one loss or undefeated. You can’t drop Oklahoma below Alabama because of the head-to-head, the Sooners are already in.
That leaves you two spots open for at-large teams if Texas Tech beats BYU in the Big 12 title game and eliminates the Cougars.
So, I think they have to set this up in such a way that Alabama and BYU would be eliminated with losses in their respective conference title game and with Miami ahead of Notre Dame due to head-to-head result. That gives them an out if Alabama loses to Georgia in Atlanta and BYU loses to Texas Tech in whatever podunk Texas town they play in.
If you combine this with my conjecture above on how they’ll handle Texas A&M, this is what the top half of the rankings would look like:
- Ohio State
- Indiana
- Georgia
- Texas Tech
- Texas A&M
- Oregon
- Ole Miss
- Oklahoma
- Miami
- Notre Dame
- Alabama
- BYU
- Vanderbilt
- Utah
- Texas
You set it up so you wouldn’t have to drop or “punish” Alabama or BYU for playing an extra game in the conference championship, so that Notre Dame would be eliminated before Miami, that you can keep both out entirely and avoid the question if BYU and Alabama both win, and you box out Texas from being apart of the conversation, which they don’t want any parts of.
This gives the committee the most offramps to a clean, easy selection without violating any of its own half-baked, usually-but-not-universally applied rules.
WHAT HAPPENS IF DUKE WINS THE ACC?
This one is the most speculative and something I don’t think we’ll get an answer on by Tuesday night. I would guess that the committee is praying to god that the 7-5 Blue Devils just lose to Virginia, like they did earlier in November. But if Duke wins the rematch and finishes at 8-5 with three multi-score losses and two losses to Group of Five teams (Tulane and UConn), how can you possibly put them in the playoff?
If James Madison wins the Sun Belt at 12-1, winning its regular season games by an average of more than 21 points; and Tulane, which beat Duke, or North Texas win the AAC at 11-2 or 12-1, respectively, then how could you possibly sit them behind Duke?
The fact that the five P4 teams ranked between 19 and 23 in the committee’s rankings all lost this weekend means it will be tremendously difficult for them to avoid ranking James Madison and North Texas. It will also cause riots and an existential crisis if the ACC champ is ranked below both the American and Sun Belt champs.
Of course, Virginia could make all of this easy for them, but what if they don’t?