Last Tuesday, we wrote about the chaos ensuing in the Big 12.
Saturday, chaos engulfed the entire country, with top teams in the SEC and Big Ten alike suffering losses to unranked foes. That makes the 12-team College Football Playoff picture much murkier, but also means the race for the postseason could be far more interesting in the season’s second half. In the Group of Five, two teams in one conference are the heavy favorites to earn the CFP bid, one of which is led by a Heisman Trophy contender.
As we’ve done every Tuesday throughout the season, we’re taking a look at the weekly CFP outlook based on the results available to us at the time. At the end of the article, we’ll also make our own best guess at what the playoff could look like. For now, here’s what it would look like if we went off the Associated Press Top 25 Poll.
If the Week 7 AP Poll seeded the 12-team Playoff:
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) October 6, 2024
NEW! Clemson
Back: Ole Miss
Out: Mizzou, Michigan pic.twitter.com/oUoLSsdTmL
Before we get to our projections, here’s a conference-by-conference breakdown of who could be in contention for a CFP spot. As you’d expect, the categories and schools in them are subjective. In case you need a reminder, the 12-team CFP format is five conference champions (including one Group of Five team) and seven at-large selections.
Big Ten
Conference contenders: Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State
Path is there for an at-large berth: Indiana
Likely need to win out to make the playoff: Michigan, USC, Iowa
Darkhorses: Rutgers, Nebraska, Illinois
Breakdown: We’ll find out how Ohio State and Oregon match up this weekend. The winner of that game instantly takes the driver's seat to the Big Ten title game. Meanwhile, Penn State faces a stiff test of its own against USC, which is in desperation mode following a disastrous loss to the Gophers.
Indiana is already bowl-eligible and now gets an off week to prepare for a loaded second-half schedule. The Hoosiers face Nebraska, Washington, Michigan and Ohio State and need to win at least two of those three games assuming they take down Michigan State and Purdue.
Like USC, Michigan and Iowa both likely need to win out to keep at-large berth hopes alive. Of those trio, the Hawkeyes have the best path to do so.
Nebraska’s hopes start with its matchup against Indiana in two weeks, because if it can’t win that one, the CFP dreams pretty much die with a road game against OSU looming. If Rutgers can win all the remaining games it will be favored in, it’ll have to at least split contests between Illinois and USC. Illinois has Michigan, Oregon and Rutgers left on its schedule and will have to win two out of those three games to be considered for an at-large berth assuming it holds serve elsewhere.
SEC
Driver’s seat for conference championship appearance: Texas, Texas A&M
Teams still very much alive in the playoff race: Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia
This week will reveal a lot: Ole Miss, LSU
Darkhorse: Missouri
Breakdown: Two top-five teams going down to unranked foes really made a mess in the SEC.
Texas is the lone undefeated team left in the league. Games against Oklahoma, Georgia and Texas A&M are far from sure things, but the Longhorns have the roster to at least win two out of three and probably secure a spot in the SEC title game.
Another team that has a favorable road to the conference title game? Texas A&M. That seems wild considering how flat the Aggies looked against Notre Dame in the season opener, but following a dismantling of Missouri, Texas A&M is undefeated in SEC play. The Aggies’ toughest remaining two contests are LSU and Texas, and both of those will be played in College Station. There’s a legit path to an SEC title game appearance here.
Who knows what to make of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. Each of them will be tested at least one more time the rest of the season and already have a conference loss. But all of those squads have the talent to win the remainder of their games as well.
Ole Miss vs. LSU could very well be an elimination game this week and it’s sure to have no lack of entertainment value.
It’s hard to think of Missouri as a legit playoff contender at all following that humiliating loss, but the Tigers’ only remaining daunting game is a road matchup against Alabama. Who knows if going 10-2 would be enough to get an at-large berth, but they definitely can’t slip up in addition to that game.
ACC
Conference contenders: Miami, Clemson
Darkhorse conference contender: SMU
Darkest of darkhoses: Pittsburgh, Louisville, Syracuse
Breakdown: Call Miami the Cardiac Canes following two late rallies against average ACC foes (with maybe a little help from some ACC officials). Undefeated is undefeated until further notice, but you never know what you’re going to get with those guys.
Week 1 blowout loss to Georgia aside, Clemson has had no issue handling bottom- to mid-tier ACC foes so far.
SMU had a massive upset victory against Louisville and will likely be favored in all of its remaining games. This is college football so that doesn’t mean there can’t be upsets, but don’t count out the Mustangs’ ACC title game appearance chances.
Louisville’s loss to SMU makes its matchup against Clemson on Nov. 2 is a must-win. It wouldn’t hurt if the Tigers, SMU or Miami randomly collapsed either.
Pittsburgh doesn’t have to face Miami or Clemson in its conference schedule, and its most crucial games come against Syracuse and SMU later in the season. Syracuse already has an ACC title loss on its resume so it’ll need to be near perfect from here on out, but that Miami game to end the regular season doesn’t look quite as daunting as it did a few weeks ago.
Big 12
Probably the favorite?: Iowa State
We’re all throwing at darts in this league so here’s teams that have at least a puncher’s chance of making the Big 12 title game: Utah, Kansas State, BYU, Colorado, Texas Tech, West Virginia
Breakdown: This conference is a mess, man. But a beautiful mess.
Kansas State and Colorado is probably the game of the week in this league, and we surely didn’t envision typing that a few weeks ago. Utah still has a major Cam Rising question that we’re not sure is ever going to be answered.
Iowa State is probably the most likely team of the bunch to make a Big 12 title appearance, but it would be surprising if anyone in this league made it unscathed in conference play, so there’s some room for error. West Virginia is probably the least likely to make it to the title game of the group mentioned here, but the Mountaineers are still undefeated in conference play so far.
Group of Five
Teams who could earn the G5 spot: Boise State, UNLV, Liberty, Memphis, Toledo, James Madison, Navy, Army
Breakdown: I’ve included as many teams as I have to represent several Group of Five conferences, but I think we need to be honest here.
This is shaping up to be a Boise State vs. UNLV case for a playoff spot, barring another loss by either of them or Army or Navy finishing undefeated. The Broncos and Runnin’ Rebels have the most respect nationally from the Group of Five teams, especially Boise State with Heisman frontrunner Ashton Jeanty. Liberty could finish undefeated, but there would be no win of consequence on that schedule.
Army and Navy could make things interesting, mostly because both of them eventually play Notre Dame, which would really boost their resume if either could eke out a win.
Notre Dame
The Fighting Irish’s scenario seems pretty much the same to me. Win out and get in. Lose once, it’s gonna be tough. But with more chaos, a 10-2 Notre Dame playoff team becomes more possible.
Playoff prediction
For our playoff predictions, we’re going to combine the results available to us and our own projections for how the rest of the season could play out.
Conference champs
- No. 1 Ohio State
- No. 2 Texas
- No. 3 Miami
- No. 4 Iowa State
First round
- No. 5 Oregon vs. No. 12 Boise State (winner faces Iowa State)
- No. 6 Penn State vs. No. 11 Texas A&M (winner faces Miami)
- No. 7 Georgia vs. No. 10 Notre Dame (winner faces Texas)
- No. 8 Alabama vs. No. 9 Tennessee (winner faces Ohio State)
First teams out
- Indiana
- Ole Miss
- SMU
- Clemson
- BYU
Breakdown
Predicting the playoff bracket after the chaos that ensued last weekend is not for the faint of heart. I went into this exercise thinking I’d have things play out one way, but they went in an entirely different direction once I projected each team’s wins and losses in the remaining schedule. It also broke my heart to leave the projected 10-2 Hoosiers off the list as the first team out. I don’t want to live in that reality, either.
As a general rule, don’t worry, if you don’t like where the projected playoff bracket is at, wait a week, it’ll probably change.
Anyhow, I have both Texas and Ohio State running the table, earning the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds. OSU would get the No. 1 seed because it would have road wins over the No. 5 and No. 6 teams in the 12-team field.
Miami gets the third seed after edging out SMU (yes, not Clemson) in the ACC title game. Iowa State still is probably the safest bet to win the Big 12 and Boise State gets the default No. 12 seed and wins the Group of Five berth.
I’m expecting Penn State and Oregon to win each of their remaining non-Ohio State games, leading to first-round home games. Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee each get in with all three going 10-2 but not making the SEC title game. The team that did that in this projection is Texas A&M with a 7-1 conference record; I’m guessing the committee is not going to punish an SEC team for playing in the conference title game and losing, but we’ll see.
Notre Dame is an inclusion I’m not fond of considering the Fighting Irish lost to a mediocre Northern Illinois team, but winning out seems to be an easier prospect for the Fighting Irish now that USC looks more mortal than before. Even if they slip up once, if you put in Texas A&M, you probably have to put in Notre Dame too because it beat the Aggies Week 1.
Indiana is the first team left out at 10-2, because the Hoosiers’ best win would likely be two of three of a less-than-stellar Michigan team, an above .500 but not spectacular Nebraska squad and a Washington team we’re not quite sure what to make of yet. The SEC got five teams in here but isn’t getting a sixth, so sorry 10-2 Ole Miss. SMU and Clemson will have nice records with two losses each in this scenario, but neither will have a signature win needed to get in. The Big 12 screams one-bid league, so apologies to conference runner-up BYU.
