I don't expect teams to be punished much other than amongst themselves based on the conference championship games.
1 and 2 are going to be locks between PSU/Oregon/Texas/Georgia. There's a sizable gap in the rankings between Georgia and Penn State, so I expect Georgia to get the 2 if they win, Oregon to get the 1 if they win.
The losers of these games will likely get the 5 and 6, unless Georgia loses, which you can slide up Notre Dame.
Those 2 games *should* decide 5 seeds completely.
| Oregon | Penn State | |
| Georgia | 1) Oregon 2) Georgia 5) Texas 6) Penn State 7) ND | 1) Penn State 2) Georgia 5) Oregon 6) Texas 7) Notre Dame |
| Texas | 1) Oregon 2) Texas 5) Penn State 6) Notre Dame 7) Georgia | 1) Texas 2) Penn State 5) Oregon 6) Notre Dame 7) Georgia |
3/4/12 get decided by these games:
| SMU | Clemson | |
| Boise | 3) SMU 4) Boise 12) ISU/ASU | 3) Boise 4) ISU/ASU 12) Clemson |
| UNLV | 3) SMU 4) ISU/ASU 12) UNLV | 3) ISU/ASU 4) Clemson 12) UNLV |
That leaves 8/9/10/11 on the table for the rest of the teams. You have potentially:
8) Ohio State (don't see any way they move up or down)
9) Tennessee (also locked in)
10) Indiana (either SMU wins and gets the 3, or they lose and are a bubble/out)
11) SMU (a 11-2 SMU could sneak ahead of Bama) or Alabama if SMU wins
Ohio State's possible paths:
- Should most likely be Tennessee to start at Ohio Stadium
- Then Oregon, Penn State or Texas. I'd prefer PSU, then Texas, then Oregon in this spot. We should root for Penn State in the B18 championship game.
- Likely the 5 seed. We want the weakest 5 seed possible in this case, but Oregon will be locked in the 5 if they lose, but we get Penn State/Texas otherwise. In this case prefer Penn State, so root for Texas to win the SEC.
The one curveball that could happen is if the committee knocks Georgia down below us if they lose and pick up a 3rd L. In that case, we move to a 7 and Georgia probably falls no further than an 8, especially since they beat Tennessee.
In that scenario we face the 10, which is likely Indiana. The best realistic matchup since we can't draw the 12.
Then we face the #2 seed. This would be Texas or Penn State. Would prefer Penn State here. Then it's the 3/6/11 winner, which likely would be Notre Dame. Followed by the championship game.
So pretty much all scenarios are to root for Texas and Penn State this weekend. Either we move ahead of Georgia and get a path through Indiana/PSU/Notre Dame, or we stay behind them and get Tennessee/Texas/Oregon.
The latter being a harder path for sure, but not terrible. The former being about as easy as it could get for us.
