College Football Playoff Scenarios (Week 6)
It didn’t take long for the entire college football landscape to get flipped upside down. Whoever had five weeks on the over/under nailed it. Top teams fell all across the country; upsets were plentiful. While just within the last couple weeks it appeared as though some top teams would suffer greatly by barely beating inferior foes, now just slipping out with a victory of any kind looks satisfactory.
The Cream of the Crop:
Baylor (4-0): Baylor’s demolishing of Texas Tech was a thing of beauty. The Bears may be the best team in college football right now. Of course, it’s hard to know how emotionally spent Texas Tech was coming off of that demoralizing defeat to TCU the previous week.
Utah (4-0): Jared Goff and Cal are up next for Utah in one of the bigger games of October in the Pac-12.
Ohio State (5-0): Nothing has appeared easy for Ohio State, yet it continues to win its ballgames. That is more than can be said for many of its peers at the top of the standings. OSU continues to play no one of import for another month and a half. The Buckeyes just have to hold on.
Michigan State (5-0): Sparty’s close win over Oregon doesn’t seem as great anymore. Michigan State has a big showdown with Michigan in a couple weeks. Is it possible the Spartans have been looking way ahead and not concentrating on current opponents?
TCU (5-0): Beating Texas 50-7 is fun; it doesn’t really mean much though.
Alabama (4-1): Alabama looks slightly better than the remaining undefeated squads around the country. If you want to make Bama’s case, the loss to Ole Miss could be written off as fluky. We will find out more soon enough though as the Crimson Tide plays five pretty tough games in a row starting this weekend.
On the Outside Looking In:
Mississippi (4-1): Now the Alabama win seems even flukier than it did at the time after that tipped Hail Mary touchdown. Ole Miss got walloped by Florida. Strength of schedule keeps Ole Miss in the conversation as it has a number of big games still remaining.
Notre Dame (4-1): Notre Dame is in a similar spot to Ole Miss. It has one loss to a good opponent but still has the opponents coming up to improve its resume. However, Notre Dame lacks the quality win that the Rebels have and lacks the ability to win a conference title. The Irish are in trouble.
UCLA (4-1): The Pac-12 is loaded. The Bruins came off of a dismantling of Arizona only to get handled by Arizona State the following week. With four more top-25 teams remaining on their schedule, it’s too soon to say the Bruins are anything other than in the mix.
All Intents and Purposes:
Georgia (4-1): Picking Georgia to lose to Alabama wasn’t brain surgery. Expecting the Bulldogs to get trounced was another story. As the first quality opponent UGA has played this season, it was alarming how inept its offense looked outside of a long Nick Chubb run after the outcome had been decided. The other, bigger problem for Georgia is its schedule. It somehow landed what now looks like the easiest SEC schedule possible, nearly free of resume-building opportunities. The Bulldogs can’t totally be excluded completely, but they are officially in the territory of needing to win out and win the conference championship. No other options remain.
