CFP Chaos

Depending on who you root for, or if you want the playoff discussions to be simple, you’ll hope for some of the teams in division championship contention to knock each other out, or someone to fall apart at the wrong time. This is a pivotal week because a top-10 team has lost in the debut-week of the CFP rankings each of the 9 prior years of the CFP system, and especially if one team has lost one conference game and another one hasn’t, the breakdown is made easier if the gap is widened.

As of now, however, entire CFP picture is as wide open as the water on Earth, because of a multitude of teams being in contention. Alabama currently has one loss, both Michigan and Ohio State are undefeated, and Oregon’s only loss is to Washington. Louisville only has one loss as well, and Florida State is one of the other unbeaten teams. Assuming only Power 5 teams qualify for the CFP again, there are nearly 10 teams in contention still for the four spots, especially if they all had 1 loss or fewer after November 27. Needless to say, would be predicated on Michigan and Ohio State remaining undefeated entering their game, and the top teams from the projected championship matchups in the other four Power 5 conferences remaining with 1 or 0 losses.

Alabama could beat Georgia at season’s end and both UGA and Alabama have 1 loss, one of Michigan / OSU have one loss, the Big 12 conference champ has one loss, Louisville beats Florida State and each have 1 loss, and Oregon beats Washington a second time so each team has one loss. The conference champions here would be Alabama, winner of Michigan/OSU, Louisville, winner of Texas/Oklahoma II, and Oregon. Georgia would be 12-1, the loser of Michigan/OSU is 11-1, Florida State is 12-1, and Washington is also 12-1. To me, the sure-fire entrants here are Alabama, Oregon, and an undefeated Big Ten champion. By virtue of record, I’d think this Big Ten champion is the top seed in the playoff.

2022 was the second straight year that two teams from the same conference got into the CFP, and in both years, one team beat the other en route to their conference title and the other was a 1-loss team. While 2017 was the first time, Alabama lost head-to-head to Auburn and Auburn lost to Georgia and Alabama got in despite losing to Auburn because Auburn didn’t pay it off with a conference title, and I do believe Auburn would have been in as a two-loss conference champion if they had won instead of Georgia. The point here is that I can’t be miffed if Alabama gets in and Texas is left out should they lose another game in advance of the selection of the final four. On the other hand, it would be unfair if Texas finishes as a 1-loss conference champion along with Alabama and Alabama is in without Texas. So, if Alabama is going to be in as a conference champion, Texas as a conference champion has to be in too. Otherwise the system and committee need a major overhaul.

The SEC has had multiple opportunities to get a two-loss team into the playoff and failed to capitalize. Auburn in 2017 was the first one, followed by LSU in 2018, and LSU again in 2022. Even the Big Ten had one as well with Wisconsin in 2016, though Wisconsin had a more difficult case to build. In 2018, LSU was ranked 7 in the final week of the regular season, and that day, 4th ranked Michigan had lost, and the following week, 4th-ranked Georgia lost as well. I do believe that year that if LSU had been a 10-2 team instead of 9-3, that they would have had room to move up because of the teams ahead of them falling, and they would have been compared to only Oklahoma for that spot. In 2022, LSU was ranked 5 in the final week before falling to Texas A&M, where that was their own doing. Needless to say, plenty has to go right for a two-loss team to get into the 4-team playoff. But we will see plenty of them in the 12-team playoff starting next season.