Irish throw a wrench in playoff picture
Georgia knocked out; BYU takes a big step; Oregon wins opener

Notre Dame has thrown the race for the College Football Playoff into a state of chaos. There is a chance that the Fighting Irish already have the resume to be selected (assuming they win their final four regular season games) even if Clemson exacts revenge in the ACC Championship Game.

SEC

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Contender(s): Alabama

Perfect run needed: Florida and Texas A&M

Eliminated: Georgia, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Auburn, Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi State, and Ole Miss

Florida threw a hefty knock out punch to Georgia this past weekend and for the first time since 2016, the Bulldogs are eliminated from the playoff race prior to the SEC Championship Game. The Gators will face former starter Feleipe Franks on Saturday.

Texas A&M didn’t mess around with a South Carolina team which, contrary to what you’d believe based on their last two performances, has played well at times this season.  The Aggies will be a pain to any team looking to sneak into the playoffs. Texas A&M just needs to worry about itself and take care of business in winnable games against Tennessee, Ole Miss, LSU, and Auburn.

Alabama should get a hefty dose of revenge on Saturday against LSU. The Tide appear to be on a collision course with the Gators for the SEC’s top playoff spot.

This Week:

• #5 Texas A&M at Tennessee
• #1 Alabama at LSU
• Arkansas at #6 Florida

ACC

Three-Team (or More) Tie
Three-team (or more) tiebreaker procedure will be used to break all ties to identify the Championship game representative. Once a team is eliminated from the tie, the tiebreaker procedures restart for the remaining teams. If the three-team (or more) tie can be reduced to two teams, the two-team tiebreaker format will then be applied).

1. Combined head-to-head win percentage among the tied teams.

2. Head-to-head competition versus the team within the conference with the best overall conference win percentage and proceeding through the conference. Multiple ties within the conference will be broken first to last, using the league’s tiebreaker policies.

3. Combined win percentage versus all common conference opponents.

4. Win percentage versus common conference opponents based upon their order of finish (overall conference win percentage) and proceeding through other common conference opponents based upon their conference order of finish.

5. The tied team with the higher ranking by the Team Rating Score metric provided by SportSource Analytics following the conclusion of regular season games.

6. The representative shall be chosen by a draw as administered by the Commissioner or Commissioner’s designee.

Note: Conference games against otherwise postseason ineligible teams will always be counted in the league standings and in application of the tie breaker policies.

The chances of the ACC earning two playoff spots went up after the Notre Dame upset.

• #2 Notre Dame at Boston College
• #9 Miami at Virginia Tech
• Clemson- BYE

Big XII

Eliminated: Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Iowa State, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU, and Kansas.

Big Ten

Contender(s): Ohio State and Indiana

Still Alive but Not Likely: Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Purdue

Eliminated: Michigan, Rutgers, Maryland, Michigan State, Penn State, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska.

Laughing at my inclusion of Indiana in the contender column?

It wasn’t easy for me, but I had to slide the Hoosiers into the contender column as a reward for wins over both Penn State and Michigan. Tom Allen is doing things that folks around Bloomington haven’t seen since 1987. Indiana may carry pretender status on a national level, but they should move to 4-0 after a win against Michigan State this weekend. Up in two weeks: a trip to Ohio State.

Northwestern picked up a win at home against Nebraska to advance to 3-0. The sudden rise at Maryland makes the Wildcats’ 45-3 victory look more interesting, but I need to see the Cats knock out Wisconsin in two weeks before promoting Northwestern to contender status.

Wisconsin and Purdue each remain unbeaten. The Badgers have been dealing with a similar wide-ranging  COVID outbreak that plagued the Gators last month. Both teams are technically still in the race thanks to a goose-egg in the loss column.

Ohio State handled a tricky Rutgers team with ease. The Bucks travel to a suddenly resurgent Maryland next week and look to have a clear run toward an 8-0 record.

Pac-12

Contender(s): Oregon

So, you’re saying there’s chance?: Washington, USC, Utah, Cal, Washington State, Arizona, and Colorado

Eliminated: Oregon State, Stanford, Arizona State, and UCLA

One loss is all that’s needed to eliminate a team from any conference that chose to only play seven or eight games.

That means bye, bye Oregon State, Stanford, Arizona State, and UCLA.

Utah-Arizona and Washington-Cal were both cancelled due to COVID.

Oregon put up a 21-ponit margin of victory, but it looks prettier on the scoreboard than it was on the field. The Ducks used a balanced attack in the run/pass game to take the pressure off new QB Tyler Shough. The Cardinal missed four field goals along the way as Oregon remains the top threat to make the playoff out of the Pac-12.

USC was outplayed by Arizona State and needed a miracle finish that included an onside kick recovery  to eek out a 28-27 win. Washington State and Colorado each racked up victories for their first-year head coaches.

Group of Five

American Athletic Conference

The Bearcats continue to build an impressive resume with another blowout win against a top-tier AAC opponent. This weekend’s 38-10 demolition of Houston was a nice follow-up to the 49-10 win over Memphis and the 42-13 beatdown of SMU two weeks ago. Cincinnati will be tested next week in a trip to UCF.

Independent

Over the last two weeks, I’ve laid out the case for BYU to the playoff. The Cougars traveled up to the blue turf in Boise and spanked the Broncos in front of a national television audience on Friday night.

The offense was explosive and the defense sent one quarterback to the sideline and then made the backup’s life miserable.

This is a playoff quality team, but unfortunately, a Notre Dame upset over Clemson may ultimately doom the Cougars playoff chances.

• Unbeaten Pac-12 Champ (best shot – Oregon).
• Cincinnati knocked off Memphis and could ride a better strength of schedule to sneak in ahead of BYU.
• Wild-card #1 – a one-loss Texas A&M; if the Aggies go 9-1
• Wild card #2 – ACC gets two teams into the College Football Playoff

Last week, BYU football reporter Jay Drew of the Deseret News joined my co-host Robert Parker and I on the American Football Stories podcast to discuss BYU’s playoff chances.

This Week: (Group of Five):

Acknowledgements, but no need to expand upon

•  7-0 Liberty (Independent) – Nice win over Va Tech! Plays Coastal Carolina on December 5.
• 6-0 Marshall (C-USA) – Winnable final stretch of games.
• 6-0 Coastal Carolina (Sun Belt) – The Chanticleers keep rolling with a 23-6 win over South Alabama; App State in two weeks.

My College Football Playoff Picture

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