Just about the time you are convinced you have a grip on the overall landscape, the college football gods start slapping you around to remind you who is in charge. That was what we got a big dose of Saturday. Last Word On Sports columnist @LastWordLindsay did a great piece this morning breaking down the details of “Snarled Saturday,” and so we will take a look at what we think (not tempting the overlords here), it means going forward. Before we take that leap and try to avoid the conjecture gorge, let’s look at some quick snapshots resulting from Upset Saturday.
- The center of the college football world is now the state of Mississippi. No, seriously, it is.
- While I have been dismissive of the polls in the playoff committee era, we must acknowledge that five of the top eight and 11 of the top 25 teams got beat yesterday.
- It’s the first time since the AP Poll was created in 1934 that five of the top eight lost in the same weekend.
- Nick Saban is now 0-3 against his last three ranked opponents.
- You like the Chaos Theory? Move out west. Yesterday, the home team lost in every Pac-12 conference game. All games involving Pac-12 teams were decided by a touchdown or less. Arizona was a 24 point underdog when it won at Oregon Thursday night. And in case you didn’t stay awake until the near break of dawn in other parts of the country, Washington State QB Connor Halliday set a NCAA record with 734 yards passing…in one game….and his team lost.
Alright, before we find ourselves in a dark room, muttering to ourselves trying to get a grasp of Saturday’s absurdity, let’s try to look ahead for some big picture perspective. Let’s start with getting used to the idea that there is not one dominant team, head and shoulders above the rest.
Florida State is the one team likely to make it through conference unscathed, but the Seminoles have been shaky at times and still have to play a non-conference game against Notre Dame. Perfection is not guaranteed. Let’s adopt the reality that most, if not all, conference champions are going to have one, maybe even two losses and let’s look at the horizon.
ACC; Let’s start here, because the picture is the clearest, comparatively speaking. Florida State is likely to win the Atlantic Division. That puts them in the conference title game against the Coastal Division’s current front runners, either Georgia Tech or Virginia. In week one, people mocked Virginia because UCLA had a tough time beating the Cavaliers. Now Virginia, 2-0 in conference, is probably talking about how UCLA is ruining the Cavaliers’ strength of schedule. Florida State is a distinct possibility to go undefeated in conference, but still has to face Notre Dame and Florida, (don’t laugh), in non-conference games, so overall perfection will be tough. A one loss Florida State team gets into the playoffs. A two loss FSU team? Not so sure. We also include Notre Dame here, with its ACC schedule. The Irish are undefeated and should make the four team playoff, even with no conference title available, if they remain undefeated.
Big Ten; We have mocked the Big Ten for mediocrity this year, and at the end of the day, we may still be right, but hold on to your pop bottles. The race for the Big Ten East has Ohio State and Michigan State sitting atop at 1-0 in conference and 4-1 overall. Sitting just outside that is Penn State at 1-1 in conference and 4-1 overall. All three teams still have to play each other this year. And in the west, the leaders are Northwestern, Minnesota and Iowa. I’m not kidding. Each of them is perfect in conference, but with at least one overall loss and they all still have to play each other as well. With yesterday’s multitude of losses, a very flawed Big Ten champion doesn’t look as bad as it did two weeks ago.
Big 12; Remember that the Big 12 doesn’t actually have 12 teams, so there is no conference championship game. It all gets determined in the here and now. Baylor looks to be sitting pretty. The Bears are 5-0 overall and 2-0 in conference. But that comes with a warning. They have yet to play Oklahoma, TCU, Oklahoma State or Kansas State. In fact, their schedule to this point has been amazingly weak. With the loss to TCU Saturday, Oklahoma dropped from one of the top teams in the country to tied for 5th in the league standings. It’s safe to sit back and wait a few weeks for the Big 12 to iron itself out.
SEC; In the SEC West, Mississipi State, Ole Miss and Auburn are all tied for first. They are all 2-0 in conference and they are all 5-0 overall. Seems like the South is rising again. But the Bulldogs, Rebels and Tigers all still have games against each other, so some standings cannibalism is forthcoming, which means Alabama or A&M could chime in again, even with Saturday’s ugly losses. As an aside, every team in the SEC West has a winning overall record. In the SEC East, Missouri is the only team with an undefeated conference record, but they lost to Indiana at home two weeks, so go figure. Georgia and Florida are both still right there. Yes, Florida, at 2-1 in conference and 3-1 overall. And in case you didn’t notice, Kentucky is 2-1 in conference, 4-1 overall but they lost to Florida already, so are likely out.
Pac 12; There is one undefeated team in the entire conference and it’s Arizona, (2-0, 5-0). The Wildcats control their own path in the South, but still have to play ASU, SC, Utah and UCLA, all of whom are nipping at their paws. Heck, the only team out of it is Colorado. The leader in the North? Cal. Stop and read that again. The Bears, who did not beat a Division 1 school all of last year are 4-1 overall and 2-1 in conference. Heck, their only loss is to Arizona on a last-play-of-the-game Hail Mary two weeks ago. Oregon, Oregon State and Stanford are all there at 1-1, but Stanford is the one team with two overall losses already. So the conference race still has nine teams in it and a Pac 12 champion is going to make the playoff, but running the conference table becomes important now.
So what have we learned? That trying to connect the dots to measure your team’s victories and gauge other team’s losses into your strength of schedule analysis is going to give you vertigo. With the playoff committee relying totally on subjective analysis, and not a computer kicking out strength of schedule data, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and a corporate sponsor for migraine medication is going to be in order for the weekly meetings. If you try to draw conclusions based on yesterday’s upheaval, the result will look like a Rorschach Test picture, (and no the correct answer is not a butterfly or two people kissing). My suggestion is, take a few days to breathe. With so many critical head to head matchups still to take place, let’s take it one week at a time and enjoy the vista. See you Thursday for this week’s preview.
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