Five of the AP top 8 teams lost this week. 11 out of the top 25. It was a week of insanity and awesome football from the very start Thursday night (Who even remembers the crazy ending to the Houston/UCF game now?) until the very end of Washington State/Cal. It was both the games and the results that make this sport so exciting. Now, though, as we turn the page to Sunday, we need to reflect back on what effect all those crazy results will have on the national picture.
Week 6 CFP Implications
The first thing we need to do is get over some of our BCS mentalities. In the BCS era, a loss doomed a team. As soon as a team lost that first game, they were waiting on the sidelines until all of the teams in front of them lost, and then it could start all over. That’s not so true now. One loss is not the end of the season.
Oregon’s loss hurts a little, but overall it probably does not affect them so much. Because their loss was to a cross-divisional opponent, they still completely control their own destiny in the Pac 12. If Oregon wins their next 8 games, they will be 12-1 and Pac 12 champions. Teams like Alabama, though, that lost in-division games, need teams in front of them in their division race to lose before they can think conference championship again. Of course, a team that doesn’t win its division or conference can still be a top 4 team (as I detailed here), but conference champions will feel a lot safer.
Now, a 12-1 Pac 12 champion is not the same as a 13-0 Pac 12 champion. The latter is a lock to be one of the four teams in the College Football Playoff. The former is almost a lock, but not quite a guarantee. Still, Oregon is in a relatively safe position. Last week they knew that if they won out, they were in. Now they know if they win out, they’re almost definitely in. Losses in the CFP era certainly mean something different than under the BCS, that’s for sure.
This brings us to our second point that insanity has to teach us. Every year, we get up at the beginning of the season and take a look at who the best teams are and assume they won’t lose. There are many reasons for that. On one level, we want to see elite teams. On another level, predicting upsets takes guts–and they’re called upsets for a reason. They don’t happen often. So it’s not worth it for the media to put their reputations on the line for something unlikely.
But the fact is, going undefeated in a major college football conference is quite difficult. College football has never seen five major conference champions go undefeated. If we look to recent historyin the BCS era, the #4 team has always had a loss. Sometimes, even, the #4 team could have two losses. Big conferences play strong football and beat each other up. It’s how this sport works.
It’s nice to wonder what happens if everyone runs the table. Also, there are just way too many scenarios to discuss what happens when everyone loses. I have said it before, but the only real way to properly describe the CFP race is an in-depth look at every remaining teams’ chances and scenarios each week. That’s just not feasible–for writers, readers, television commentators, and viewers. But we have to keep in mind that the chances of numerous teams ending up undefeated are very low. In fact, that chances of the top 1-loss teams winning every game from here on out is also very low.
It’s still too early in the season to discuss in-depth scenarios. As I said above, there are just way too many of them at this point. We can begin to establish a pecking order of who will be in if they win out, but I think we should wait one or two more weeks before actually discussing it, because there are way too many variables still changing every week.
I do want to get to one scenario though. I have mentioned in the past that a 12-1 Florida State with a loss to Notre Dame probably will not look so appealing to the committee relative to most other 1-loss teams. The opposite scenario, though, will be a nightmare for every team in the Big XII, Pac 12, and Big Ten. An 11-1 Notre Dame with their schedule (and the loss being at Florida State) is a very attractive option. They would probably have a better resume than a 1-loss champion from any of the aforementioned conferences unless Oregon runs the table from here. A 13-0 Florida State is impossible to leave out. If Florida State runs the table and Notre Dame’s only loss is on the road to the Seminoles (in a relatively close game), that is probably two CFP spots locked up right there.
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