It might have been the first week of the 2015 college football season, but man did it feel like we were back in 2014. The Big Ten struggled in nonconference games against power conference teams and the SEC West looked like it was king of the world again, defeating three ranked or nearly-ranked teams in neutral-site games. Meanwhile, Ohio State was upset by a staunch Virginia Tech defense.
Okay, that last one didn’t happen. But in some ways, that’s the only thing that feels different about this season. Last season, Florida State were the unbeatable world-beaters coming into the year. They struggled against Oklahoma State to open up the season and barely hung on to win that game. That trend continued throughout the year as the Seminoles won close game after close game before finally being blown out in the playoff.
Many were probably expecting a similar trend to start for Ohio State when they fell behind Virginia Tech shortly before halftime. The Buckeyes responded well in the second half, behind an absurd touchdown from Braxton Miller. (Seriously, if you haven’t seen the Vine of his spin move yet, you probably don’t have internet access.) Last year, Florida State almost cracked under the weight of expectations. Ohio State returns a lot more this year than the Seminoles did last year, but we will see how the Buckeyes respond to being prohibitive favorites as the season goes on.
Week 1 CFP Implications: Teams Eliminated from Playoff Contention
We did not put this section in CFP Implications last year because, with no real knowledge or precedent to see how the committee worked, it would have been a bit presumptuous to try and guess who had no real chance of making the playoff. Now, though, we can bring this section (which we had back in the BCS days) to this column. We are going to be very gun-shy on eliminating teams early in the season, but we highly doubt we will ever have to bring back anyone we eliminated. So far, we have eliminated 33 teams, just over 25% of FBS.
AAC: UCF, SMU, Tulane
ACC: None
Big XII: Kansas
Big Ten: None
Conference USA: FIU, Charlotte, Old Dominion, FAU, UTSA, UTEP, Southern Miss
MAC: Only Ball State, Northern Illinois, Ohio, Toledo, and Western Michigan are not yet eliminated
Mountain West: Wyoming, UNLV
Pac 12: Washington State
SEC: None
Sun Belt: Only South Alabama and Appalachian State are not yet eliminated
Back to the SEC, though, which many were concerned was about to experience a drop-off after the vaunted West Division went 2-5 in bowl games last season. Like last year, the conference opened up with a strong showing in Week 1, only dropping one nonconference game (Vanderbilt’s loss to Western Kentucky). The conference as a whole seems strong top-to-bottom so far, with four teams beating Power 5 opponents last week and none of the others, save Vanderbilt, dropping their openers against outmatched opponents. This coming week, though, should really tell us something about the SEC.
Eight teams from the conference will play nonconference games in Week 2. One of them, Tennessee/Oklahoma, is a high-profile game that could show how far the Volunteers have come since this time last year. The other seven are games that we would traditionally call “cupcakes”. However, several of these cupcake games are against teams that are actually decent Group of 5 teams. Toledo, Middle Tennessee State, East Carolina, and maybe even Fresno State are all teams that are expected to be towards the top of their conferences. The SEC teams in question shouldn’t lose any of these games, but how they play and how much these SEC teams control these games will be a good barometer of where these teams stand, especially as these are the games that often get overlooked by power teams and can lead to upsets.
An important caveat to remember when looking at the SEC is what I wrote about last week. The CFP selection committee’s job is to judge the best four teams. So even if the SEC is the best team from top-to-bottom, that doesn’t mean that the champion has a clear path to the playoff. If the SEC champion has more than two losses, they will definitely be on the outside looking in. A 2-loss SEC champion might be in strong consideration against a 1-loss champion from the ACC, Big Ten, or Big XII, but it would definitely be a nervous final weekend for the team in question. So while it will help us get a good read on the season to track conference performance so far, in the end it is the individual teams at the top that will be judged against each other, not the conferences.
The Big Ten, on the other hand, seems to be struggling a bit. There is no shame at all in the losses by Wisconsin or Minnesota, as they played two of the top teams in the country. Michigan and Nebraska played solid opponents and kept the games close. Penn State’s loss was embarrassing, but no more embarrassing than what teams at the bottom of the Pac 12 (Washington State to Portland State) and Big XII (Kansas to North Dakota State) suffered. The Big Ten certainly has a perception issue that it began to improve upon at the end of last year’s bowl season but couldn’t continue into Week 1 this year. But on the whole, it was not much weaker than the ACC and Big XII and probably will not be significantly weaker again this year.
Of course, the perception of weakness at the bottom of the conference doesn’t really matter so much to the Big Ten right now. The conference knows that they have two teams who control their own destinies for the playoffs this year. Ohio State is the near-unanimous #1 and defending national champion. The Buckeyes are basically a lock for the playoff if they don’t lose. Michigan State is coming off a Top 5 finish, started this year in the Top 5, and an undefeated season for the Spartans would include wins over both Oregon and Ohio State. Michigan State is in if they run the table. On top of that, the Big Ten is the conference in the best position to have two teams vie for a playoff spot; if Michigan State can beat Oregon and loses a close one at Ohio State, it will be hard to claim that the Spartans are not one of the country’s four best teams.
Around the country, it is far too early to see who is heading towards a CFP run but we already know who is jockeying for position. Right now, the TCU/Baylor winner looks to be in prime position to get in from the Big XII. If Baylor gets upset again this year, though, we may see a similar situation to last year as the committee might punish the Bears for their lackluster (and that’s a compliment) nonconference schedule. No one in the ACC has separated themselves from the pack yet, but when someone does they will be up there. And the Pac 12 is also probably looking at a playoff spot as long as they don’t have an upset champion, though Arizona State’s loss this week did not help the conference get off to a good start.
Of course, we cannot forget about Notre Dame, who was so impressive in their comprehensive beatdown of Texas this week. And, of course, Boise State and BYU are both on the fringes, waiting for any chance they can to make themselves at least part of the discussion if the power teams slip up. Those two will meet this week in Provo in what might be the biggest game in the Group of 5’s short history.
