No. 4 Michigan State’s impressive win over then-No. 7 Oregon will go down as one of this season’s defining moments in conference pride. The Big Ten lost this game last year, and that severely hurt the conference’s reputation until bowl season, when Ohio State won the national title and Michigan State beat Baylor in a wild Cotton Bowl.
If any conference can get 2 College Football Playoff bids, it’s probably the Big Ten
It’s going to take a special scenario for one conference to get two teams in. Michigan State beating Oregon presents one such potential scenario.
The Big Ten isn’t going to be called a top conference any time soon. But it’s difficult to dispute that the conference has two of the best teams in the country. And it might have two of the four best teams in the country; the AP Poll agrees.
That sounds good from a conference pride perspective, but it’s even more important in the eyes of the College Football Playoff. Because if the season ended today, the Big Ten would surely have two teams in.
No, the season does not end today, but here’s a scenario: if Michigan State ends up with only one loss and that loss being to No. 1 Ohio State, it will have put itself in better position to make the Playoff than most one-loss teams would. The Spartans already have what might end up being the best non-conference win of anybody in the country. Potential wins over Nebraska and Michigan could also turn out to be valuable.
That’s not a murderer’s row, but half of the battle is how you look. If MSU is able to handle its schedule easily — that is to say, not do what Florida State did last year — then lose to Ohio State close in Columbus, it could have a legitimate case for being No. 4.
Who would've made the Playoff ...
One big argument against MSU getting the No. 4 seed in this scenario — other than MSU’s lack of a committee-favored conference championship — would be that the committee would not want a rematch of a No. 1 Ohio State and a No. 4 Michigan State.
But remember last year, when many assumed the committee would alter Florida State’s seed in order to send FSU to the nearby New Orleans semifinal against Alabama and thus preserve a traditional Big Ten vs. Pac-12 Rose Bowl semifinal? Instead, the committee sent the Seminoles to Pasadena, with the rankings mattering more than the matchups.
Furthermore, if MSU were to lose close to OSU in Columbus, what’s to say the Spartans couldn’t win a rematch on a neutral field?
The biggest variable here, besides MSU actually finishing 11-1, is who else could emerge with a case for No. 4. Let’s say the top three spots go to Ohio State, the SEC champion and another power-conference champion.
- The SEC and Pac-12 will likely have beaten themselves up; in Year 1, their second-ranked teams were No. 7 and No. 10 in the committee’s final pre-bowl rankings, respectively. The Spartans ranked between them after losing two games, rather than just one.
- Specifically, a one-loss SEC West non-champ would have a worse loss than MSU’s in this scenario, and would likely not have a comparable non-conference win. It would have to hope its overall schedule would be considered tougher.
- An unbeaten non-power-conference champion will have a tough case no matter what, but winning a league would give it one argument over this version of MSU.
- A one-loss conference champ like Baylor, Clemson, FSU, or TCU would be in the mix, and then we’d certainly learn something about how the committee values conference titles.
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