The most important thing we can learn from the College Football Playoff committee this December is exactly how much conference titles matter to its members.
How much do conference titles matter to the College Football Playoff? 2016 can show us
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Remember that the Playoff’s rules were drawn up in the aftermath of the unpopular 2011 season’s BCS Championship, which gave Alabama a second shot at undefeated LSU. The committee’s first listed criteria is conference championships won, along with strength of schedule and head-to-head records. In its two years, only conference champs have made it in, without any non-champs as legit contenders.
Can Louisville make it in, despite being stuck behind Clemson in the ACC Atlantic standings? Same for Ohio State, if it doesn’t get the tiebreaker help it needs to reach the Big Ten Championship? Either would be the first non-champ to make a Playoff.
And what about undefeated MAC leader Western Michigan? No mid-major came close to making it in either 2014 or 2015, but none was undefeated.
For any of those three, it’s gonna take a whole lot of destruction elsewhere, if we assume the committee will exhaust its list of conference-champion options first.
Break it down by tiers.
Tier I: potentially undefeated Power 5 conference champs
1. Alabama
Bama could rest its starters and second-stringers in the Iron Bowl, win the SEC Championship, and be guaranteed to make it in.
Tier II: potential one-loss Power 5 champs
2. Michigan/a Big Ten champion Ohio State
4. Clemson
5. Washington
6. West Virginia
Clemson and Michigan are win-and-in. So is Ohio State, if the Buckeyes get tiebreaker help.
UW and WVU aren’t guarantees, seeing as there are only four spots. The Huskies could have a 13th game, the Pac-12 Championship, in which to pad the resume and/or perhaps avenge their loss to USC, while WVU won’t. So UW has to rank higher in this tier.
Tier ?: potential two-loss Power 5 champs
7. A big pile of Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Penn State, Utah, Washington State, and Wisconsin.
I’m not certain the committee would elevate some of these teams from the teens and 20s all the way into the top four in the course of three weeks, but where else would you rank, say, an 11-2 SEC champion that had beaten Alabama, Florida State, and LSU to close the season? Hypothetically. Ain’t gonna happen. Hypothetically.
Tier ??: contenders without Power 5 championships
16: One-loss Louisville, which can’t win the ACC unless Clemson loses to Wake Forest, a one-loss Ohio State that doesn’t win the Big Ten, and currently undefeated Western Michigan, which can only win a mid-major conference.
If four Power 5 conferences have one-loss champions, it’s hard to picture the committee elevating these teams. But we don’t know for sure that an 11-1 OSU, 11-1 Louisville, and 13-0 WMU would all finish behind two-loss Power 5 champs.
If they did, we’d suspect conference title bumps are big enough to cancel out losses.
If they didn’t, we’d theorize that conference titles are essentially tiebreakers, rather than requirements.
And as we saw last weekend, college football provides chaos. (Some potential developments, like WVU losing to Oklahoma this weekend or Washington losing again, wouldn’t even count as chaos.)
No team is ever a sure bet over the course of multiple games. Somebody in that Tier II group is going to lose a game, in addition to the Michigan-Ohio State game already on the schedule.
Here’s a slightly different way of looking at it:
Ranking playoff likelihood (not best teams):
— David Hale (@DavidHaleESPN) November 13, 2016
1 Bama
2 Clem
3 Mich
4 Wash
5 Wisc
6 Penn St
7 Oh St
8 Lou
9 Okla
10 WVU
11 Colo
12 Fla
Wisconsin’s higher than Ohio State here, for example, because the Badgers have a clearer path to the Big Ten title game.
Elsewhere!
Did some new bowl projections! I have Louisville in the Playoff, but will revise somewhat after Tuesday night’s rankings.
I say again, that was the first time since 1985 that Nos. 2, 3, and 4 all lost on the same day, and Jim Harbaugh lost at Iowa both times.
For the second week in a row, Will Muschamp had a heartfelt moment on the field that’ll give you warm vibes.
Colorado has won the Mannequin Challenge by having its live bison mascot participate.
Ole Miss is freshman QB Shea Patterson’s team now ... and LOL lots of folks are mad on the internet about him, for various reasons.
Weekend recap podcasts by the Shutdown Fullcast, Podcast Ain’t Played Nobody, and the Solid Verbal! The first one is total trash!
Week 12’s opening lines: a couple big games, and a bunch of big spreads. Big spreads mean big upsets!
WMU is hosting GameDay for the first time ever. This is good.
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