We are 52 days away from the first game of the new 12-team College Football Playoff kicking off on ABC on a primetime Friday 8:00 PM ET time slot. We are only a week away from the first College Football Playoff top 25 rankings being released next week on Tuesday, November 5th at 7 PM ET on ESPN. Once the rankings are released we’ll have a clearer picture of the post-season.
Today, we’ll walk through what the 12-team playoff has a chance to look like as we come down the home stretch of 2024.
ACC
Championship Game Projection: Miami (8-0, 4-0) vs. Clemson (6-1, 5-0)
In the Hunt: SMU (7-1, 4-0), Pittsburgh (7-0, 3-0), Virginia Tech (5-3, 3-1)
Small Chance: Louisville (5-3, 3-2)
Circle of Competition:
Week 10: Louisville at Clemson, Pittsburgh at SMU
Week 11: Clemson at Virginia Tech
Week 12: Clemson at Pittsburgh
Week 13: Pittsburgh at Louisville
Week 14: N/A
Well, Miami is sitting pretty heading into the last month. They don’t have to face Clemson, SMU, or Pittsburgh during this regular season and have already defeated Virginia Tech and Louisville.
Clemson control their destiny in a way but clearly have the toughest schedule to deal with moving forward. I think we can pencil in Miami for the ACC Championship Game appearance with the Sharpie marker ready nearby. If Louisville and SMU win this weekend, get ready for some chaos in the ACC.
Big 12
Championship Game Projection: Iowa State (7-0, 4-0) vs. BYU (8-0, 5-0)
In the Hunt: Kansas State (7-1, 4-1), Colorado (6-2, 4-1)
Circle of Competition:
Week 10: N/A
Week 11: N/A
Week 12: N/A
Week 13: N/A
Week 14: Kansas State at Iowa State
If there’s going to be any fun down the stretch in the Big 12 it’ll have to come from several upsets. The likes of Utah, Arizona State, Kansas, and Oklahoma State might have to inject some chaos into this league down the stretch. Like in the ACC above, the top two Big 12 teams slotted for the league title game at this moment don’t play each other in the regular season. Which means, if Kansas State is 10-1 and Iowa State is 11-0 for Farmageddon a win for the Wildcats gets them in the Big 12 Championship.
Big Ten
Championship Game Projection: Indiana (8-0, 5-0) vs. Oregon (8-0, 5-0)
In the Hunt: Penn State (7-0, 4-0), Ohio State (6-1, 3-1)
Circle of Competition:
Week 10: Ohio State at Penn State
Week 11: N/A
Week 12: N/A
Week 13: Indiana at Ohio State
Week 14: N/A
Oregon doesn’t have a super easy road remaining (road games at Michigan and Wisconsin will provide some challenge) but the Ducks are sitting pretty for now. Ohio State really controls their own destiny and will get to drop both Indiana and Penn State from the league unbeaten crew. This is a surprising lack of intriguing matchups for the Big Ten which maybe helps their overall playoff chances but as we’ll see below is going to put 1 or 2 of their teams on the chopping block if things don’t fall just right.
SEC
Championship Game Projection: Texas A&M (7-1, 5-0) vs. Georgia (6-1, 4-1)
In the Hunt: Texas (7-1, 3-1), Tennessee (6-1, 3-1), LSU (6-2, 3-1)
Small Chance: Alabama (6-2, 3-2), Ole Miss (6-2, 3-2)
Circle of Competition:
Week 10: N/A
Week 11: Georgia at Ole Miss, Alabama at LSU
Week 12: Tennessee at Georgia
Week 13: N/A
Week 14: Texas at Texas A&M
You’d think with all these teams still in the race for the SEC crown we’d have a bunch of great games heading our way and we…just don’t. Georgia might be the favorite to take the league (and maybe another National Championship) but they have the toughest schedule remaining. Alabama and LSU is typically a huge game and it might not matter that much this year.
The Last Conference Champion Auto-Bid
#15 Boise State (6-1, 3-0)
#21 Army (7-0, 6-0)
#27 Memphis (7-1, 3-1)
#28 Tulane (6-2, 4-0)
#29 Navy (6-1, 4-0)
#33 Louisiana (6-1, 3-0)
Liberty (5-1, 3-1)
I’ve added the current AP rankings above. With their terrible loss to Kennesaw State this past weekend, I think we can scratch Liberty off the list. Their schedule just isn’t good enough and nothing down the stretch in the Conference USA is going to help them jump these other 6 teams.
Notably, Army does not play Tulane in the regular season and Navy does in a few weeks. Also, Army does not play Memphis either while Navy beat the Tigers already. Memphis travels to Tulane to close out the regular season which could have big implications.
We’re also staring at an AAC Championship game between Army-Navy on December 8th with the winner maybe being the 5th auto-bid into the playoffs that night by the committee while the teams turn right around the next week and face each other (because tradition) in which the previous week’s winner would still make the playoffs even if they lost their final game in the rivalry. What a sport. Now that they are both in the AAC, why not start the entire college football season with this rivalry?
Don’t sleep on the Cajun boys.Â
Keep an eye on Louisiana, in my CFB 25 dynasty the Ragin’ Cajuns snuck into the playoffs after there was a lot of carnage among the other playoff hopefuls when favorites in the AAC, Conference USA, and Mountain West all lost their league title games.
What about Washington State?
The Cougars are up to #22 in the AP Poll this week and will be treated as an independent by the playoff committee–meaning they cannot go further than 5th overall in their rankings. I don’t think Washington State will have enough juice to get in with a loss to Boise State already and a fairly pedestrian run-in finish of Utah State, New Mexico, Oregon State, and Wyoming.
Where Does Notre Dame Fit?
Let’s walk through the following scenario:
In the ACC, all 3 of Miami, Clemson, and SMU win out. Neither faced each other in the regular season and I believe we’d have to go to the 4th level of tie-breakers (best winning percentage of league opponents) to determine the league title game participants. For our scenario, undefeated Miami is upset by Clemson in the ACC Championship.
There’s a path where undefeated Miami (and maybe no. 1 in the nation) doesn’t make the ACC Championship Game.Â
Kansas State beats Iowa State in the regular season finale and then upsets BYU in the Big 12 title game.
Ohio State runs the table and upsets Oregon in a re-match during the Big Ten title game. Neither Penn State nor Indiana falters again down the stretch.
Georgia wins out, so does Texas (beating A&M in the regular season finale), and Alabama beats LSU. The Dawgs beat Texas for the 2nd time in 2024 to win the SEC. Our first-round byes would probably look like this:
#1 Ohio State (12-1, Big Ten Champion)
#2 Georgia (12-1, SEC Champion)
#3 Clemson (12-1, ACC Champion)
#4 Kansas State (12-1, Big 12 Champion)
That would leave the 13 following teams for the remaining 7 at-large spots for the playoffs:
12-1 Oregon (likely no. 1 team prior to losing the Big Ten title game to Ohio State)
12-1 Miami (lost ACC title game to Clemson)
12-1 BYU (lost Big 12 title game to Kansas State)
11-1 SMU (lost to BYU and lost ACC title game tie-breakers)
11-1 Iowa State (perfect regular season ruined in the finale, no Big 12 title game appearance)
11-1 Notre Dame (lost to Northern Illinois)
11-1 Penn State (lost to Ohio State)
11-1 Indiana (lost to Ohio State)
11-2 Texas (lost twice to Georgia)
10-2 Texas A&M (lost to Notre Dame and Texas)
10-2 Tennessee (lost to Georgia and Arkansas)
10-2 Alabama (lost to Vanderbilt and Tennessee)
10-2 Pittsburgh (lost to SMU and Clemson)
In this Armageddon scenario I don’t think any 2 loss teams are getting in (although Texas coming off a big win over A&M and being the only P4 team to make their conference title game and still not get into the playoffs with their only losses to Georgia would be something to ponder) but one team with just 1-loss would have to be left out. Who would it be?
Also, think of the rankings leading up to the playoffs. Texas is 6th in the AP right now and if they finish 11-1 with a win over Texas A&M in the regular season finale, they will likely be no worse than 5th (and probably a spot or 2 higher) in that future CFP rankings leading into the SEC Championship. Would the committee drop Texas, after losing to Georgia in the SEC Championship, behind 7 to 9 teams and miss the playoffs altogether? My gut feeling is no, that will not happen. If so, then another 1-loss team like Indiana, Penn State, Iowa State, SMU, or maybe even Notre Dame would be on the chopping block.
What if Texas only loses games to Georgia, twice?
Heck, what about Texas A&M? If they beat Texas to move to 11-1 surely the Aggies will jump Notre Dame in the rankings and be top 5-ish heading into the SEC Championship. If they go on to lose in Atlanta, would A&M completely drop out of the playoff picture?
Of course, I am painting a pretty drastic picture overall. Above we have no undefeated teams but an amazing 12 programs with 1-loss on their resume. Last year, we had only 7 teams who were unbeaten or carried 1 loss. The year prior in 2022 we had just 4(!) of these teams. The odds seem likely that at least one team each from the Power 4 conferences finish with more losses than above, but the scheduling this year really does seem watered down within conference play and we could be hoping for some big, big upsets not currently on the radar.
At 11-1, can the Irish secure a home playoff game?
It could be so close. I’ll be interested to see where the committee ranks both Army and Navy next week. Can these military academies get to December 8th having only lost to Notre Dame? That (plus A&M getting to the SEC Championship) could go a long way to securing one of the seeds 5th through 8th.
In the Armageddon scenario I think it’s pretty easy to leave out Indiana. Their best wins would be over either a 7-5 Nebraska or 7-5 Michigan.
ND’s problem going into the first playoff ranking is that the committee has, in the past, valued ESPN’s SOR metric second most in their deliberation, far above any third place consideration (obviously first is whether FSU’s starting QB might be questionable a month later); and SOR is dramatically unimpressed by the academies. While winning 3 games in by a combined 131-34 the last 3 weeks ND has moved exactly zero spots from number 15 in SOR.
If the Armageddon scenario above were to happen, and ESPN’s SOR metric is taken into consideration, I think it is SMU on the outside looking in. Current SOR: ND 15 SMU 19 SOS: ND 60 SMU 77 Remaining SOS: ND 49 SMU 55.
I think Pitt beats SMU this weekend in a close one on the road. Pitt then loses to Clemson on 11/16 and Louisville in a bounce back game on 11/23. SMU and Pitt are both eliminated from contention.
ACC championship is Clemson vs Miami, Miami wins, they are potentially the only ACC team in, Clemson wins, Miami and Clemson are both in.
Tangential: I often find it odd when commentators think they’re being very deep and thoughtful in saying “we don’t know what the committee is going to do.” Yes, that is literally true, but for the last decade you could fairly reliably use SOR as a proxy for the rankings and be pretty close.
And, honestly, that’s a pretty appropriate ranking system in the sense that it values winning rather than pure metrics/Vegas odds rankings, but also doesn’t go overboard and necessarily treat an 11-1 MAC team as better than a 9-3 SEC team.
RE: the likelihood of Armageddon hitting… I was playing around with SP+ win probabilities for the remaining games for the AP top 15 yesterday. Going by that, only Ohio State (62%), Miami (59%), and Oregon (52%) have a better than even chance of winning all their remaining regular season games. (ND is just behind them at 49%, if you’re wondering.)
That’s not factoring in conference championship games, which of course will dramatically decrease the win-out chances for everyone – all the most likely matchups are pretty much toss-ups, and even the ones that aren’t are in the neighborhood of 60/40.
It’s exceedingly unlikely. Even if you just take the best win-out bet from each of the P4 conferences – which would be Ohio State, Miami, Georgia, and believe it or not, BYU – and assume a coin-flip matchup in their conference title game, you get a 0.1% chance of the four of them all winning out.
I’m pretty sure carnage will happen. I have no idea who will be responsible for it.
Hopefully not Army, USC, Virginia or FSU.
This is how I feel. I think we’re going to be just fine as long as ND wins out and I’m expecting more and more upsets. It’s reminding me of 2012 when everyone was worried that ND would be frozen out of the NC for then a weekend of chaos to catapult them into #1.
And unfortunately knocked K State out, leaving us the Death Star to contend with.
“Yes! Oregon lost!”
Two hours later: “KSU lost too?? Sigh.”
Yeah, that was it exactly. It’s an interesting speculation as to how KSU as our opponent in the Natty might have changed BK. Let’s assume we would have beat them, which I firmly believe, even despite Manti’s then-secret issues with catfishing. Then BK’s third year becomes that of the Rock, Leahy, Ara, Dan, and Lou — instead of what we then saw, namely he can’t win the big ones. Could that somehow have helped BK rise above his limited self?
That’s true, but also there is a bit of a mythos at least on the 247 message board that K State losing that game cost ND a title. As counterevidence, I present the 2012 F+ rankings: https://www.bcftoys.com/2012-fplus
I still don’t think it’s fully appreciated how lucky (and not particularly elite) the 2012 team was. It was fun to watch and experience, but 2012 ND was not particularly close to being one of the best teams in the country that year.
I think we had decent odds of beating KSU.
Far better odds than beating Bama. Baylor and Oregon whacked KSU at the end of the year. Bama beat ND getting off the bus.
I think ND loses to any of the potential opponents because Manti was totally out of it. I remember watching the Bama game and thinking in live time that he was not the same. (I know Bama was better but he just looked lost.) And then a week later we found out why.
Depending on your definition of “decent”, I agree – we had maybe a 1/3 chance of beating KSU, versus effectively no chance of beating Bama. But on the 247 board at least it is just assumed we would have beaten KSU, which is… against available evidence.
Also amusingly F+ indicates this year’s team is distinctly better than the 2012 team.
For decent, I meant “not Bama” odds.
I’m not 100% clear how to interpret F+, but it seems to suggest we’d be 3-point underdogs, which seems right.
With all due respect to the F+ ratings (btw thanks for teeing them up) and even given Manti was secretly out of it (I was in the Orange Bowl for the Bama game and did see in person what Andy alludes to) — my gut and my jillion years of watching the Lads tells me that we would have taken KSU. Yeah the 2012 team was lucky at times, but they had something special. And I think KSU would’ve had that deer in the headlights look, I’m with tlndma on this one.
I tend to agree with this, the strength of their team was the versatility of Collin Klein. I think our defense had a good chance of keeping their offense from putting up big points in the “bend don’t break” Diaco era.