College Pigskin, Week 14

Ohio State played themselves out of the Big 10 championship game, but will still make the 12-team playoff.

Tulane played themselves out of a long-long-shot playoff possibility.

Miami played themselves out of the ACC championship game, but still clung to some hope to make the playoff. (They need to be ranked above Alabama and South Carolina AND they need SMU to win next week.)

Eleven of the twelve playoff spots are now secure

The top four teams from the Big 10 (Oregon, Penn State, Indiana, Ohio State)
The top three teams from the SEC (Georgia, Texas, Tennessee)
Notre Dame
The Mountain West champion (Boise or UNLV)
The Big 12 champion (Arizona State or Iowa State)
The ACC champion (SMU or Clemson)

The twelfth spot will probably go to one of the above: SMU, if they lose the ACC championship; Miami, if SMU wins the ACC championship; or a fourth SEC team (either Alabama or South Carolina). The twelfth playoff spot will come down to committee rankings. If the committee ranks Alabama or South Carolina above Miami, the Hurricanes will have no path into the playoff.

What else will be up to the committee:

1. Between the three winners of the lesser conferences, two of them will get a first round bye and the other will get a lowly 12th seed. That’s a huge difference. That vast drop-off depends on the committee’s rankings, and it could hinge on a single place in the national rankings. At this moment, it appears that the Big 12 champion will be the odd man out, but upset wins in the other two championships could make it a committee coin flip.

2. Between Indiana, Ohio State and Tennessee, one will probably get a first-round home game and the other two will play on the road. That big call will hinge entirely on the committee’s rankings. (The other three home games will probably go to the SEC championship loser, the Big 10 championship loser, and Notre Dame.)

Scoreboard

Oddities:

If UNLV should somehow prevail in the Mountain West championship game, it would be the shocker of the year and make them the ultimate Cinderella team in the playoff. They would get the 12th seed and would be underdogs by some two or three touchdowns on the road against one of the following: Notre Dame, the loser of the Big 10 championship, or the loser of the SEC championship (depending on the precise rankings awarded to those three teams by the committee).

Kent State state did it! They managed to be the worst offensive FBS team in the nation by a one-point margin. They scored 167 points in their 12 losses, while Houston scored 168 (and somehow managed to win four games). The Golden Flashes were the worst defensive team by a mile, allowing 44 points per game. (Average game: 14 for, 44 against.) If we were to base the ranking on yardage rather than points, they still took last place on both sides of the ball (233 for, 516 against) and no team came within 15 YPG in either metric.

There have been many things to celebrate this year, but one thing will bring a tear of sadness to all of us who love college football and its traditions. This graphic sums it all up:

Will there ever be a normal Pac-10 or 12 again? Dunno. As of now there will be a Seven Pac in 2026 with the addition of five Mountain West teams, including a minor powerhouse in Boise State. That hasn’t fixed their problem. They need at least one more school in order to be recognized as an FBS conference, and even more important, they need a broadcast deal to pay the bills.

Moreover, poaching those members created another problem by reducing the Mountain West to 7 teams, thereby placing them below the minimum. That left two conferences hunting for members.