Alabama is the best team in college football, and maybe the best team in a generation of college football.
Clemson is fantastic, and is the second best team in college football. A Crimson Tide/Tigers clash in the playoff for a fourth straight year is not going to surprise anyone.
Notre Dame is 10-0 and will make the playoff assuming the Irish can handle Syracuse and USC, two average teams.
That leaves one final spot for the playoff. Ohio State and Michigan are both 9-1 and will play in two weeks. The Buckeyes and Wolverines face Maryland and Indiana this week, so they should be 10-1 as they enter The Big Game for the final week of the regular season. The winner will have the inside track for that 4th spot, assuming they can handle Big 10 West division winner Northwestern in Indianapolis.
The Big 12 also has a pair of 1-loss teams in 9-1 Oklahoma and 8-1 West Virginia (due to Hurricane Florence, the West Virginia game against N.C. State was canceled). Michigan’s one loss was in South Bend, a better loss than Oklahoma’s neutral site loss to Texas. Oklahoma has arguably faced a tougher schedule and it will only get tougher: the Sooners will have to face West Virginia in Morgantown, and then possibly a rematch with West Virginia (or Iowa State) in the Big 12 title game. There seems to be no momentum for the Committee to vault a 12-1 Oklahoma over a 12-1 Michigan, but I suppose it’s at least on the table.
But both the Big 10 and Big 12 will have the possibility of a 1-loss champion, which will lead to some interesting debates for the final spot. My hunch is that the Committee would rank the 1-loss teams in the following order:
1. Michigan
2. Oklahoma
3. Ohio State
4. West Virginia
5. Washington State
Below are the single game results from week 10. As always thanks to Dr. Peter R. Wolfe for providing the weekly game logs.
And here are the updated season standings. Yes, Alabama is ridiculous.
Right now, on a neutral field, Alabama would be:
— 6-point favorites against Clemson
— 9-point favorites against Georgia
— 9.5 point favorites against Michigan
— 16-point favorites against Notre Dame
— 22-point favorites against UCF
— 54.5 point favorites against The Citadel, Alabama’s opponent this weekend (that’s based on The Citadel’s 23.5 SRS rating; there actually is no point spread on the game).