Championship week and the playoff picture
You want to know who's going to the College Football Playoffs? The teams who win the conference championships...
You know what’s going to determine who goes to the playoffs? Here’s a hint, it’s not this week’s playoff rankings.
How about all these Championship games taking place this week? Between the SEC, Pac-12, Big 12, ACC, and Big 10 Championships you’re going to end up with your four playoff contestants based on who wins these regional titles.
Or, in accordance with my region-based method of predictions, there are four main regions and each will get somewhere between 0-2 teams in.
The Midwest region (essentially the Big 10 plus Notre Dame)
The South east (SEC East and ACC)
The SEC West
The West (Pac-12 and Big 12)
In the preseason my guesses went:
Southeast: Georgia and Florida State
Midwest: Michigan
West: USC
With LSU and Texas the next two in followed by Ohio State and Washington. There’s a chance I go 3-for-4 here although at this point I bet it’s more like 2-for-4.
At this point the Midwest is going to get Michigan in or no one. The committee has Ohio State ranked pretty high, probably to justify inserting the popular Buckeyes into the playoffs if necessary based on losses and issues elsewhere (let’s say Florida State, Michigan, and Texas all lose). That’s not gonna happen tho and Michigan would still probably get in ahead of ‘em.
The southeast will get at least one team in, I suspect, and potentially two if both Georgia and Florida State win. The ‘Noles are out with a loss.
The SEC West will get a team in (Alabama) probably only at the expense of Georgia should the Bulldogs lose the SEC title. A one-loss Texas vs one-loss Georgia for playoff admittance would be a nasty debate but Georgia has no case outside of “we’re the two-time defending champions and we look good!” They just don’t have a lot of premier wins and the point of comparison, Alabama, would go to Texas.
This all leaves between one or two spots for the West. I think the Pac-12 Champ is basically locked in and then Texas gets in if someone ahead of them loses their conference title and the Longhorns beat Oklahoma State.
Pretty simple.
Which leads us to the real question. Who’s going to win these conference championship?
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