Is there a real favorite to win the National Championship?

Another week of college football and it's less clear to me than ever which teams are built to win the new expanded playoffs.

This is a good year to have an expanded playoff because it’s hard to tell which teams in the country are actually built to win one.

One of the common refrains of the “we don’t need no stinkin playoffs!” crew is that the top two (maybe four but usually not even that many) teams are obvious and that a playoff just deludes the product at the expense of the regular season.

Which two teams are the obvious top dogs?

Georgia followed up their dismantling of the Texas offense by losing on the road to Ole Miss 28-10. Texas rebounded from that disaster by demolishing Florida 49-17. Alabama torched Baton Rouge to the ground 42-13. Who are the top two teams? Ohio State who barely beat Penn State again and Oregon? You want to make the case that Tennessee is the clear top dog of the SEC with Georgia looming? Who is the top squad in the SEC?

Is the Big 10 elite better than the SEC this season? Or just feasting on easier scheduling? It’s not obvious and instead appears as though a lot of this is matchup-specific. Some teams match up well with others and the team that gets the most favorable draw, not even in terms of ranked opponents but matchups, may be the eventual champion. It’s possible there won’t be much clarity for me about which team has the best chance until we see the final bracket.

Here’s how the last weekend added to the confusion.