Big Ten's Nightmare Opens Door for 2 SEC Teams in College Football Playoff

With Michigan State traveling to Oregon in Week 2, it was already a certainty that at least one College Football Playoff contender would exit the weekend with an uphill battle to make the inaugural four-team postseason event.

We didn't know, however, that an entire conference would be fighting that same battle.

Michigan fell to Notre Dame and was shut out for the first time since 1984. Ohio State got run out of its own building by previously unranked Virginia Tech.

Nebraska "scored" a last-minute win over McNeese State, Purdue and Northwestern lost at home to MAC teams and Iowa needed 14 fourth-quarter points to top Ball State.

It was one of the darkest days in Big Ten history.

My colleague Adam Kramer called it "The Death of the Big Ten."

OK, it's not literally dead.

It will play games in Week 3 and beyond. Sad, depressing and somewhat meaningless games, but games nonetheless. In terms of the CFP, the Big Ten is on life support.

That means the door is open for the SEC to sneak a second team into the CFP. The SEC Logo wouldn't mind that:

Of the four Big Ten teams in the new Amway Coaches Poll, three already have losses, and the fourth—Nebraska—has been far from impressive.

Jay LaPrete/Associated Press

A one-loss SEC champ would certainly get the benefit of the doubt over any of those teams. A one-loss SEC team without the SEC title would almost certainly get the benefit of the doubt over any of those teams.

A two-loss SEC team with or without a conference title could make a case if the selection committee sticks to its "four best teams" mantra, which, as I've written before, is easier said than done.

That's a huge development not just for the SEC, but for the entire country.

An entire conference is now fighting an uphill battle in Week 2 in the win-loss column and in the arena of public perception, which is even more of an issue now than it was in the old BCS system. 

It's a beauty contest, and the Big Ten didn't even make it to the pageant. 

SEC Network's Paul Finebaum added to the misery:

One of the selection committee's stated points of emphasis is conference championships, and some members of the committee will place more importance on that than others. Will that cancel out the perception problem?

The margin for error for the Big Ten is razor-thin right now, and there's still 12 weeks of football to be played.

January 1, 2011 was one of the darkest days in Big Ten history, when the conference went "0-for-New Year's." The silver lining that day was that each of those teams got to turn the page for the new season the moment the wheels went up from their respective bowl sites.

Big Ten teams are going to be forced to live with Saturday's stumbles for the next three months, which could open the door for a second SEC team to crash the playoff party.

Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and video analyst for Bleacher Report and co-host of the CFB Hangover on Bleacher Report Radio (Sundays 9-11 a.m. ET) on Sirius 93, XM 208.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats are courtesy of CFBStats.com, and all recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.