College Football Playoff Rankings: Biggest Takeaways from Week 7

Week 7 lived up to its billing. Has there been a better week all season?

It started with Stanford's rout of UCLA on Thursday. That led to Utah State's demolition of Boise State on Friday. And that led to a Saturday featuring three top-15 matchups, including one—an in-state rivalry that doubled as ESPN's College GameDay matchup—with the craziest finish of the year and arguably the decade.

That game and others sharpened the focus on the College Football Playoff picture. The first batch of rankings is due Nov. 3, and from there, the field will be set before we know it.

Here are three major takeaways from Week 7.

Michigan State Won't Die

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You could take Spencer Hall's famous game story from Auburn's "Kick Six" two years ago, rework a couple of key pronouns and use it to recap Michigan State's Week 7 win.

"You should be dead, MSU, because we saw you die. And here you are, breathing in the flesh, able to say you made the Michigan Wolverines fumble-punt the winning touchdown for you."

Despite out-gaining Michigan by 156 yards, MSU appeared to have lost after turning the ball over on downs. The Wolverines ran the clock down to 10 seconds, at which point all they needed was to punt the ball away, avoid unthinkable catastrophe and celebrate.

But then the unthinkable happened, catastrophically:

"I couldn't believe it," Spartans head coach Mark Dantonio told ESPN's Todd McShay. "I thought we were gonna fall on [the fumble], maybe have a chance for a kick...[but] we scooped it."

The win advances Sparty to 7-0 and keeps it alive in the playoff race. It just earned a quality road win against its biggest rival—a team that should finish in the Top 25 or 20—and will likely be favored in four of its remaining five games.

That one game where it won't be favored, Nov. 21 at Ohio State, is in some ways like playing with house money. If MSU pulls the upset, it will vault to No. 1 in the polls and stay there as long as it remains undefeated. But even if it loses, it would stand a strong chance of going 11-1 with its only loss on the road against the defending national champion.

The Spartans are significantly flawed—last year's Cotton Bowl champions and 2013's Rose Bowl champions were better overall than the current squad—but they have star power to answer for lacking depth, and they appear to have destiny on their side.

Never mess with the team aligned with destiny.

Long Live the SEC Doomsday Scenario

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It's hard to fathom a scenario in which the SEC, college football's golden conference, does not get a team into the playoff.

But there is one. It's unlikely, but it exists. And on Saturday, the first major domino fell.

Namely, Ole Miss lost at Memphis, 37-24. The Tigers are undefeated, but they're still in the AAC. That's not a game a playoff contender loses.

But because that loss came out of conference, Ole Miss still controls its SEC fate. It beat what appears to be the best team in the conference, Alabama, earlier this season, so it owns the division tiebreaker. If it wins out, it makes the SEC title game.

And therein lies the SEC's nightmare: Ole Miss wins out and claims the SEC championship but still has a blowout loss at Florida and a convincing loss at Memphis on its resume. How could the committee put the Rebels into the playoff?

At the same time, how could it put Alabama, which lost to the Rebels in Tuscaloosa, into the playoff over them? Even if the Tide finish 11-1.

On top of that, how could it put either of those teams into the playoff over Memphis, which could well finish the year undefeated. It doesn't want to add an AAC team over the SEC champion, but if the AAC team has a 13-0 record, the SEC champion has an 11-2 record and the former beat the latter head-to-head?

What other option would it have?

Either Utah, Stanford or Notre Dame Will Make the Playoff

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Too declarative? So what. The way Week 7 unfolded, combined with how the schedule shapes up from here, greatly increased the chance that either Utah, Stanford or Notre Dame will crack the final four.

The thread that binds them together is Stanford, which on Thursday destroyed UCLA, 56-35. The Cardinal host Notre Dame in the regular-season finale, and before that, their only road games come at Washington State and Colorado. They could well reach that game with one loss, as could the Irish, who beat USC in Week 7 and do not play a team in the Top 20 until the Cardinal.

If Notre Dame wins that game—assuming it avoids reasonable upset bids at Temple and Pittsburgh—it will land at 11-1 with its only loss a close one in the rain at Clemson. That's a playoff resume.

If Stanford wins that game—assuming it holds home field against Washington, Oregon and Cal—it will land at 11-1 and enter the Pac-12 Championship Game needing just one more win for a playoff resume.

There, it will almost certainly meet Utah, which outscored Arizona State, 20-0, in the fourth quarter of a 34-18 win Saturday. The Utes hold a one-game lead and tiebreaker over the Sun Devils, a one-game lead over Arizona and no less than a two-game lead over the rest of the Pac-12 South. Even if they drop one game along the way, they will be one win over (likely) Stanford away from a one-loss Pac-12 champ. That's a playoff resume.

The Cardinal, Irish and Utes cleared hurdles this week against UCLA, USC and Arizona State, respectively. None of those teams is amazing, but all three pose reasonable tests. At this point, barring something unforeseen, one of these three will crash the national semis.

Which one do you think it will be?