What Must Happen for Each Remaining Contender to Make the CFB Playoff
And then there were eight.
Maybe.
The final days of the college football regular season—conference championship weekend and Selection Sunday—will cut the list of national title contenders in half, down to the second-ever final four for the College Football Playoff.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Some chaotic scenarios were ruled out in the last few weeks, but there's still time for upsets and upheaval among the top teams in the country. A few teams are outsiders in the playoff chase, including the one that conquered the first playoff last season.
What is each team rooting for this weekend in the race to find out who's in and who's out?
Here are the playoff scenarios for each of the eight contenders heading into Week 14, with insights and analysis from college football writers here at Bleacher Report and elsewhere.
Clemson: Beat North Carolina
North Carolina: Beat Clemson and grab the committee's attention
As the No. 1 team in the country—a spot it's held in the selection committee rankings since the initial list was released ahead of Week 10—Clemson has a straightforward path to the College Football Playoff.
If the Tigers defeat North Carolina in the ACC Championship Game this weekend, they'll be in the final four. Clemson would most likely retain the No. 1 seed, too, barring any more surprises from the committee.
The intriguing scenario for Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium would be an upset win by the one-loss Tar Heels. North Carolina, which lost to what turned out to be an abysmal South Carolina team in the same stadium back in Week 1, is only a six-point underdog to the Tigers this weekend, per Odds Shark.
The Tar Heels would grab one of the best possible wins for the committee to consider if they knocked off undefeated Clemson. They would also have a conference championship, another key part of the selection committee's criteria, and several appealing wins in a long streak.
"If you look at our body of work the rest of the season and running off 11 straight games and the games on the road from Georgia Tech to a short week against Pitt, which was ranked at the time, to playing in Blacksburg when everyone in the country wanted Frank Beamer to win that game, we found ways to do it," UNC head coach Larry Fedora said, per Jared Shanker of ESPN.com.
The Tar Heels, however, would have to gain a lot of respect from the committee between now and then. North Carolina was not included in the first set of rankings and stood at No. 14 heading into last weekend's action. Part of its problem is that it played two FCS teams this season—though not by original design—which weighed down its strength of schedule.
But if the Tar Heels, armed with a big-play offense and a much-improved defense, knocked off Clemson, it would force the committee to make a tough decision.
Would it set a dangerous precedent by taking Ohio State, a one-loss non-champion from a conference that will already have another playoff team, over a one-loss Power Five champion? Would it consider taking two-loss Stanford?
A win over a consistent No. 1 team like Clemson should carry a ton of weight in the final playoff discussion. All North Carolina can do is pull off the upset and hope for the best.
Alabama: Beat Florida
Just like Clemson, the path is clear for Alabama. The Crimson Tide overcame an early-season loss to Ole Miss to rise high in the eyes of the playoff committee.
Alabama was No. 4 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings and knocked off then-No. 2 LSU the next weekend. The Tide took the Tigers' spot, and they've been there ever since.
Now Alabama will look to claim its third SEC championship in four years Saturday in the Georgia Dome against Florida, which no longer has a shot at the playoff after an ugly 27-2 loss to rival Florida State in the Swamp on Saturday.
With the way these two teams are trending, the Tide are expected to dispatch the Gators by a decent margin. Alabama opened as a 17-point favorite, per Odds Shark.
If the Tide take care of business, they will keep their eyes on what Clemson does against North Carolina. Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee noted Saturday that there's a push for Alabama to take the top spot in Tuesday night's fresh batch of rankings.
"Being the team playing its best football right now is not the same as being the team that deserves to be ranked No. 1," Sallee wrote. "You could make the case that Alabama is playing the best football in the country at the moment, but it does not deserve to be ranked No. 1."
In terms of getting into the final four, Alabama is simply one win away from making a return to the playoff. Nick Saban's team is in control.
Oklahoma: Don't fold the program between now and Sunday
As if the Alabama scenario wasn't easy enough to write, let's briefly touch on Oklahoma:
Congratulations, Sooners. Your rout of in-state rival Oklahoma State gave you an outright Big 12 championship. And since you were the committee's No. 3 team heading into Week 13, you became the first squad to lock down a playoff spot.
Now all you and head coach Bob Stoops have to do is survive the next few days without doing anything that would result in the swift and brutal execution of the program by the NCAA or bring about the apocalypse.
If you can make it to Sunday, you'll be in the College Football Playoff. Enjoy watching the other contenders sweat things out.
(P.S. Good thing the whole not-having-a-conference-title-game-to-determine-an-outright-champion thing worked out for you this time, Big 12.)
Iowa: Beat Michigan State
Michigan State: Beat Iowa
The calendar is about to flip to December, and the Iowa Hawkeyes are still undefeated.
Even better, head coach Kirk Ferentz's surprising national-title contender is about to play in a Big Ten Championship Game that will serve as an unofficial play-in game for the College Football Playoff.
This unbeaten Iowa team will have its hands full Saturday against one-loss Michigan State, which jumped Notre Dame last week to put itself in prime position for a playoff berth. The Spartans routed Penn State on Saturday to punch their ticket to the Big Ten title game.
Iowa was No. 4 and Michigan State was No. 5 in the playoff rankings last week, and the three teams ahead of them took care of business. Barring any confusing shakeups, a playoff spot will be determined in Indianapolis on Saturday night.
"[Iowa's] resume lacks quality wins, but there's no way it misses the playoff at 13-0," Bleacher Report's Brian Leigh wrote Saturday. "If the Hawkeyes beat Michigan State, they are going to the playoff. There's no two ways about it."
Iowa could get that quality win against the Spartans.
But with where the committee has placed these teams, neither needs this win to boost its resume. The Big Ten title game will be the icing on the cake of a playoff berth.
Stanford: Beat USC and hope for an upset
Stanford's last-second win over Notre Dame on the Farm on Saturday night served two purposes. It knocked the Fighting Irish out of the running for the playoff, and it kept the Cardinal's long-shot hopes alive.
David Shaw's team has a chance to boost its credentials this weekend when it faces USC in the Pac-12 Championship Game. Even with two losses, Stanford would have a Power Five conference championship in its possession, which would make for a great argument against Ohio State in a chaotic scenario.
The Cardinal were the No. 9 team in the playoff rankings last week, and the Nos. 6 and 7 teams lost last weekend. While Stanford was responsible for No. 6 Notre Dame's loss, it'll be interesting to see how the committee values that compared to the No. 8 Buckeyes' blowout of No. 10 Michigan.
As the SB Nation blog Pacific Takes noted on Twitter this weekend, the Cardinal's playoff shot will only materialize if at least one team in the top tier of the rankings is surprised:
A North Carolina upset of Clemson would force a three-way discussion about the one-loss champion Tar Heels, two-loss champion Stanford and one-loss non-champion Ohio State. The Cardinal boast a tougher schedule than both teams.
A Florida upset of Alabama would open the door for Stanford, too, but that is the most unlikely of all the scenarios.
But first things first—the Cardinal need to beat USC for the second time this season. The Trojans will be energized from a big rivalry win over UCLA and the promotion of Clay Helton from interim head coach to the permanent role.
Ohio State: Hope for a lot of chaos
Like Oklahoma, Ohio State has one loss and will not be playing this weekend.
Unlike the Sooners, though, the Buckeyes can't stay at home and polish their new conference championship trophy. Michigan State, which beat Ohio State two weeks ago, will be playing for that Big Ten title against Iowa.
As Bleacher Report's Ben Axelrod wrote Monday, the defending national champions will be planted firmly on the chaos bandwagon this weekend as they watch the action from Columbus:
"Ohio State may need as few as one and as many as three upsets this weekend to keep its playoff hopes alive. But when it comes to the Buckeyes' rooting interests, the more havoc, the better.
The game that would open up the clearest path for Ohio State to crash the playoff will be played in Atlanta, with Alabama—ranked second in last weekend's CFP standings—taking on 10-2 Florida in the SEC title game. A Crimson Tide victory would secure their spot in the College Football Playoff for the second straight year, while a Gators upset would leave the SEC without an obvious candidate for the four-team tournament.
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But there's a catch. A win by North Carolina over Clemson would be appealing in a chaos-heavy case, but that would only result in more traffic in Ohio State's path to a spot in the top four.
Florida over Alabama—the more improbable upset—is the ideal situation for the Buckeyes, along with a Stanford loss in the Pac-12 Championship Game. A win by Michigan State would help matters, too, as Ohio State's only loss would be a close one to a playoff team.
That scenario would leave the discussion for the final playoff spot—behind ACC champion Clemson, Big 12 champion Oklahoma and the Big Ten champion—to one-loss Ohio State and a two-loss team from the SEC.
If that best-case scenario doesn't come to fruition for the Buckeyes, Ohio State will have to hope North Carolina upsets Clemson. The committee would then have to pick the one-loss non-champion Buckeyes over a one-loss ACC champion and possibly a two-loss Pac-12 champion.
Stranger things have happened, and this is the sport of chaos.
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
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