College Football Rankings 2016: Reviewing NCAA Polls Before Final Week 14 Games

Whatever chaos may reign on a massive Saturday of college football, one thing is abundantly clear: the Washington Huskies deserve to be in the College Football Playoff.

Whether the committee will actually see that they remain in the top four is another question entirely, such is the competition for the prized spots.

The No. 4 Huskies decimated No. 8 Colorado 41-10 in the Pac-12 Championship Game, firmly establishing themselves as one of the top teams in the nation and more than deserving of competing for the national championship. 

As sound as the case for a 12-1, Power Five champion may be, the Huskies are of course still not guaranteed to make the CFP. That's how competitive the race is for the top four spots in the CFP poll. After this weekend, there could very well be near-ironclad cases for five or six teams and yet only four will have the chance to play for a national title. 

The Huskies rank behind Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson in the latest poll. The top-ranked Crimson Tide play No. 15 Florida for the SEC championship, while the third-ranked Tigers play No. 23 Virginia Tech for the ACC title. 

The Buckeyes are sitting at home this weekend, watching as No. 6 Wisconsin and No. 7 Penn State vie for the Big Ten championship, a matchup they helped facilitate with a thrilling 30-27, double-overtime win over No. 5 Michigan in Week 13.

Here's the college football poll as it stands heading into championship weekend, with playoff odds and projections by Ed Feng.

The Huskies certainly distanced themselves from Michigan with their comprehensive win on Friday. Fox Sports' Stewart Mandel made the case for Washington's inclusion in the College Football Playoff: 

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But Washington is a 12-1 champion of a Power 5 conference. We’ve had seven of those over the past two years and they all made the playoff.

The Huskies played four of the committee’s Top 25 opponents and beat three of them. Only Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson (if it beats Virginia Tech) will be able to claim more.

And coming into the Pac-12 Championship, the Huskies had held a lead over their opponents nearly 80 percent of the time. No team in the country -- not even No. 1 Alabama -- could claim more.

There are “concerns” about the Huskies’ schedule strength, as committee chair Kirby Hocutt has said a couple of times in recent weeks. But they weren’t concerning enough to keep them out of the top 4 this week. Why should that change after crushing a Top 10 opponent?

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Washington's victory essentially rang a death knell for Michigan's CFP hopes. The winner of Wisconsin-Penn State would seem poised to leapfrog the Wolverines, and there's no way Michigan can argue to be in ahead of Ohio State without a game of their own this week. Only a Clemson loss to Virginia Tech would appear to open the door for one of the teams not currently in the top four, but that avenue may be reserved for either the Badgers or Nittany Lions. 

A Badgers' win over Penn State would put them in strong consideration for a playoff spot, despite the fact Michigan defeated Wisconsin 14-7 on Oct. 1.

That said, both Michigan and Wisconsin would be two-loss teams at that point, and the Badgers' conference championship plus the nature of their loss would presumably be a better case than the one that can be made for Michigan. After all, Wisconsin's only other loss is to the Buckeyes, while Michigan lost to unranked Iowa. 

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The Nittany Lions have only one win over a top-10 team, but it was a good one. They beat Ohio State 24-21 on Oct. 22, a win that supercharged their season and set them on the path to a potential spot in the CFP. A win over Wisconsin would give them a second top-10 victory, but those early season losses to Pittsburgh and Michigan loom large. 

Five Thirty Eight's Neil Paine noted that no matter who claims the Big Ten title, they may not squeeze into the playoff: 

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Because of the Big Ten’s head-to-head tie-breaking procedure—Ohio State’s only loss came against division-rival Penn State—the Buckeyes will not be playing in the conference’s championship game, despite ranking No. 2 in the country according to the CFP committee. And although they’ve made counterintuitive choices before, it’s difficult to envision the committee turning around and booting the one-loss Buckeyes out of the final top four in favor of a two-loss Big Ten champ. So if the other favorites—Alabama, Clemson and Washington—win their respective conferences, our model sees little chance (a maximum of 23 percent, if Wisconsin beats Penn State) of the Big Ten champ making the playoff. Then again, those odds shoot up to 80 percent or better if any of the other top teams lose. So there’s still a chance, but the Big Ten winner probably needs some kind of help in order to get in.

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Paine wrote that before Washington's win over Colorado, which on its face leaves either Clemson or Alabama to open the door, but it's really just the former who can keep the hope alive for the eventual Big Ten champ.

Alabama almost certainly has a free pass this weekend. A loss to Florida would be the Crimson Tide's first defeat of the season, and it would be to a top-15 team no less.

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While that unlikely outcome could put the committee in the awkward scenario of leaving two non-conference champions in the playoffs—Alabama and Ohio State, in this case—that might simply be the only way forward in such a scenario. Alabama's body of work up to this point in the season is too good to be undone by one loss in a high-pressure situation. 

Assuming Alabama is unimpeachable at this point, a win for Clemson would then seemingly shut out the Big Ten champion. According to Odds Shark, the Tigers are 10-point favorites over the Hokies.

It's a significant advantage and hardly points toward an upset, but Virginia Tech head coach Justin Fuente nevertheless believes the task ahead of his team is well within its reach.

“If you frame it like that, it’s as if they shouldn’t expect to do well,” Fuente said, per the Roanoke Times' Andy Bitter. “And that’s not where we’re at mentally. We know we have a tremendous challenge. We know we’re playing a well-coached, talented football team.

“We didn’t do all this work just to get here. We still have work left to do.”

Things could have been much more interesting with a Washington loss or even a very shaky win from the team, but the nature of their victory makes it exceedingly unlikely that an outsider will move into the top four.

Pending Saturday's results, college football fans could see the current top four remain unchanged, leaving them with nothing to do but look forward to the playoff itself.