The 6 College Football Playoff races, updated with Week 13’s rankings

It feels like we already know the final four, but there’s a lot to pay attention to anyway.

First, the new College Football Playoff top 25 rankings:

Alabama, 11-0
Clemson, 11-0
Notre Dame, 11-0
Michigan, 10-1
Georgia, 10-1
Oklahoma, 10-1
LSU, 9-2
Washington State, 10-1
UCF, 10-0 (up 2)
Ohio State, 10-1
Florida, 8-3 (up 2)
Penn State, 8-3 (up 2)
West Virginia, 8-2 (down 4)
Texas, 8-3 (up 1)
Kentucky, 8-3 (up 2)
Washington, 8-3 (up 2)
Utah, 8-3 (up 2)
Mississippi State, 7-4 (up 3)
Northwestern, 7-4 (up 3)
Syracuse, 8-3 (down 8)
Utah State, 10-1 (up 2)
Texas A&M, 7-4 (NR)
Boise State, 9-2 (up 2)
Pitt, 7-4 (NR)
Iowa State, 6-4 (down 9)

And now for the stakes remaining:

1. The race to clinch a spot

Notre Dame would lock up a spot with a win at USC, then spend Selection Sunday scouting Playoff opponents. For anyone this upsets: recall Oklahoma did the same thing in 2015.

Just like the typical contender in any given year, the 2018 Irish will have played 12 FBS opponents, 10 Power 5 opponents, a top-10 team, another ranked team or two, and another handful of bowl opponents. Stapling a conference name onto Notre Dame’s list of wins wouldn’t change anything about the quality of this team’s 12-0 record — as long as it gets there.

2. The quarterfinal game, sort of

Michigan is win-and-in, unless Georgia beats Alabama, gives us a ton of one-loss P5 champs, and unleashes the hottest debate in CFP history.

Ohio State can knock out the Wolverines, but doesn’t have quite as sure a path. The Buckeyes are well behind Michigan in the CFP rankings for a reason: they’ve looked bad. Their loss was bad. They don’t have many really great wins. And then they tried hard to lose to Maryland. A win over Michigan and a Big Ten title would make a lot of concerns go away, and maybe there’s simply no other good option, but the two rivals don’t enter on equal footing.

Oh, and the winner has to beat a Northwestern that’s been routinely breaking math in victory. Also that.

3. The race for the top two seeds

The No. 1 seed gets to host whichever of the Cotton or Orange is closer to its campus, but on the other hand, the No. 2 probably gets to play Notre Dame. That was a joke. Settle down.

Alabama and Clemson have towered over the sport, and only Georgia feels like a serious challenge to either in the final two weeks, but — hey! — rivalry weekend gets weird, and Pitt’s done this before, so who knows.

4. The race for the Playoff bubble

The Big 12’s only contender is Oklahoma, which must beat West Virginia in Morgantown and then probably Texas in JerryWorld in order to be considered. The committee will use OU’s terrible defense as an argument.

The Pac-12 is down to Washington State, which has to finally win the Apple Cup and beat a banged-up Utah. The committee knock on WSU will be a lack of big-name wins — I might’ve just listed all the ranked teams WSU will have beaten, though that’d be two over the Utes.

Georgia can steal a spot with SEC Championship revenge, but the spot might not be Bama’s. Big Ten fans should root for the Tide in Atlanta. (A 12-1 Bama will have faced roughly the same schedule difficulty as a 12-1 Michigan, whether you go by blunt committee math or smarter numbers, and per S&P+ and other metrics, the fabled eye test could pick the Tide.)

UCF will not make the Playoff, but the Knights deserve the top-10 ranking they were going to attrition their way into anyway.

5. Most of the New Year’s Six race should be really orderly

Here’s the tidiest scenario:

Rose: Ohio State loses to Michigan, but finishes as the Big Ten’s top-ranked non-CFP team. Washington State wins the Pac-12 and takes the autobid. No committee decisions even needed.
Sugar: Roughly the same as above, but Georgia and Oklahoma, respectively.
Peach and Fiesta: With a win over Texas A&M, LSU’s definitely in. An unbeaten UCF’s automatically in. I’m guessing a 9-3 Florida is in. That would leave one spot for some 9-3ish team like Penn State or Texas to stumble in.

6. But the New Year’s Six could still be a big mess!

Look at each of these in iso, then imagine two or three of them happening at once:

ACC: Pitt beating Clemson in the ACC title game might or might not knock the Tigers out of the Playoff, but the four-loss Panthers would cash an ACC autobid to the Peach or Fiesta. Have Miami drop Pitt to 7-5 beforehand if you’d like to make this even better.
Big Ten: Four-loss Northwestern could win, take a Rose spot for itself, and boot both Michigan and Ohio State into the Peach/Fiesta spots. This could also move Oklahoma into the Playoff, putting four-loss Texas in the Sugar. So many four-losses!
Big 12: Texas beating Oklahoma would put the Horns in the Sugar and OU in the Peach or Fiesta.
Pac-12: Washington or Utah could win the Pac-12, take the Rose, and kick Wazzu down to the Fiesta. This would at least be a 10-3 conference champ barreling in, unless you want to propose Utah losing to BYU and then winning the Pac-12.
SEC: If Georgia beats Alabama and makes the SEC a two-bid league, a 10-2 LSU would move from the Peach/Fiesta to the Sugar.
Notre Dame: USC could knock the Irish down to the Peach or Fiesta and somebody else into the Playoff.
Group of 5: One probable reason the committee never ranks mid-majors near the top four: imagine if a No. 5 UCF barely lost the AAC title game while 12-1 Utah State won the MWC. USU would clinch the NY6 autobid, but why should UCF fall to No. 13 or worse due to one close loss? We’d then have two non-powers in the NY6. Happy vibes aside, that wouldn’t be good for business.

Luckily, any bubble team that gets crowded out of the NY6 in this mediocrity-plagued year would have nobody to blame but itself. If you go 9-3, you’re a fine fit for your Citrus/Alamo/local equivalent Bowl.

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