Ohio State (6-1 Big Ten, 9-1 overall): If the Buckeyes and Penn State win their final two games, Ohio State goes to the College Football Playoff, but won’t play in the Big Ten title game. Wisconsin squeezes in at No. 6.
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Remember when the College Football Playoff committee placed Texas A&M at No. 4 in its initial rankings despite the Aggies having a loss? MI and Clemson both managed to stay in the top 5 at No. 4 and No. 5, respectively, but the two-loss Wisconsin Badgers leapt over the No. 7 Washington Huskies following their demolition of IL.
Alabama was the only team that emerged unscathed from Week 11.
Clemson – Early season wins over Louisville and Florida State earned Clemson a mulligan, which the Tigers used a few days ago against Pitt. With their performance, the Tide – if they hadn’t already – have firmly established themselves as the No. 1 team in the country. Well, they each got one.
Oh, how much can change in a week, huh? Although Ohio State won, uncertainty still surrounds their future.
Can you rattle off all the different upsets from Saturday night? Texas A&M tumbled from No. 10 to No. 19 after its fall-from-ahead home loss to Ole Miss.
Those sullied teams cascaded down to No. 4, No. 5 and No. 7 respectively.
Thoughts, takedowns and takeaways from Week 11, when everything got a little more interesting. Ohio State plays MI on November 26 in a game that could decide the Big Ten’s East division.
So imagine the outcry from the victor of a potential Penn State-Wisconsin Big 10 championship game being left out of the playoffs in favor of Ohio State.
As outlined on Sunday, Penn State will make the Big Ten championship game if it wins out and if MI loses one of its two remaining games.
The Big 12 question: Just how relevant is this conference in the discussion, saddled with no conference championship game? We’ve got one. It’s called the regular season. The only one of the four on upset alert was Washington, who had a tough matchup against a surging USC team. Then undefeated Washington was playing well and were leading the Pac 12 in most major statistical categories. And crucial mistakes cost OSU and MI in terms of how the winning points were scored. Right behind them are the Louisville Cardinals, who moved up from No. 5. Now Sunday morning, the only one left standing is top seed Alabama. The bottom half of the division features some decidedly bad teams (Arizona, UCLA, Arizona State), but the Buffs, Utes and Trojans should all be exciting teams to watch down the stretch and in bowl season. Despite a surprising loss at home to Pittsburgh, the losses by Washington and MI opened the door for Clemson to come in at No. 4. Winning in Kentucky on a last-second field goal will certainly raise confidence. Their only loss comes at Clemson by a single score and they still looked impressive in that loss.
With the Cardinals’ chance to win the Atlantic Coast Conference at slim to none, the best Louisville can do is win out and hope the upsets start piling up. The Wolverines fell to fourth. Wisconsin or Penn State as Big Ten champs would get in over Oklahoma, and even two-loss MI if the Wolverines finish runner-up. MI holds the tiebreaker on Penn State, which holds that same edge on Ohio State. This would also nearly guarantee two spots for the Big Ten as Ohio State would be in also. However, I doubt that happens because their opponents are Rutgers and Michigan State.
The other big movers this week are No. 12 Colorado (8-2) and No. 13 Oklahoma State (8-2), each up four spots.
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If they didn’t, we’d theorize that conference titles are essentially tiebreakers, rather than requirements.
