Stanford would prefer three-loss UCLA defeat four-loss USC on Saturday because the Bruins are ranked No. 22 this week. You can be sure Coach Dabo Swinney has been working on his celebration dance for the conference title game. The Crimson Tide will roll through War Eagle country.
Advertisement
Another team having a rough second season in the Big Ten, Rutgers will be looking to just improve ever so slightly from this point on. TCU 20. Washington State 21. However, the Irish are certainly not out of it – just ask last year’s Ohio State squad who were ranked sixth, but jumped into the fourth and final playoff spot after a blowout victory over Wisconsin.
Here, the conference outlook is simple – with undefeated Clemson (No. 1 AP) and Coastal Division champion North Carolina (No. 11 AP) already locked in to playing each other on December 5 in Charlotte for the league championship.
Anyway, purely from a fairness standpoint, I think a once-beaten Oklahoma has accomplished more than a once-beaten Iowa. The Sooners need Mayfield to play if they want to win this game against their in-state rival.
This past Saturday, Oklahoma got a banged up TCU team lacking its top two offensive weapons in Trevone Boykin and Josh Doctson.
The teams in the top four spots when the final rankings are released December 6 will compete in a four-team playoff December 31 for the right to play in the national championship game January 11. Notre Dame can’t control the result of the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game, nor can it exact any influence on getting some chaos in the Big Ten (think Penn State beating Michigan State and Michigan beating Ohio State) which could make that No. 6 slot a temporary one. This will be the first matchup between Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh and Ohio State coach Urban Meyer.
One-loss Oklahoma also made its debut in the top four Tuesday, ranked third. Final Score: Baylor 40, TCU 35. No disrespect to Notre Dame but they barely beat Temple for Crying out loud. Alabama and Florida would meet in the SEC Championship and Iowa and Michigan State would meet in the Big Ten Championship, so only four of these six teams can actually win out. I am not a ND hater, I just don’t see them as a Top Five team. The Sooners’ loss was to Texas and with the Big 12 now using head-to-head tiebreakers, they would be the conference’s one champion.
Since their lone loss of the season, the Sooners’ run of success has been unmatched by any team in the nation.
Since neither Oklahoma nor Notre Dame play in a conference championship game, there is nothing to separate them on that basis even after the regular season is over. But it needs a lot more help.
What if Oklahoma beats Oklahoma State this weekend?
One-loss Florida could also still make an argument for inclusion if it beats Florida State in the Swamp and then Alabama in the conference title game.
Ohio State was ranked No. 6 at this time previous year. That’s the biggest obstacle, but far from the only one.
Before taking a look at the rest of the teams in the conversation, remember that this is all under the assumption that the Spartans win this weekend and beat Iowa in the Big Ten Championship.
Advertisement
Baylor fans will wonder what could have been if star quarterback Seth Russell had not suffered a season ending neck injury. This is a veteran-laden team with plenty of players who went through that 2012 season, in which Notre Dame went undefeated but still needed losses by Kansas State, Oregon and Alabama to finish the regular season with a No. 1 ranking.
