Supremacy Chatter: With regular season in the books, here are 5 Playoff questions I still have
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The regular season is over, but really, the debate is just beginning.
Conference championship week is officially upon us, which means that we have an interesting final Tuesday selection show before the field is ultimately announced on Sunday.
So let’s fire away.
1. What does the selection committee do about Ohio State and Oklahoma on Tuesday?
The biggest question after the weekend is about Ohio State and Oklahoma. Their rankings on Tuesday will be fascinating to watch because both of them have somewhat similar conference championship opportunities ahead. In other words, most of the hay will be in the barn. Remember, this is about the entire résumé and not just which team beats a higher-ranked team in the conference championship.
Up until Saturday, Oklahoma had the better résumé, at least according to the selection committee. No. 6 vs. No. 10 is a significant difference. Winning at No. 13 West Virginia certainly helped the Sooners, though another game in which their defense got torched might not have impressed the selection committee.
Ohio State, meanwhile, dropped 62 (!) points on the No. 1 defense in the country. Don’t forget that Michigan came in as the top-ranked one-loss team. The Buckeyes will rise considerably as a result of that, even though they had been rather unimpressive the past month or so and they have an uglier loss than Oklahoma.
What do I expect? Ohio State and Oklahoma will be separated by one spot. As for who’s ranked higher, that’s anyone’s guess.
2. What could possibly happen that would keep Alabama out of the Playoff?
I say “nothing.” Why? I’ve got a few reasons that I stated in something I wrote on Saturday. Alabama just became the first team since 1888 Yale (yes, 1888) to win its first 12 games by at least 20 points.
Compared to the potential conference champions that could be debated in the event of an Alabama loss, look at the wins vs. current top-25 teams:
- Alabama — 3 wins (+75 point differential)
- Ohio State — 2 wins (+24)
- Oklahoma — 2 wins (+13)
- UCF — 1 win (+31)
By the way, Alabama is the only one of those teams to have a win against a current top-10 team, and it was a 29-0 beatdown at LSU.
Yet some are debating if the Tide is in a “win-or-go-home” scenario? Nope.
But for argument’s sake, let’s just say that the selection committee didn’t feel that way and there was a scenario that would leave the Tide out. It obviously would have to start with getting blown out by Georgia. Like, 28 points. Basically, every conference champion would have to be of the no-loss or one-loss variety — not including the Pac-12, of course — and all in convincing fashion.
That means assuming Clemson, Georgia and Notre Dame have the other three spots, Ohio State, Oklahoma and UCF would all need to dominate their conference titles for an Alabama-less even be a conversation. And that still might be a stretch.
Could it take just one Ohio State/Oklahoma blowout win for Alabama to get left out? I suppose that’s possible considering no one-loss Power 5 conference champ has been left out of the Playoff.
Still, though, we’ve never seen a team dominate the regular season like Alabama just did. That will matter, regardless of what happens next week.
3. Does Clemson have a loss to give, too?
Now there’s an even more interesting question.
Obviously a lot of that would depend on how the rest of the field shakes out, but it’s certainly a question that will be asked with the Tigers also sitting at 12-0 heading into a conference title game. Before Saturday night against South Carolina, Clemson essentially hadn’t allowed a meaningful touchdown since September.
That’s key because the Tigers don’t have elite wins on their résumé. They have plenty of quality wins, but with the ACC having such a down year, Clemson only has two victories against current top-25 teams. After Pitt got waxed by Miami, the Tigers will face an unranked team in the ACC Championship Game. It’s not like they demolished a top-10 team on the road like Alabama did at LSU, either.
Clearly, the selection committee doesn’t hold Clemson’s résumé quite as high as Alabama’s. Otherwise, the Tigers would’ve been No. 1 at least once this year. Then again, we’re not sure really what that gap looks like and how far it was from No. 3 Notre Dame.
That’s my way of saying I’m not as willing to declare that Clemson has a Playoff bid locked in.
4. Notre Dame is in, but are the Irish locked in at that No. 3 spot?
Nobody is going to talk about Notre Dame for the next week because without a conference championship, there’s no doubt that a Playoff spot is in the bag. My question, though, is whether the Irish will stay locked into that 2-3 matchup.
Conventional wisdom says that will be the case, but there is a potential scenario in which the Irish could shift depending on what happens in the ACC and SEC championships. What if Alabama and Clemson somehow both lose? Notre Dame is probably sitting there at No. 1. Is that likely? No, but the résumé is pretty much locked in at this point.
It’s hard to envision a scenario in which a potential one-loss Ohio State or Oklahoma moves ahead of the Irish. Notre Dame probably won’t come in at No. 4 on Selection Sunday, which means that potential Alabama matchup would be avoided.
And for what it’s worth, Notre Dame will be the third team to not play in a conference title game. Anyone arguing against Notre Dame’s case for that reason is yelling at a wall.
5. How does the selection committee treat UCF without McKenzie Milton?
Man, that was awful. I was watching that game on Friday night and immediately got the uneasy feeling that UCF quarterback McKenzie Milton was hurt badly. And naturally, my mind immediately shifted to the big picture. As in, what does this mean for the program’s slim Playoff chances?
Time will tell, but that didn’t help the Knights’ evaluation. Remember that the selection committee is there to set up matchups to allow the top-four teams to compete for a national title. With all due respect to Darriel Mack Jr., he doesn’t put UCF on the level its been on throughout this 24-game winning streak. The selection committee has never put a Group of 5 team anywhere near the final four, and the idea of doing so for a team without a starting quarterback doesn’t seem likely.
Never say never, but I tend to think any tiny chance the Knights might still have of moving past some Power 5 conference champs starts with the Milton-less offense looking like a juggernaut against Memphis in the AAC Championship. Based on what we saw against USF, even that will be a tall ask.
It would’ve been interesting to see Milton lead the Knights to another unblemished season amidst some Power 5 conference championship chaos. But it looks like they might have to settle for another self-proclaimed national title.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
