It's time to catch our breath after the first seven weeks of this college football season has provided many more twists and turns than we initially planned for. Six weeks remain before conference championships are played in the first week of December, so we're effectively halfway through a normal college football season on the calendar (but not on the field).
The state of the playoff and the New Year's Six games is a lot more fluid in mid-October than at any time in the College Football Playoff era. A common narrative is that this season is destined to be chaos from start to finish, but I'm not so sure that's completely the case. A playoff of Georgia, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Ohio State is very much in play, and I'm not sure we'll think of this season as too far outside of the box if those end up being the four competing for a championship.
Nevertheless, the next six weeks of regular-season college football should be extremely compelling. I've put together a list of 10 games you can't miss before conference championship week, all of which have massive playoff implications.
The Pac's Last Stand
Oregon @ UCLA, October 23
After Oregon won at Ohio State in the second week of the season, I was certain the Ducks would run away with a Pac-12 that didn't seem to have anyone else in their weight class.
I'm not sure if Oregon is playing down to the competition or the game in Columbus was an aberration due to a bend-but-don't-break defense, but it's clear Oregon isn't the same team after blowing a lead at Stanford and barely escaping a bad Cal team last Friday. The offense hasn't been anywhere near consistent enough to win the Pac-12, much less mount a playoff charge.
At the same time, Arizona State's loss late on Saturday night means that Oregon is the only one-loss team left in the Pac-12 and therefore its only playoff hope. If Oregon can get back on track and look good at the Rose Bowl against a UCLA team that's also had ups and downs to this point, a manageable next three weeks beckons before a showdown and possible conference championship preview at Utah on November 20. But I'm not sure Oregon should even be favored against UCLA at this point.
The Breaking of the Big Ten East Logjam
Michigan State @ Michigan, October 30
Penn State @ Ohio State, October 30
Michigan @ Penn State, November 13
Ohio State @ Michigan, November 27
Yes, I'm giving a full 40 percent of this list not only to the Big Ten, but specifically to the Big Ten East following No. 2 Iowa's faceplant in Iowa City against Purdue.
Since all four of Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, and Michigan State have to play each other from October 30 to November 27 and are all ranked in the top 10 nationally, this can be thought of as a sort of Champions League group within a conference division. If one team goes 3-0 against the others, it will undoubtedly be ranked in the top three nationally heading into the Big Ten Championship Game and will control its playoff destiny.
I doubt things will be that easy. I'm not convinced to this point by Michigan or Michigan State, who are the two undefeateds of the four. Michigan State probably should have lost at Indiana after just 241 yards of offense and a rocky performance by QB Payton Thorne. But the Hoosiers' allergy to the end zone in Big Ten play meant Sparty escaped with a 20-15 win after allowing five Indiana field goals.
Michigan's running game has looked like a machine at times, but the Wolverines also haven't played a ranked opponent and had to come back to beat Nebraska about a week ago. Still, you'd think Jim Harbaugh's team will beat Northwestern at home next weekend to set up the undefeated vs. undefeated game against Michigan State.
Ohio State and Penn State play on the same day as Michigan and Michigan State. The eye test tells me the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions are the two most talented teams in the conference, but we don't know much about the injury to Penn State's Sean Clifford that torpedoed the offense at Iowa, and Ohio State hasn't played a team anywhere near its level since the Oregon loss. One of these two teams will have two losses on Halloween. Will that mean the 2-loss team exits the playoff race, as has normally been the case in this era? The Big Ten's apparent superiority compared to any other conference this year could make the answer to that question no.
The Only SEC Game on This List?!
Georgia vs. Florida, October 30
Georgia bottled up previously unbeaten Kentucky as the Bulldogs have bottled up everyone else to this point. It appears that Georgia has the fewest weaknesses of anyone in the country, and no one else is a particularly close No. 2. The media and other observers of football don't normally talk about defenses being fun to watch, but Georgia's is. I've caught myself watching their defense much more intently than their offense to see how they absolutely destroy offensive lines.
On the other side of the SEC, Alabama bounced back from the Texas A&M loss by blowing out Mississippi State. Somehow, the Tide don't play another road game until the Iron Bowl. The collision course between Georgia and Alabama in Atlanta isn't quite as full steam ahead as it was 10 days ago, but 'Bama is still in the driver's seat and will probably be favored by double-digits in every scheduled game through November.
It would have been easy for me to put the Iron Bowl or Alabama's home game against Arkansas, but I think the Tide have already played the second- and third-best teams in the SEC West — Texas A&M and Ole Miss.
As for the Georgia/Florida tilt in Jacksonville this year, the Gators are a hot mess and can't stop anybody. But, as a child of the '90s, I'll never simply assume Georgia is going to make this a pedestrian win. Georgia fans would want you to believe that Florida winning 18 of 21 games in the series from 1990 to 2010 was a function of the Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer eras, but the Gators have ruined the Dawgs' season in the playoff era, too, namely in 2014 and 2020.
If anyone's going to score more than three touchdowns on Georgia, I would put my money on a Dan Mullen team that has to win shootouts to win games doing it. And could Georgia's offense get rattled by having to keep up in a higher-scoring game? Maybe. It's a small chance for an upset, but it's a chance nonetheless.
The Big 12 and Bedlam
Oklahoma @ Baylor, November 13
Oklahoma @ Oklahoma State, November 27
The way the Big 12 backloads its schedule is great because it keeps farcical non-conference buy games off of the schedule in November, but it also means we don't know as much about these teams in October because everyone still has five or six league games left. What we do know is that Oklahoma's two toughest games from here are on the road.
Obviously, the Sooners are the favorite here, and the switch to Caleb Williams at QB during the Texas game in Dallas is paying dividends already. But this conference isn't the gauntlet it's been at times in the past 10 years, so I'm not sure Oklahoma can go 8-1 in conference and still get in the playoff (as it has the four times the Sooners have qualified for the CFP previously). And of course, it's quite possible that Oklahoma will see Baylor or Oklahoma State again in a Big 12 title game.
Given the way Oklahoma State has pulled off various Houdini acts and comebacks this season to stay undefeated, I'm thinking the Cowboys will eat a loss (or two) between now and the Bedlam game, given a schedule that includes three conference road games in the next five weeks.
Baylor might be the second-best team in the conference, despite Texas' talent, and despite the head-to-head result with Oklahoma State. But the Bears weren't even ranked this past week — and seeing how Jeykll-and-Hyde Texas' play has been at times, it wouldn't surprise anyone if Baylor drops a game to the Longhorns on October 30.
Don't Laugh
NC State @ Wake Forest, November 13
It's glib to say, but the ACC looks like a Group of 5 conference in the national perspective this season. With Clemson currently in a year of offensive wilderness where it has to squeak by Georgia Tech and Syracuse, the door is open for a non-Clemson or Florida State team to win the ACC for the first time since 2010.
There's one undefeated team left in the league, and it's somehow Wake Forest. I'm not proud to admit this, but I live about an hour from Winston-Salem, and I had to remind myself that Dave Clawson was still the Demon Deacons' coach. There's going under the radar as an unbeaten team, and then there's what Wake is doing, following wins by a field goal against Louisville and Syracuse — each of whom is a question mark to even make a bowl game this season.
This game I've chosen between NC State and Wake is the only scheduled ACC game for the rest of the season between two currently ranked teams. Wake has a tough game this coming Saturday on the road against Army's option attack, but if the Demon Deacons get to mid-November and are still without a loss, we have to start considering them as a playoff contender, despite the lack of national ACC interest and no elite teams.
And before the question can be asked — no, a 13-0 team from a Power Five league will not get left out of the playoff — that is an absolute guarantee. That said, my somewhat educated opinion tells me that NC State and Pitt are playing the best football at the moment and are the likeliest pairing to meet in Charlotte for the ACC title.
The Group of 5 Hurdle
SMU @ Cincinnati, November 20
To me, the most compelling subplot of the rest of the season is if Cincinnati can finally become the first team to qualify for the CFP from a Group of 5 conference. After winning at Notre Dame on October 2 and demolishing UCF this past weekend, the probability of breaking the Power Five/Fighting Irish stranglehold is better than ever. But there's still a lot of football left. We know that one loss means you're out at the Group of 5 level, and 13-0 could still mean you're out depending on any number of other results or subjective CFP committee whims.
The next four games feel close to certain for the Bearcats to stay unbeaten, with the hardest one on paper being at home to Tulsa, a team that lost in September to FCS competition before playing within a touchdown of Oklahoma State the next week.
SMU is the American Athletic Conference's other unbeaten and other ranked team. For comparison purposes against the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, and Oregon, Cincinnati may need SMU to stay ranked all year, and that's no sure thing with the Mustangs traveling to Houston and Memphis in the next three weeks. If SMU stays unbeaten until then, it would essentially lock in Cincinnati having the chance to beat ranked opposition twice in three weeks thanks to the AAC's title game and non-division format. 13-0 with three wins against presumably ranked teams should be good enough for the Bearcats to make it, but two or one may not be.
In a season with as many upsets as this one, other games besides these 10 will become more competitive than we think. But these are the contests most likely to tell the story of the season and provide the answers to the playoff puzzle.
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