College Football Week 13 Musings; CFB Playoff Projections + NBA In-Season Tourney Thoughts

What did we learn this week in college football?

College Football Week 13 Musings; CFB Playoff Projections + NBA In-Season Tourney Thoughts

College Football Week 13 Musings; CFB Playoff Projections + NBA In-Season Tourney Thoughts
_Episode 54 of the Fantasy Sports Collective Podcast covers week thirteen of college football season; including…_share.transistor.fm

What did we learn this week in college football?

Michigan is almost a certain lock for the CFP after beating Ohio State and facing a mediocre opponent in the big 10 title game vs. Iowa.
Oregon looked good beating a strong Oregon State team in their annual rivalry matchup, making the Pac 12 title game a potential CFP spot up for grabs. Washington is a lock with a win vs. Oregon, Oregon will need some help.
Florida State is a lock if they beat Louisville in the ACC title game. Louisville could make a claim with a win over FSU but that will be difficult with Oregon, Texas and Ohio State as 1 loss alternatives.
Georgia is a lock with an SEC title game victory over Alabama. Bama didn’t look great vs. Auburn but rivalry matchups are always tough, and they won. If they beat Georgia in the SEC title game, they’ll be in the CFP, and Georgia likely will still get in, knocking out other 1-loss teams.
Texas needs to beat Oklahoma State in style and root for a Florida State, Washington or Michigan upset.

Ohio State is out.

Why? Let’s start with their schedule and the overall play of the Big 10 this season. The Big 10, with 14 member schools (until next year when they add UCLA, USC, Oregon & Washington), only had 4 consistently ranked teams, and only 3 quality ones (Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State — Iowa was the 4th but they struggled to hit 20 points in a game and relied on a great defense and 1950’s style ball control offense). You can see the rankings of all teams weekly to see the lack of conference depth. Combine that with the reality that Ohio State and Michigan failed to play much of a nonconference schedule. Ohio State did play and pull out a last-second win vs. Notre Dame however we’ve come to realize Notre Dame wasn’t a goliath this year, and the other two non-conference opponents consisted of Youngstown State and Western Kentucky.

Michigan’s non-conference schedule was worse with East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green. But they won every game and there weren’t too many nail-biters either…unlike Ohio State, who barely beat or was pedestrian for a half vs. weaker, heavy underdog opponents.

Thus, in short, there should be no Ohio State in the playoff this year, and the CFP selection committee, like the NCAA March Madness selection committee, should send a clear message that if you play mostly patsies, your nonconference schedule will hurt you. Especially as the field expands to 8, there needs to be an emphasis on teams that challenge themselves to play top-notch competition.

So who am I predicting to make the playoff?

I’m going with Michigan, Oregon, Florida State and Georgia. As I mentioned last week, Texas will cry foul but Oregon played a tougher schedule (9 of the 12 Pac 12 schools were ranked at some point in the season, and 6 are in the mix as we pull into the end of the season). They’ve been impressive all year long. Alabama played a tough schedule (and Texas beat them) but they’ve got their shot — if they don’t beat Georgia they don’t deserve a spot. Texas on the otherhand can say they beat Alabama, but look at the rest of their schedule, it’s not difficult in a down and pretty mediocre Big 12.

We’ll know for sure the makeup of the playoff by next week at this time.