Odds and Ends 10/14/26
Welcome Back!
Before I begin, there are 2 Wednesday games this week:
Wednesday, October 7
Kennesaw State @ Missouri State- One of these teams will get their 1st FBS win. They've only played each other twice, with the Bears winning in Springfield in 2019 and the Owls winning in Kennesaw last year. KSU has been on the verge of winning their last 2 games, losing by a combined 4 points, while Mo State was losing by 6 and 21 to similar competition. Owls win a close one.
WKU @ Sam Houston- The Bearkats have a win in the 2004 Division I-AA playoffs, but the Hilltoppers have won the 3 meetings since, all in the last 3 seasons. SHS started the season OK, losing close games to Troy and Tulsa, and blowing out an FCS squad, but since then, they've been routed by Texas Tech and Liberty. WKU has taken an opposite approach, they started the season 0-3, getting destroyed by Nevada, UGA, and Indiana, but have now won 2 of their last 3. I think the Bearkats pull the upset and get their 1st FBS win of the season.
Odds and Ends
Time to expand the offerings!
Interconference results
The OOC portion of the schedule is mostly over, but will pick up at the end of the season with a few OOC rivalry games. Therefore, I will revisit this at the end of the regular season.
Intraconference results
The only conference with divisions is the Sun Belt, and they have yet to play a cross-division game.
Undefeated/Winless teams
There are now only 9 undefeated teams (6.5% of FBS teams) after the 6th week, as 6 teams suffered their 1st loss. These are listed alphabetically, with all teams 6-0 except where noted.
BYU (5-0)
Georgia
Indiana
James Madison
Miami, Fl (5-0)
Notre Dame
Texas Tech (5-0)
UCLA (5-0)
Utah (5-0)
Here are the winless teams, also listed alphabetically, and 0-6 except where noted. There are still 3 of these teams left.
Charlotte
Northern Illinois (0-5)
ULM (0-5)
Here is how the conferences compare. The first number is the amount of undefeated teams, the 2nd the number of winless teams.
Big 12- 3/0
Big Ten- 2/0
SEC- 1/0
ACC- 1/0
Independents-1/0
Sun Belt- 1/1
Mountain West- 0/1
American- 0/1
MAC- 0/0
Pac 12- 0/0
CUSA- 0/0
Just for fun, here are the teams that have a win, but no FBS wins.
Akron
Ball State
Kennesaw State
Missouri State
Rice
Rutgers
Sacramento State
Sam Houston
Southern Miss
UTEP
Washington State
That's 11 teams, as 6 teams earned their 1st FBS win last weekend, broken down this way:
CUSA- 3
MAC- 3
SBC- 1
American- 1
Big Ten- 1
Pac 12- 1
Mountain West- 1
ACC- 0
Big 12- 0
SEC- 0
Independents- 0
This means that there are 14 teams- 10.1% of the 138- that still have no FBS wins.
Bowl eligible/eliminated
5 teams have become bowl eligible with 6 wins. Only 2 teams have played 7 games- USC and EMU- and since neither are 0-7, no team has been eliminated from bowl consideration. There are 35 non-playoff bowl games, so 70 teams are needed, plus the 12 for the CFP. That means 82 teams will be needed for postseason play. All teams are eligible for postseason play, but UMass and Buffalo will need 7 wins, since 2 are against FCS teams, and only 1 can count.
Georgia
Indiana
James Madison
Notre Dame
USC
Conference Races
Now that we have started play, some teams have started to surge ahead while others have fallen behind. Here is a handy chart to help you see where every team stands.
Paul's Playoff Picks
Navy is my first team to be eliminated from the CFP. I'm sure there will be more, but so far my picks have done very well.
As a refresher, here is the setup for the CFP:
4 slots are reserved for the P4 conference champions; 7 slots are at-large (any team), but will include the highest rated G6 team regardless of if they are a conference champion. Notre Dame is also guaranteed a spot as long as they finish in the top 12 (can't be bumped by a lower rated conference champion).
The top 4 seeds get a bye for the 1st round. This year, there are again no allowances made for conference champions beyond being accepted into the field. The next 4 seeds get a home game for the 1st round, and the 9-12 seeds travel to play 4-8 (4 vs 12, 5 vs 11, etc.). Teams are not reseeded after the 1st round. After the 1st round, it plays out like any tournament- quarterfinals, semifinals, then finals, all at neutral sites (which I hope will change in future years).
So the 1st task is picking who will be P4 conference champions and get the automatic berths, and then what other teams from those conferences may get in. So I decided to take this conference by conference. But as I looked through each team who I felt had a chance, I see the potential for each of the P4 conferences to have as many as 6 teams with 10 or more wins! Obviously, they all won't (or at least I hope not) but even if each of the P4 only has 3 teams with 10+ wins, that's already more teams than spaces available in the CFP, if you include a G6 team. And don't forget about Notre Dame! So here's what I think.
In the SEC, I think several teams have a chance to make the CFP. Georgia is an obvious choice, but there are as many as 8 teams with a chance to get to 9 wins. Alabama, LSU, Texas, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, and Tennessee all have potential. I can see any of this group of teams to be capable of winning anywhere from 9-11 games, mostly depending on avoiding upsets, and how they do against each other. South Carolina, Auburn, and Florida could be dark horses.
The Big Ten has much of the same problem- as many as 7 teams could win anywhere from 9-11 games (I'm not predicting any 12-0 teams), those teams being Ohio State, Oregon, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, USC, and Penn State. Washington and Nebraska could be dark horses, as well as Minnesota or some other team.
In the ACC, most of the top teams don't play each other, more than once or twice, so once again we have the potential of having Miami, SMU, Clemson, Ga Tech, Louisville, Pitt, and Virginia getting to 9+ wins, with NC State or Va Tech being dark horses.
In the Big 12, I could see BYU, Utah, Houston, Arizona, Texas Tech, and/or TCU getting as many as 9 wins, with UCF or Arizona State being a dark horse.
In the G6, I see only about 4 or 5 teams that could get to 11 wins, but as many as 8 could get to 10 wins.
Having said all that, here is who I think makes it into this year's 12-team CFP, presented in no particular order:
Oregon- On borrowed time after 2nd loss
Indiana- Survived Nebraska on the road, now must get past OSU at home
Georgia- Just keeps on keeping on, but has rival Auburn next
Notre Dame- May be the best team but finally plays one with a pulse when they visit BYU
Texas- Loss to Oklahoma exposes some deficiencies
Ohio State- Big game at Indiana for supremacy in the Big Ten
Miami, FL- No challenges until at least late October
Texas Tech- Undefeated, but not dominant
Alabama- Loss to UGA won't hurt chances much, if at all
Navy- ELIMINATED
BYU- First challenge against visiting Notre Dame
SMU- Is 4-1, but has yet to look like a CFP team
Some of you are probably screaming at me right now with, "what about...?" and you would probably be right. This is all just a colossal guess. So to hedge my bets a bit, here are the teams I think also have a decent chance to make it in, again in no particular order. This list is getting smaller as I delete teams on this list as they become eliminated.
UTSA
Memphis
Houston
Arizona
USC
Boise State
Fresno State
Ole Miss
Tennessee
James Madison
This is obviously an extensive list, because I basically listed every P4 team with a chance to get 9+ wins, and every G6 team that I think could get 10+ wins. I am 99.9% sure that I will be wrong about much of this, but I would be happy if I get at least 6 of the 12 teams right, and if all 12 come from these 2 lists.
My pick to win it all was Oregon, which would give the Big Ten 4 consecutive national championships from 4 different teams! That is looking increasingly unlikely...
I'll update how my picks are doing each Wednesday throughout the season.
Feel free to leave a comment. Come back tomorrow for Paul's Picks!
Until next time, may you and your loved ones be blessed!
Comments
Post a Comment