Odds and Ends 10/21/26

Welcome Back!

Before I begin, there is 1 Wednesday game this week:

Wednesday, October 21

New Mexico State @ Sam Houston- The Aggies lead this brief series 2-1, but each team is undefeated at home.Both teams are off to rough starts, with NMSU at 2-4/1-1, routing WKU but getting routed in turn by FIU 2 weeks ago. The Bearkats have been even worse at 1-5/0-2 with no FBS wins and 13-point loss to WKU. Aggies win.

Odds and Ends

As you have probably heard, the CFP is 95% of the way to approval of a 24-team playoff starting next year. While I'm not of fan of this expansion, I understand it's inevitable. My one push is that all 10 conference champions be included, not just the P4 and one G6 team. Why? In my mind, it's all about access. As it stands now, 23 slots will be filled from a pool of 64 teams (the P4 conferences plus Notre Dame). That means the 74 remaining teams (the G6 plus UConn) are fighting for 1 spot. Not what I would call even odds, or in any way "fair". But let's put that aside for a moment and talk about 2 other issues. 

First, if all 10 conference champions were included, that would still leave 14 at-large spots available, which is twice as much as is currently available (5 conference champs plus 7 at-large). And I know the argument that the CUSA or MAC champions don't deserve to be in the CFP, at least not most years, and I may even agree with you. But here's the thing- is the chance of the MAC or CUSA champion advancing  in the playoff any less likely than an 8-4 team from one of the P4 conferences? Are they any less deserving? At least they won their conference, which is more than could be said for a 7th place team in the SEC or Big Ten.

Second is the stipulation that the 4 P4 champions are included. How will that be decided if the conference championship games no longer exist? I can see a scenario where the Big 12 has 3 or 4 teams finishing 8-1 in the conference this season. How will the champion be determined if it happens next season? With the bloated conferences, there is no way for a round-robin type of season, so much depends on who is on a team's schedule, even more so than in the past when conferences were 8-10 teams each. 

Just my thoughts...

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 6 undefeated teams (4.3% of FBS teams) after the 7th week, as 3 teams suffered their 1st loss. These are listed alphabetically, with all teams 6-0 except where noted.

BYU 

James Madison (7-0)

Miami, Fl 

Texas Tech 

UCLA 

Utah 

Here are the winless teams, also listed alphabetically, and 0-6 except where noted. There are now only 2 of these teams left.

Northern Illinois 

ULM 

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- 1/0 

ACC- 1/0 

Sun Belt- 1/1 

SEC- 0/0 

Independents-0/0 

MAC- 0/0

Pac 12- 0/0 

CUSA- 0/0 

American- 0/0 

Mountain West- 0/1 

Just for fun, here are the teams that have a win, but no FBS wins.

Akron

Kennesaw State

Rice

Sacramento State

Sam Houston

Southern Miss

UTEP

Washington State

That's 8 teams, as 6 teams earned their 1st FBS win last weekend, broken down this way:

CUSA- 2

MAC- 2

SBC- 1

American- 1

Pac 12- 1

Mountain West- 1

Big Ten- 0

ACC- 0

Big 12- 0

SEC- 0

Independents- 0

This means that there are 10 teams- 7.2% of the 138- that still have no FBS wins.

Bowl eligible/eliminated

The number has swelled to 17 teams have become bowl eligible with 6 wins, an increase of 12 teams. 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. These are listed alphabetically.

BYU

Georgia

Houston

Indiana

James Madison

Kentucky

Miami, Fl

North Dakota State

Notre Dame

Ohio State

Tennessee

Texas Tech

UCLA

USC

Utah

UTSA

Wake Forest

65 more teams are needed to fill all the bowl slots.

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.

Conference	Favorites- Undefeated	Still possible- 1 loss	Falling behind- 2 losses	Eliminated- 3+ losses
American	UTSA, UNT	Army, Memphis, UAB, FAU, ECU, Tulane	Charlotte, Temple, USF, Tulsa	Navy, Rice
ACC	Miami	WF, SMU, Clemson, UNC	Louisville, Pitt, Cal, UVA, VT, GT, Duke, BC, NC St	FSU, Stanford, Syracuse
Big 12	BYU, TT, Utah	Arizona, Houston, Baylor, Okla St	Iowa St, UCF, Kansas St, TCU, Cincinnati, Ariz St	WVU, Colo, Kansas
Big Ten	UCLA, Ohio St	Indiana, USC, Iowa	Nebraska, Purdue, Illinois, Michigan, Rutgers	Penn St, Washington, Maryland, Mich St
CUSA	Liberty, JSU	FIU, NMSU, WKU, MTSU, Mo St	Del, KSU, SHS
MAC	Ohio, WMU	EMU, BGSU, Buffalo, Toledo, Miami	CMU, KSU, Ball St	UMass, Akron, Sac St
MWC	UNM	UNLV, NDSU, AFA, Wyoming, SJSU	Nev, NIU	UTEP, Hawaii
Pac 12	Boise St, OSU	SDSU, USU, TSU	FS, CSU	WSU
SEC		UGA, UK, Tenn, Ole Miss	Alabama, MSU, Missouri, Florida, LSU, Auburn, Okla, Texas	SC, TAMU, Vandy, Arkansas
SBC East	JMU	Ga Southern, GSU, App St	CCU, Marshall	ODU
SBC West	SA, LT	Louisiana, Troy	Louisiana, USM, ULM

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- Lost to OSU, but still on track

Georgia- Loss to Auburn could keep them out of SECCG but not the CFP

Notre Dame- Loss to BYU severly hampers CFP chances, especially if they lose to Miami on Nov 7

Texas- As close to being eliminated without being eliminated as possible

Ohio State- Big win over Indiana keeps them among the favorites

Miami, FL- No challenges until at least late October

Texas Tech- Undefeated, but so are 2 other Big 12 teams

Alabama- 2 losses in a row could be start of a spiral with Texas A&M next

Navy- ELIMINATED

BYU- Still undefeated after besting Notre Dame

SMU- Is 5-1, 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

Houston

Arizona

USC

Boise 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!