College Football Playoffs: What Happens After Week 11?

Well, things just got much more interesting didn’t they? Last week was so easy with four undefeated Power 5 teams but now only one remains. Here is a quick recap of what the top four did:

1. Alabama did what Alabama does, wins football games. Many pundits pegged this as a game where they could sleepwalk through the game after defeating LSU last week but they quickly put that to bed as they were up 30-0 at half.
2. We all know what Michigan did on Saturday night. Instead of coming out and proving everyone wrong that they have had it easy and played their difficult games at home, they played right into it and dropped the game to Iowa. They still control their destiny but have zero margin for error.
3. Ditto for Clemson but even worse for losing at home! The second top 4 team to lose on a last second field goal, Clemson’s defense certainly did not show up to play this week. Pitt racked up 43 points on Clemson en route to a one point victory on a last second field goal with 6 seconds to go.
4. Washington, unlike Clemson and Michigan, did not even get down to the last seconds in their 26-13 loss to USC. They could still win out and win their conference championship game but in a down year in the Pac 12 that conference loss may have done them in for a playoff birth.

So, how did we vote with three of four teams losing? There are so many one loss teams that are contending for the title but notably these losses immediately bring Ohio State and Louisville right back into the picture. There are a few two loss teams that coul make things interesting if they win a conference championship game but we are a few weeks from those scenarios. Here is the “writer” ballot:

Which comes out to a Top 4 of:

Runner up: Clemson* (8 votes); Wisconsin (1 vote)

*Clemson loses the tiebreaker by virtue of having less third place votes than Michigan.

So much for things being easy to predict! Just within the Big Ten we are already left wondering who will make it from the east since there is now a three way tie for first so the next two weeks are going to be extremely interesting. We’re also left with Clemson tied with Louisville in the ACC but Clemson owns the tiebreaker, so that CCG is determining that race barring yet another loss for either team.

Who do you all have? How is the committee going to handle this? Let us know!