The Over-Reaction:
- Our Top 4 teams are all from different conferences. No Playoff controversy/discussion needed this year!
- Texas lost...again! Charlie Strong is toast!
- Houston lost...again! The players are done with their season!
- The Group of Five race is settled! The Broncos (either from Boise or Kalamazoo) will play in the Cotton Bowl!
- Penn State is BACK! Ohio State is mediocre! And Michigan State is trash!
The Wait-and-See Reaction:
- While Louisville got an impressive win with their blowout of NC State, can the Cardinals keep up their dominating ways against the rest of their mediocre-or-worse schedule (UVA, BC, Wake, Houston, and Kentucky)?
- West Virginia has been a spoiler to highly-ranked Big 12 contenders in years past (2013 Oklahoma State, 2014 Baylor). Can the Cowboys return the favor in Stillwater this coming week, or are the Mountaineers that much closer to being "for real"?
- Colorado just got bowl eligible for the first time in 9 years. Are they happy there, or do they continue to contend for the PAC-12 South?
- Kentucky has been scraping by to 4 wins so far - and became the only SEC East team to knock off a team from the SEC West this season. An FCS team and lowly Missouri are still to come; can the Wildcats pull off a bowl season themselves?
- Washington State's Mike Leach and Arizona State's Todd Graham put on a demonstration of how NOT to demonstrate class in the art of competition. Will the PAC-12 step in and nip this in the bud?
- While other Group of Five teams still do have a shot at the New Year's Six, the clear front-runners appear to be undefeated Boise State and Western Michigan. Can they both keep climbing and possibly BOTH make the Cotton Bowl?
Tony's Takeaways:
- The home stretch is shaping up to feature some super-tight division races.
- The ACC Coastal (VT/Pitt/UNC all with only one conference loss at this moment)
- The SEC East (Florida leading but with no margin for error, unless Tennessee gets stunned)
- The Big Ten West (Wisconsin looking like the best team but with 2 losses, vs Nebraska's 0)
- The PAC-12 North (Washington the clear-cut best-looking, but Washington State still unbeaten in league play)
- The possibilities for a conference to produce 2 Playoff teams is slimming down. Assuming the luck and chaos were to come as needed, the most likely candidates (some more likely than others) for a non-champ to finish in the Top 4 appear to be:
- 11-1 Louisville (if the Cardinals keep dominating opponents yet miss out on the ACC Championship Game)
- 11-1 or 12-1 Michigan (if the Wolverines lose a close one at Ohio State and lose the Division in the process, or if Wisconsin/Nebraska upset Michigan in the Big Ten title game)
- 11-1 or 12-1 Alabama (if Auburn pulls off a close shocker in the Iron Bowl to capture the SEC West, or if Florida/Tennessee manage to sneak it out in the SEC Title Game)
- 12-1 Nebraska (if the Cornhuskers look really good in wins vs Wisconsin and Ohio State, win out the regular season, but then lose a nail-biter vs Michigan in Indianapolis)
- 12-1 Clemson (if Clemson wins convincingly until Orlando - meaning no more scraping out wins - but then loses a close one to a 10-2 UNC or VT)
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