This time next week, the final four teams for the college football playoffs will be announced and the stage set. With each passing week, it looks increasingly likely that Georgia will ban the No. 1 seed barring SEC championship disaster.
If the Bulldogs stay clean through championship weekend, there are a few teams they could potentially face in the opening round. Ohio State lost to Michigan that weekend and then LSU, then No. 5, lost to Texas A&M. Those two losses mean USC is likely to make the jump from No. 6 to No. 4, and Alabama and Tennessee are creeping back into the mix after Clemson and Oregon both lost again last weekend.
As for Georgia, her potential opponents are USC Trojans and Ohio State, with Alabama and Tennessee basically having a chance to squeeze in. So where will these teams be placed when the latest leaderboards are released tonight, and who will make the Georgia committee go up against Championship weekend?
First, it’s important to note what the playoff stats are when ranking these teams: Schedule Strength, Conference Championship, Head-to-Head, Scores vs Ranked Opponents, and Scores vs Common Opponents.
Based on these criteria, we predict rankings as follows:
- Georgia
- Michigan
- TCU
- U.S.C
- State of Ohio
- Alabama
- Tennessee
As previously mentioned, complete and utter chaos would have to ensue this weekend for Alabama to get back in the top four. In layman’s terms, pretty much every single top-four team would have to lose their conference championship game to have any chance of a spot.
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It might seem absurd to have Alabama ahead of Tennessee considering the Volunteers are beating them head-to-head and likely have the more impressive win between the pair, but Tennessee’s recent loss to South Carolina is what’s keeping them behind the tide. And if the committee was willing to put Bama ahead of Tennessee last week, nothing happened during rivalry week that she could have done this week to turn it around.
With all that said, Georgia’s current list of potential opponents looks like USC, Ohio State, or Alabama, in that order. Even TCU could also be added to the mix depending on how this weekend ends. Georgia and Michigan have pretty much locked their seats, now it’s just a matter of letting the dust settle and determining who plays who when the playoffs roll around.
The final result of the ranking list may seem slightly predictable at the moment, but as we know, it is rarely that simple and there are still many important football matches to play.
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