Does Oregon or Tennessee have a better chance to get into the College Football Playoff? | College Football Enquirer
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger discuss the latest College Football Playoff rankings, and debate which teams have the best chance to finish the season with a Playoff berth.
Video Transcript
DAN WETZEL: All right, welcome on the pod. Week two. College football playoff rankings are out. Number one Georgia. Number two Ohio State. Number three Michigan. Maybe you could have flipped Michigan and Ohio State.
TCU is four. That's the big one. Tennessee, it was not able to stay ahead of TCU at this point. Tennessee is five. Oregon six. LSU seven. Southern California eight.
Bama, Clemson sitting at nine, 10. And Mississippi at 11. UCLA 12. Goes on from there. Thoughts? Anything stick out to you here?
PAT FORDE: Just a couple of things. As you said, no real bombshells. Nothing super controversial. I like the fact that TCU is ahead of Tennessee. I think that you're awarding a team that's 9-0 in a good conference.
And while Tennessee has some great wins, that loss had to leave a mark and it did. You go from one to five. And Boo Corrigan, the Selection Committee Chair, brought up they viewed both the Tennessee and Oregon losses to Georgia as one-sided losses. In other words, losing by 14 didn't tell the whole story of that game. Everybody on the committee watched that game and they knew it was a blowout. And so that's why Tennessee is being docked what it is for losing that game.
DAN WETZEL: That is important because you could end up at the end of the day, can Tennessee get in? Look, right now you're looking at Georgia wins out, they're in. The most obvious deal here. Ohio State and Michigan play, can one of them stay or not? We can talk about that in a sec, but let's say one gets bounced. TCU obviously can play its way in. If that's the case, who's four?
And if Tennessee-- if the committee today, and presumably all along, but there's no real consistency often week to week, doesn't see a difference in Oregon's loss and Tennessee's loss, that's not good for Tennessee.
PAT FORDE: Right.
DAN WETZEL: And additionally not good for Tennessee, their final three games are Missouri, South Carolina, Vandy. They may only be one 0.500 team in that. They don't have anywhere to pick up a lot of strength.
Meanwhile, Oregon has Washington this weekend. They have Utah that I think would remain ranked no matter what happens. They are at Oregon State, which could be an eight-win team. All three of those are over 0.500 teams, which seems to be a marker they use. And then you'd have a Pac 12 title game.
Oregon has a lot more that they can pick up late than Tennessee can. And so that's why I'd be nervous if I was the Vols if this comes down to a Tennessee-Oregon Pac 12 Champion Oregon at 12-1 and 11-1 Tennessee. Even with the win over LSU, even with the win over Kentucky, even with the win over Alabama, I don't know if you can hold off the Ducks.
PAT FORDE: Yeah. No, I think so. That-- and boy, that'll be fascinating because obviously one was a 46-point game and the other was while it was 14, you know, it was probably more like a three touchdown, three to four touchdown game. So there is the score differential regardless there, but that 13th data point, which spurred the Big 12 to having a championship game many years-- a few years ago when all this first started could really weigh in Oregon's favor if that comes down that way, or USC's, or UCLA's.
If any of those teams get to 11-1, get in the championship game and win against one or the other ones, that's a big schedule boost there. So the Pac 12 for once is sitting in a position where they've got a lot of upside as it stands right now with six Oregon, eight USC, and even 12 UCLA, and 13 Utah. I mean, they're not going to make it with two losses, but they can help other people's schedule if you beat them.
DAN WETZEL: The only other one that interests me is, can Ohio State or Michigan survive a loss and stay in front of what would essentially be a 12-1 Oregon or an 11-1 Tennessee? I don't know. It would obviously depend on how the game is played. If they're still both unbeaten.
I mean, Michigan has played a terrible non-conference schedule, but they are winning-- winning big. Ohio State's winning big. The one thing is Notre Dame is now ranked at 20th, which should help the Buckeyes, if that was somehow a scenario. And if Notre Dame wins out and ends up an improbable 9-3, Notre Dame could be-- they could be a really good win for Ohio State all of a sudden.
PAT FORDE: Yep. But one other thing Boo Corrigan said. That non-conference schedule from Michigan has become a factor. I would still be nervous if I'm Michigan. If you lose to Ohio State, how much that could come back to haunt you.