Teams and storylines to watch:
- Ole Miss: This is a team that seems solidly in the playoffs but Joey Freshwater has introduced a lot of needless drama. What if the distraction leads to a flop in the Egg Bowl? What if he calls a bluff and bails before the CFP? Long shot, high stakes. Ingredients are there for a spectacular explosion but will someone light the fuse?
- Bama: Not in danger— yet. But DeBoer teams don’t have the killer instinct. Bama went from weeks of the most impressive football in the country and Heisman play from Simpson to mortal. There are rivalries where the better team usually wins, and there are rivalries where all bets are off: the Iron Bowl is the latter. Also intriguing is the possibility of a non-competitive CCG loss to drop to three losses.
- Oregon and USC: A great race between old and new money to win the PAC-10. Wait, no. A race to be the third Big 10 team in. What are we doing? Anyway, Oregon can finish strong with wins over USC and Washington to maybe angle for a top 5 seed. USC can spoil that and get a CFP appearance for the first time by beating Oregon. Great, high-stakes football between two talented but not quite elite teams.
- ACC Chaos: Who wants to win here? Miami has the longest odds of contenders but will be the angriest if a two loss ND gets in ahead of them. GaTech can beat Pitt and get to the CCG. Other teams need help along the way, including the aforementioned Pitt, Virginia, and even SMU still lurking. This race is wide open, and the champ will likely not be the highest ranked team. Such are superconferences.
-Texas: To stay alive they have to thump—not just best— A&M in Austin. Oh, and also avoid a letdown against Arkie. Should be easy, right? The voices will be loud, but the non-competitive loss at UGA means a showout against A&M is needed; and even then it may not be enough. The loss to tOSU isn’t the killer. Rather, its the Florida game and the UGA result. The committee looks at that and sees a team that had a late-season shot at a top-tier team, and just didn’t match up.