The Football Brainiacs

The other day during the OU vs. KSU broadcast, I heard the Sooners mentioned in the playoff conversation for the first time in a few weeks.

I know for most Sooner fans the hopes of a playoff run ended when Urban Meyer rode in. It was interesting to hear the national media start to toy with the idea of a first possible 2-loss team in a playoff. Initially I rolled my eyes. But the thought lingered.

The playoff committee gives preference to a conference champion. That is a written standard within the committee’s guidelines. The Big 12 is down this year. But there is another conference that is down this year…the Pac 12. The Pac 12 currently has only two teams in the top 25, 1-loss Utah and undefeated Washington.

Washington and Utah will face each other which means Utah will either drop behind the Sooners as a 2-loss team or Washington will come that much closer to being a 2-loss team themselves.

Obviously the committee could choose to put the four “best” teams in the playoff even if that doesn’t end up including the Pac 12 and the Big 12 winner. They could select the winner of the ACC, the SEC (Alabama) and the Big 10 (Ohio State or Michigan) and then throw in a potential 1-loss team from one of those three conferences.

IF the Sooners end up winning out, by the end of the season my guess is their rank will be hovering somewhere between 5th and 7th…striking distance to that top 4 if the Pac 12 ends up with a 2-loss team.

Then it’ll be up to the committee to decide if they want to leave out two P5 conference champs out or simply take a 2-loss team in order to ensure four of the five conferences are represented.

Obviously, a lot still has to happen to create this conundrum; the Sooners have to win out and the Pac 12 needs a 2-loss team.

But it’s fun, at least to me, to think about…