Many college football fans have favorite teams that they want to see do well every year. Some of those are lucky enough to root for teams that have a legitimate shot to win a national championship.
For most college football fans, however, that’s not realistic. You root for good wins for your team, and your program heading in the right direction. Maybe you want to get a bowl spot.
When it comes to the College Football Playoff, however, many of us are just rooting for interesting stuff to happen. And what’s more interesting than chaos?
This week, I wanted to look at five things that could happen that would sow the most chaos in college football, the five things that would give the College Football Playoff committee the biggest headache.
I’m only going to do things that I can feasibly see happening. Like, actual maximum chaos would be if half the college football teams went on strike, a herd of carniverous pig bats attacked the crowd at UCF – Tulsa, and Maryland beat Ohio State, but none of those things are going to happen.
These are all things that *could* happen, reasonably, and would turn college football into an absolute mess.
1. LSU beats Alabama
This one wouldn’t be that surprising, but would start the chaos dominoes falling. If LSU lost to Alabama, and that was the team’s only loss, the team could still make a case to be in the playoff, and honestly might remain in the top four even if this happens. (Our own Michelle Martinelli has more on this.)
If Bama loses to LSU, however, I see the Crimson Tide dropping to six or seven. Is this fair? Probably not. But it’s probably what will happen were Alabama to lose. Chaos has begun.
2. Minnesota beats Penn State
This is where things start getting really fun. Minnesota is undefeated, but ranked No. 17 in the CFP ranking because strength of schedule and whatever. If it beats Penn State, however (and Minnesota is good!), all of a sudden the CFP committee is left with a conundrum: Is Penn State worse than the members thought, or is Minnesota better?
If the loss is close, Penn State will argue its only loss is to an undefeated Power 5 team, and thus the Nittany Lions shouldn’t be excluded from the top four. Minnesota will argue that it’s now undefeated, in a Power 5 conference, and just beat the No. 4 team in the country, so … should the Gophers be in the top four?
Yes. Maybe. Who knows. Let the chaos wash over you.
3. Clemson only beats NC State by 3
The Tigers, mad that they’ve been left out of the top four, come out ready to prove something against an NC State team … but Trevor Lawrence throws a couple silly picks early, they fumble the ball once, and only manage to eke out a 3-point win over NC State.
Now the committee has the defending national champions, undefeated, with two teams ahead of them losing … and they still won’t feel good about putting them in the top four. Do they dare leave them out again, even with this pathetic performance? I don’t know, but what I do know is that this is feeling very chaotic.
4. Notre Dame beats Duke by 63 points
What better way to add to the chaos then having a fired up Notre Dame fanbase trying to talk up a playoff appearance because the team smacked Duke? Give it to me. Give me the chaos.
5. Florida crushes Vanderbilt
When rooting for chaos in college football, what you’re basically rooting for is “how many decent-to-good two-loss teams can we get all desperately making their case to a more and more confused playoff committee?” A huge win for Florida over Vanderbilt will help us get there. Let’s get nutty.
