We’re almost to the finish line of the regular season and just three weeks away from knowing who will make the College Football Playoff.
What does the best-case scenario look like for the rest of the season for all of the CFP contenders? How about the worst? Here’s a look at everything that is on the table for each program in the hunt.
Ohio State Buckeyes
Best case: Win out by convincingly thumping Michigan in the Big House, then become Big Ten champions to return to the Rose Bowl for New Year’s Day. There, you meet any number of SEC teams for a measure of sweet revenge (bonus points for either Alabama or Georgia), roll over a hapless opponent in the semifinals and party on South Beach by beating Notre Dame yet again to become the first 16–0 major college football champion. That cements this as one of the few seasons capable of challenging 2001 Miami or ’19 LSU for being one of the greatest ever.
Worst case: Lose to the Wolverines (again) in inexplicable fashion, miss out on the Big Ten title game and sulk around with a berth to the Cotton Bowl. There, an upstart like Texas Tech or Mississippi pulls an upset for the ages and the reigning champions are none and done in the CFP. Jeremiah Smith challenges the NFL eligibility rules and wins the case to leave Columbus, Ohio, early, followed by losing both coordinators to other jobs.
Indiana Hoosiers
Best case: Put up 77 points on Purdue to end the regular season and, in front of a completely red-and-white crowd in Indianapolis, beat Ohio State for the Big Ten title with a last-second touchdown that also helps Fernando Mendoza win the Heisman Trophy a few weeks later. Curt Cignetti draws his old employer Alabama as the No. 1 overall seed in the Rose Bowl and beats the Tide before facing Notre Dame in a semifinal. Not only does Indiana earn in-state bragging rights back, the Hoosiers beat Ohio State again in the national title game to cap off the most charmed season in college football history. Google that.
Worst case: The Hoosiers get blown out by Ohio State in the Big Ten title game and those questions about being able to compete against the big brand-name teams dominate the next few weeks leading into a Cotton Bowl against Notre Dame. After Jeremiyah Love wins the Heisman, the Irish run all over Indiana deep in the heart of Texas, prompting Cignetti to remain in town where he takes the Dallas Cowboys job.
Texas A&M Aggies
Best case: A cathartic three-touchdown win over Texas in Austin caps off an undefeated season and sends the Aggies to their first SEC championship game. There, Marcel Reed puts up 400 yards and scores four times against Alabama to send him to New York for the Heisman ceremony, which he surprisingly wins after multiple Ohio State players split votes. Going to the Sugar Bowl for the first time since 1999, they draw underrated in-state rival Texas Tech, who they house by three scores. In a highly anticipated semifinal against the Big Ten champion Buckeyes, the S-E-C chants are thunderous when a last-second field goal splits the uprights to send A&M to the national championship game. Then in Miami against a head coach they once tried to hire as Jimbo Fisher’s replacement, the Aggies manage to beat Dan Lanning’s Oregon team and finally match their resources with a remarkable achievement to end the season at No. 1 six months after the rival Longhorns were labeled with that same ranking.
Worst case: The Longhorns salvage their season with an upset at home of Texas A&M, ensuring it will have been 5,482 days since the Aggies last beat the burnt orange. That knocks them out of the SEC championship game and sends them to the Cotton Bowl where they face … Texas Tech. The Red Raiders show what money can really buy in a dominating game that ensures A&M suffers two losses to its biggest in-state rivals to close what had been a dream season. Ouch in Aggieland.
Georgia Bulldogs
Best case: Texas beats Texas A&M to send Georgia to the SEC title game, where they exorcise some Alabama demons to earn another conference championship. They draw a rematch of last year’s Sugar Bowl in New Orleans but beat Notre Dame before kicking another last-second field goal to beat Ohio State in a semifinal. Finally, they destroy Miami at Hard Rock Stadium in the national title game to cement the dynasty under Kirby Smart.
Worst case: The Dawgs lose to rival Georgia Tech, which also costs the team a home game in the CFP. That sends them on the road to Notre Dame, where it’s 5 degrees at kickoff for their first-round game. Georgia looks frozen as it barely musters 250 yards of offense in a 30–17 loss that prompts plenty of discussion about SEC teams traveling north in the winter.
Mississippi Rebels
Best case: After running up the score in the Egg Bowl, the Rebels see Georgia, Alabama and Texas A&M all lose to suddenly become the highest-ranked team in the SEC and garner an Orange Bowl quarterfinal out of nowhere. While that robs the Grove from hosting a CFP first-round game, it gives the school plenty of extra time to work out a massive new contract to keep Lane Kiffin in charge of the program in a deal announced on Christmas Eve. The Rebels then beat Notre Dame in Miami, pull off a late stunner against Indiana in a semifinal and reach the national title game against heavily favored Ohio State. But Trinidad Chambliss goes off and Ole Miss wins the national title.
Worst case: Strange things happen in the Egg Bowl, which proves to be the case as Mississippi State forces three turnovers and pulls a miraculous upset in to force the committee to drop Ole Miss out of the running from hosting a first-round CFP game. Forced to go on the road, they travel all the way out to Oregon, where a Lanning fake punt before halftime sets off a trainwreck of a loss to go one and done in the playoff. Kiffin is announced as Florida’s head coach the next day before the team plane even lands back in Oxford, Miss.
Oregon Ducks
Best case: The Ducks host Oklahoma at Autzen Stadium and don’t need any sort of onside kick to clamp down and beat the Sooners. That sends them back to the Rose Bowl where they are the ones to pull off a stunner against Ohio State and exact a measure of revenge against the Buckeyes for last year’s edition. They meet old-school Notre Dame in a semifinal to prove new money is just as good as old money in college football before moving on to the national championship game. There, against familiar foe Georgia, they win in a walk-off field goal to finally give Phil Knight his golden title.
Worst case: USC wins this weekend in the real Pac-12 championship game and then Washington pulls a shocker in Seattle during the final regular-season game with a late pick-six to officially put Oregon on the outside looking in of the playoff picture.
Texas Tech Red Raiders
Best case: The Red Raiders triumph in their first-ever Big 12 championship game by convincingly beating BYU again to earn the No. 5 seed. They host North Texas in the biggest game in Lubbock ever, which they win in a runaway to head to the Sugar Bowl to face Texas A&M. They wind up destroying the Aggies like South Carolina did in the first half this past Saturday and then move on to beat Notre Dame in a semifinal. They wind up losing a close heartbreaker to Ohio State in the national title game but still turn into the team everybody was rooting for down in Miami.
Worst case: Tech gets upset by Utah in the Big 12 title game, costing them a trip to the College Football Playoff. Later, the College Sports Commission fines the Red Raiders for NIL violations while mega-booster Cody Campbell’s son commits to nearby Big 12 rival TCU as he switches his funding to the Horned Frogs. Texas A&M then wins the national title.
Oklahoma Sooners
Best case: The Sooners win out the rest of the season and then have their win against Alabama look even better as they secure the SEC title. That more than puts Oklahoma into the playoff field where it travels to Autzen Stadium to beat Oregon for a slight measure of catharsis for the 2006 result. The Sooners lose a close one to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, but the bulk of the team announces returns for ’26 to really make a run at bigger things.
Worst case: Just when everything was lining up for a run to the playoff, LSU and its interim coaching staff stun the Sooners at home on the final weekend in the regular season. Texas beats Texas A&M and the committee slots in the Longhorns as the final at-large of the bracket, where it pulls off an upset of Notre Dame to wind up in the semifinals. John Mateer is convinced he can become a first-round pick so he leaves school early and OC Ben Arbuckle takes the newly opened North Texas job.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Best case: USC upsets Oregon on Saturday, handing over a spot in the top eight and allowing Notre Dame to host a first-round playoff game again. That winds up being Alabama, who the Irish hand another humbling loss to send them to another semifinal, which is the Sugar Bowl against Texas A&M. They beat another SEC champion in New Orleans while getting a bit of revenge for that missed hold earlier in the season to send them to a semifinal against Indiana. They convincingly house the Hoosiers and move on to upset Ohio State in Miami for the school’s first national championship since 1988.
Worst case: Despite winning their final two games, the Irish are left out of the playoff in favor of Miami as the final at-large team. Then, Marcus Freeman bolts for an NFL job.
Alabama Crimson Tide
Best case: The loss this past weekend means nothing as Alabama wins the SEC. That allows the Tide to host a first-round game at Bryant-Denny Stadium, which just so happens to be Notre Dame. After dispatching the Irish, they move on to beat Indiana and Ohio State in back-to-back games to secure the national title for the SEC and finally get fans off Kalen DeBoer’s back.
Worst case: Auburn wins the Iron Bowl to knock the Tide from the playoff while the growing talk about buying out DeBoer’s contract helps tank a promising recruiting and transfer class. Nick Saban escapes Tuscaloosa, Ala., in the middle of the night to take the LSU job, too.
BYU Cougars
Best case: The Cougars win out and then upset Texas Tech to earn their first Big 12 championship, while Utah tumbles all the way down to the Vegas Bowl. They host a first-round game at LaVell Edwards Stadium and beat an SEC team, like Alabama. Kalani Sitake’s team falls in a quarterfinal but attention turns to 2026 after securing three five-star recruits and the best transfer class in the country.
Worst case: BYU loses to Cincinnati this weekend, forcing a multiteam tie in the Big 12 standings that sends Utah to the conference championship game. There, the Utes upset Texas Tech and host a CFP game at Rice-Eccles Stadium, which they win over Notre Dame. Kyle Whittingham announces he won’t retire after a close quarterfinal loss.
Vanderbilt Commodores
Best case: The Commodores win out, with Diego Pavia accounting for five touchdowns to beat Tennessee and cap off a 10–2 regular season. That hands him the Heisman Trophy and helps Vandy sneak into the playoff after Miami and Notre Dame lose on the final weekend. They have to go on the road against Ole Miss, but pull out a late win to send them to the Orange Bowl where they face off against Indiana. The Hoosiers commit too many turnovers in a loss and it’s Ohio State who improbably ends the magical Vandy run in the semifinals. Pavia wins his court cases and returns for 2026 alongside a freshly extended Clark Lea.
Worst case: Vandy survives a close call against Kentucky before losing by three scores to Tennessee that ends any CFP talk around Nashville. Pavia departs for the NFL but goes undrafted while Lea shocks everybody and winds up at Penn State during an active coaching carousel.
Utah Utes
Best case: BYU loses to Cincinnati to allow Utah to go to the Big 12 championship game, where the Utes upset Texas Tech to earn a playoff bid. They wind up hosting a playoff game at Rice-Eccles Stadium against Notre Dame, who they beat after Devon Dampier scrambles for the pylon on the final drive of the game. That sends them to the Rose Bowl against Ohio State, and they shock the Buckeyes with Urban Meyer standing on the sidelines conflicted. Utah eventually falls in the semifinals but not before Whittingham announces he will be back another year.
Worst case: BYU wins out and becomes the conference champion. The Cougars are the ones who host Notre Dame in a first-round game and make it to the quarterfinals. Worse, a few months after getting knocked out of the playoff, the BYU men’s basketball team wins the national title.
Miami Hurricanes
Best case: Mario Cristobal’s team keeps rolling and makes it into the CFP field after Alabama loses in the SEC championship game by 20 points. They have to go on the road to Ole Miss but thoroughly beat up the Rebels in Oxford, Miss., and move on to do the same against Indiana in a quarterfinal. They face Notre Dame again in the semifinals but win by double digits before hosting Ohio State for the national championship in their home stadium. A controversial pass interference gives Miami the winning touchdown as the Hurricanes celebrate all the way down to South Beach for days to come.
Worst case: The selection committee disregards the head-to-head win against Notre Dame and leaves the Canes on the outside of the playoff looking in. They then strike out on landing several big-time transfer quarterbacks out of the portal just as Florida hires Kiffin and Florida State lands the best transfer class in the country.
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Best case: The Yellow Jackets beat Georgia to end the regular season and then cap off the campaign with an ACC championship. After hearing for weeks how bad the conference was, they pull a stunner against Ole Miss in Oxford, Miss., and beat Indiana in the Orange Bowl to reach a semifinal. Though they don’t make it any further than that, Brent Key is signed to a big extension and Coca-Cola announces massive NIL deals for the entire roster over the next decade.
Worst case: Tech loses to Pitt to knock itself out of the ACC title game race and then gets thumped by Georgia in what should have been a home game for the Yellow Jackets in Atlanta but is instead a pro-Dawgs crowd at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. A few days before learning they’re going to the Sun Bowl, Key surprises everybody by taking the Auburn job.
SMU Mustangs
Best case: The Mustangs win out and make it back to the conference title game, where this season they get the job done and capture the ACC championship to book a trip back to the playoff. They lose a close one in the first round but will get talked about as one of the league’s elite teams moving forward.
Worst case: SMU loses at home to Louisville to knock itself out of the playoff and ACC chases before a sparse crowd. A few weeks later, Rhett Lashlee reconsiders that big extension and leaves for Arkansas.
Virginia Cavaliers
Best case: The Hoos win out, make the ACC championship game and get locked into the No. 11 seed with their first league title in 30 years. They pull a surprise upset of Ole Miss to the delight of their fans in attendance, who loudly start chanting “A-C-C! A-C-C!” They fall in the next round, but Tony Elliott signs an extension and makes everybody else in the state forget their rivals hired James Franklin by cleaning up in recruiting and the portal.
Worst case: The Hokies pull off a stunning upset at the end of the regular season and Virginia misses out on making it to Charlotte for the league title game. In a wild coaching carousel, somebody still hires Elliott away and it takes a month to hire a new head coach, allowing momentum to build in Blacksburg, Va.
USC Trojans
Best case: USC rolls over Oregon this weekend and then drops a 50-burger on UCLA in the regular-season finale. Miami loses to Pitt, Alabama falls in the Iron Bowl and LSU upsets Oklahoma in the final weekend to hand over a spot in the playoff to the Trojans. They take advantage and beat former USC coach Kiffin at Ole Miss in the first round before losing a close one in the quarterfinals against eventual champion Georgia. The cardinal and gold sign the No. 1 recruiting class, land several key players out of the portal and start of 2026 as a preseason Top 5 team.
Worst case: USC looks uncompetitive at Oregon and then slips on the banana peel at home to lose to the Bruins. The Ducks host a first-round game and make it all the way to the national championship, where they upset Ohio State to become the answer to the last West Coast team to win it all. As they further entrench their position in the Big Ten in Eugene, Ore., Lincoln Riley spurns an offer to return to Texas as Baylor’s next coach and sticks around L.A. some more as their stellar recruiting class gets picked apart.
James Madison Dukes
Best case: The American beats each other up and East Carolina somehow emerges as the conference champion just as the Dukes run the table with 40-plus-point victories in their final few games to win the Sun Belt and earn the Group of 5 bid. That forces Bob Chesney to stick around a few extra weeks, which forces several schools to move on to other candidates and keeps him around for another season.
Worst case: James Madison is upset by Southern Miss in the Sun Belt title game and Chesney departs for Penn State the very next day.
North Texas Mean Green
Best case: North Texas wins the American and nabs the Group of 5 bid, where it gets a game at Texas Tech. The Mean Green pull off the shocker of all shockers to become America’s first college football Cinderella before losing a heartbreaker to Georgia in the next round. Eric Morris signs an extension as a result and the program is poised to dominate the league for the next several years.
Worst case: The third or fourth tiebreaker keeps the Mean Green out of the conference title game, ending an 11–1 season that then allows their head coach to be hired by Oklahoma State just a day after their final game. Worse, much of the team, including quarterback Drew Mestemaker, follows their coach to the power-conference level.
Tulane Green Wave
Best case: Tulane hosts the American title game, wins it and secures a College Football Playoff bid—where it beats a very distracted Ole Miss team. That puts the Green Wave into the Sugar Bowl against Texas A&M where they nearly pull a stunner before losing at the last second. LSU changes its tune and begins to court Jon Sumrall, but he very publicly rejects them to stick around another season in New Orleans.
Worst case: Tulane misses out on the tiebreakers to make it into the American championship game, which means SEC programs start circling the minute it wraps up the regular season. Sumrall wins a national title in the next three years at either LSU, Ole Miss or Auburn.
Navy Midshipmen
Best case: The Midshipmen make it to the conference title game, win it and get the entire country talking about their upcoming first-round game as they trounce Army the week after Selection Sunday. The option attack proves problematic to a team like Oregon or Ole Miss and the academy becomes the first Group of 5 team to pull off a win in the 12-team era. That prompts some incredible patriotic displays as Navy heads to the Orange Bowl to ring in the new year with an aircraft carrier parked off the coast of Miami.
Worst case: Navy makes it to the conference title game but loses to an Air Raid team in North Texas. Fresh off that disappointment, it suffers another as Army winds up singing second in their annual meeting a week later.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as How Every Contender Can Still Make (or Miss) the College Football Playoff.
