Welcome to Before The Snap, For The Win’s college football show where we’ll break down the sport’s trending storylines, examine each week’s biggest matchups and track the College Football Playoff and Heisman Trophy races.
Two more College Football Playoff lost in Week 13, and the playoff race continues to be simplified.
Penn State lost to now-No. 1 Ohio State, while Oregon fell to Arizona State. It was the second loss of the season for both the Nittany Lions and the Ducks, which effectively ends their playoff runs. No two-loss team has ever been invited to the playoff, and for that to happen this year, the team would have to be a conference champion, and we’d need some late chaos around the other conferences. Additionally, Oregon could still win the Pac-12, but Penn State has no chance to be a conference champ.
So what’s the larger impact of Penn State’s and Oregon’s losses?
Behind Ohio State, LSU and Clemson — assuming the top-3 teams win out — it means that remaining fourth playoff spot will some down to Alabama, Oklahoma or Baylor and Utah.
Also, the Big Ten’s chance to go from having no teams in the last two years to two teams in is over. For a while, it seemed like the Nittany Lions could join Ohio State in the playoff if the right scenario played out, but Penn State needed to beat the Buckeyes for that to happen.
For Oregon, the loss hurts the Pac-12 in the eyes of everyone else, as it tries to push for a serious playoff contender.
But the good news is it still has Utah, which is 10-1, No. 6 in the latest playoff rankings and has a shot to win the conference title game. It still will have to beat Oregon, which isn’t looking quite as good as it was a couple weeks ago, but it might be hard to deny a one-loss Pac-12 team a shot at the playoff.
