The American still has three unbeaten teams at 4-0 (Tulane, SMU, and UTSA) and all three still control their destiny with a final week meeting between Tulane and UTSA.
Memphis and FAU both (3-1) need help, but Memphis would be “fairly likely” to advance if they win out (including beating SMU). FAU has a couple of plausible scenarios to advance, but since FPI only gives them a 5% chance to finish 4-0, they are not likely to still be hanging around when the dust settles.
Rice had controlled their destiny as recently as last week (as you’d noted here) but their narrow loss to Tulane drops them to 2-2 and out of the picture.

Alabama essentially clinching the West tonight. The only way they miss is if they lose to both Kentucky and Auburn while Ole Miss beats Georgia and MSU. They can book their tickets to Atlanta.

Georgia is about as certain. Tennessee has a more plausible path than Ole Miss. If Georgia loses to Ole Miss next week, Tennessee controls their destiny and can get to Atlanta with wins against Missouri, Georgia, and Vanderbilt.

I should get this in before Penn State loses to Michigan...

In the Big Ten West tiebreaker, Illinois won at Minnesota, Wisconsin lost at Indiana, and Nebraska lost at Michigan State. It couldn't have gone any better for Penn State:) Right now they lead the "West tiebreaker" (8 wins vs. 7 for both Michigan and Ohio State).

The Race for second in the ACC can still get wild.

Lville is 5-1 with UVA and Miami remaining
GT is 4-2 with Clemson and Cuse remaining
UNC is 3-2 with Duke Clemson and NC State
BC is 3-2 with VT Pitt and Miami
Duke is 3-2 with UNC UVA and Pitt
NCState is 3-2 with Wake, VT and UNC
VT is 3-2 with BC NCST and. UVA

We are a Louisville upset from a headache of a Tiebreaker.

(11-06-2023 03:40 PM)LeeNobody Wrote:  The Race for second in the ACC can still get wild.

Lville is 5-1 with UVA and Miami remaining
GT is 4-2 with Clemson and Cuse remaining
UNC is 3-2 with Duke Clemson and NC State
BC is 3-2 with VT Pitt and Miami
Duke is 3-2 with UNC UVA and Pitt
NCState is 3-2 with Wake, VT and UNC
VT is 3-2 with BC NCST and. UVA

We are a Louisville upset from a headache of a Tiebreaker.

The good news for Louisville is that beat Georgia Tech, NC State, Duke, and Virginia Tech so they would win a head to head with any combo of those teams. Only North Carolina would need future tiebreakers. North Carolina's two losses are Virginia and Georgia Tech. They beat Pittsburgh who Louisville lost to and Miami who Louisville plays. It won't matter who Louisville loses to since Louisville will either lose to Virginia as well or to Miami who UNC beat.

(11-06-2023 04:29 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 03:40 PM)LeeNobody Wrote:  The Race for second in the ACC can still get wild.

Lville is 5-1 with UVA and Miami remaining
GT is 4-2 with Clemson and Cuse remaining
UNC is 3-2 with Duke Clemson and NC State
BC is 3-2 with VT Pitt and Miami
Duke is 3-2 with UNC UVA and Pitt
NCState is 3-2 with Wake, VT and UNC
VT is 3-2 with BC NCST and. UVA

We are a Louisville upset from a headache of a Tiebreaker.

The good news for Louisville is that beat Georgia Tech, NC State, Duke, and Virginia Tech so they would win a head to head with any combo of those teams. Only North Carolina would need future tiebreakers. North Carolina's two losses are Virginia and Georgia Tech. They beat Pittsburgh who Louisville lost to and Miami who Louisville plays. It won't matter who Louisville loses to since Louisville will either lose to Virginia as well or to Miami who UNC beat.

Unless UNC can win out vs those 3 teams then a Louisville win vs UVA on Thursday will essentially lock up a title game spot. I would not be surprised if UNC loses more than one of those games.

(10-02-2023 05:38 AM)AssKickingChicken Wrote:  I think the Big East declared a “champion” the first year based on overall record. My thought at the time was “what a joke”.

If memory serves, the Big East cobbled together a football conference on one years' notice. Probably difficult to get an even number of conference games for every team, even if all of the teams had been independents prior to that season.

The long and short is that Louisville wins all 6-2 tie-breakers unless UNC 'and' another team finish 6-2. In such scenarios, the 'other' team is likely headed to Charlotte. Here is the longer breakdown:

Still rooting for a massive 4-5 tie-breaker in the Big Ten West? Here are your rooting interests this weekend

Iowa has 4 wins and needs to lose to Rutgers this weekend
Nebraska has 3 wins yet plays Iowa to close the season; they'll need to lose to Maryland
Wisconsin has 3 wins and plays Nebraska the in-between weekend; they'll need to lose to Northwestern
Minnesota has 3 wins and closes the season vs. Wisconsin, they'll need to lose this week to Purdue
If you want the full, 7-way tie, cheer for Illinois to defeated Indiana on Saturday too

2/3rds of the ACC is rooting for Virginia tonight. If Louisville loses, no team controls their own destiny for spot #2. UNC, VT, BC, and GT could also wrest it from the Cards. Duke, NC State, and (yes) Miami have a shot if the Cards drop two in a row, losing to the Hurricanes next week.

7-0 halfway through the 2nd. Virginia is behind but just recovered a turnover on downs.

FSU vs UL in the ACCCG will possibly be the best ACCCG to date...assuming both teams win out. This will be the 10th straight meeting since joining the ACC and the games are (except 1) always close.

Louisville leads 14-0. If they win and North Carolina loses at Duke, Louisville will clinch second because they will heave head-to-head wins over every team that could tie them. The biggest Saturday night games have Georgia and Ohio State, but Louisville could clinch after North Carolina at Duke at 8:00 P.M. I looked at tiebreakers for if North Carolina wins. Louisville beat Georgia Tech, who beat North Carolina, North Carolina beat Miami, who will beat Louisville if Louisville wins tonight and loses to finish tied for second. The other teams that could be the top team other than Louisville and North Carolina either did not play both of them, or both of them beat that team. If Georgia Tech wins at Clemson followed by Miami losing at Florida State, Georgia Tech will finish clinching above Miami, in which case Louisville would clinch second before North Carolina at Duke. If I am correct, to summarize, Louisville clinches a top two spot if they win tonight and:

1. Georgia Tech wins at Clemson and Miami loses at Florida State or
2. Duke wins hosting North Carolina

It would be unusual for both conference championship game spots to be clinched with two weeks left, but it is more likely in the ACC because Louisville, Florida State, and Clemson (in other years) are contenders whose rivalry game is against the SEC.

(11-09-2023 09:31 PM)Garrettabc Wrote:  FSU vs UL in the ACCCG will possibly be the best ACCCG to date...assuming both teams win out. This will be the 10th straight meeting since joining the ACC and the games are (except 1) always close.

In terms of close games, Florida State's last ACCCCG was in 2014 when they remained undefeated by beating Georgia Tech 37-35.

Louisville blew their lead before winning 31-24.

(10-29-2023 02:24 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  MAC championship game will most likely be a rematch of the Toledo-Miami game from last week unless one of them collapses.

Toledo has clinched the MAC West, Miami will clinch the East with at least one win or Ohio loss in the last two weeks; we play losing teams Buffalo and Ball State the last two weeks so pretty decent chance we lock it up, though with our starting QB out for the year it isn’t certain and we’d definitely go into the MACC as an underdog versus UT.

(11-04-2023 10:51 PM)Crayton Wrote:  Alabama essentially clinching the West tonight. The only way they miss is if they lose to both Kentucky and Auburn while Ole Miss beats Georgia and MSU. They can book their tickets to Atlanta.

Georgia is about as certain. Tennessee has a more plausible path than Ole Miss. If Georgia loses to Ole Miss next week, Tennessee controls their destiny and can get to Atlanta with wins against Missouri, Georgia, and Vanderbilt.

Book it. Georgia vs. Alabama in Atlanta. Georgia didn’t even need to take a snap against Ole Miss.

(11-08-2023 06:25 AM)Crayton Wrote:  Still rooting for a massive 4-5 tie-breaker in the Big Ten West? Here are your rooting interests this weekend

Iowa has 4 wins and needs to lose to Rutgers this weekend
Nebraska has 3 wins yet plays Iowa to close the season; they'll need to lose to Maryland
Wisconsin has 3 wins and plays Nebraska the in-between weekend; they'll need to lose to Northwestern
Minnesota has 3 wins and closes the season vs. Wisconsin, they'll need to lose this week to Purdue
If you want the full, 7-way tie, cheer for Illinois to defeated Indiana on Saturday too

4 of these 5 outcomes occurred. Iowa got their 5th win however; they torched Rutgers with 22 unanswered points including a blistering 2 TDs.

So much for the possibility of a seven way tie in the Big Ten.

Assuming Minnesota loses, Iowa needs just one win to win the Big Ten Worst, I mean West.

Let's assume Iowa loses both to Illinois (yeah!) and Nebraska.
If Nebraska wins at Wisconsin, their only West Division loss is to Minnesota, all of their other losses are to East Division teams. So they would win any tiebreaker unless Minnesota is part of the tie. If Minnesota wins out, they'll win a tie over Iowa and over Nebraska although they travel to Ohio State so the chances of them winning out are slim and none, especially after they got spanked by Purdue. I'd say if Nebraska wins out they'll win the West. Nebraska does have to go to Madison next Saturday.

If Wisconsin wins out, they would eliminate both Nebraska and Minnesota from the tiebreaker. If then Northwestern beats Illinois, Iowa would win a three way tiebreaker with Northwestern and Wisconsin having beaten all three. If Illinois beats Northwestern, it would be a three way tiebreaker between Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin with the three teams all split, Wisconsin would have just two division losses (Iowa, Northwestern) while Iowa (Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska) and Illinois (Purdue, Nebraska, Wisconsin) would have three so Wisconsin would win the division.

If Wisconsin beats Nebraska and loses to Minnesota, that would eliminate Wisconsin, Nebraska, and (unless they beat Ohio State) Minnesota. That leaves the Northwestern-Illinois winner. Iowa would win a tiebreaker with Northwestern but ILLINOIS would win a tiebreaker with Iowa!

So Illinois should win the Big Ten if...

2 wins (Iowa, Northwestern)
2 Iowa losses (Illinois, Nebraska)
Wisconsin beats Nebraska
Minnesota beats Wisconsin

Illinois 5-4
Iowa 5-4
Wisconsin 4-5
Nebraska 4-5

In Illinois's case, it wouldn't even matter if Minnesota beats Ohio State since Illinois beat them too.

So you're saying there's a chance????

Despite losing 45-3, Oklahoma State is still in pretty good shape to go to the Big 12 Championship Game if they win out. All they would practically need would be would be for Iowa State to lose to Texas as Oklahoma State has beaten every other two loss Big 12 team (Oklahoma, Kansas State, and West Virginia). Oklahoma State actually wants Texas to not be in a tiebreaker with them since they didn't play UT, they would negate any tiebreaker advantage the Cowboys would have over Oklahoma, Kansas State, and/or West Virginia. Iowa State joining the tiebreaker would be worse as they beat Oklahoma State although in a multiple team tiebreaker there's a chance that head to head won't come into play.

Troy wins the Sun Belt West back-to-back years.

In the American, we still have 3 undefeated teams: Tulane, SMU, and UTSA. Tulane and UTSA play one another at season's end, so we could have 2 undefeateds playing for the American Championship. Easy.

Ties at 7-1 will likely boil down to whichever the team has the higher "composite computer ranking". These are ugly, only-a-mother-could-love computer systems used back in the day when your grandfather watched the BCS. Of course there is the chance a 7-1 tie is broken by simple head-to-head. There is even a snowball's chance of the #2 team being 6-2, but that too'd go to best computer ranking.

There is only one other way we avoid an archaic computer formula and that is if Memphis (8-2, 5-1) beats SMU next week, gets ranked in the CFP that Tuesday, and closes the season with a win over Temple. In the scenario where SMU and Tulane/UTSA are 7-1 along with Memphis, the Tigers aren't guaranteed to have the top computer ranking; this scenario allows them to bypass that (theoretically getting the #1 seed if all 4 are 7-1).