FanPost

TCU's path to the College Football Playoff

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Who'd a thunk we'd be having this discussion this year? NOBODY, that's who, and you're lying if you say different! In fact, we really shouldn't be discussing it yet. We have 2 very tough games left against ranked opponents, including one far away in hostile territory (with possibly foul weather) in only 3 days. Still, its what we do... if for no other reason than that only about a dozen teams in the whole country can even conjecture about this. We've made it THAT far!

Possible Scenarios

Ok, so TCU is ranked #7 in the first official bracket poll. That's huge! We've already won the first battle (assuming we win out) by being judged the B12's best. If we lose another game, even if we wind up in a conference championship tie... we get LEFT OUT of the national picture. It's just that simple. There will be several teams that wind up with only one loss, so for the sake of this article, assume we win out. With the final championship game being played right here at JerryWorld, that would give our Frogs a very rare home advantage. This could literally be the chance of a lifetime. Fine...now for the rest of the bracket competition.

As top-heavy as the poll is with SEC teams (4 of 6 teams ahead of us), most of them will fall out of the competition, simply because they still have to play each other... 5 games between their top teams (MissSt/Bama, MissSt/Miss, Bama/Auburn, Auburn/Miss, Auburn/Ga)... plus their conference championship. That's 6 losses to knock them down the ladder with. The best scenario for TCU would be for Miss St to win out, as that would probably leave all the other SEC teams with 2 losses. I just don't see a 2-loss SEC team beating out a 1-loss B12 or PAC champ.

FSU and Oregon will probably win out (each of them only has 1 ranked opponent left to play), so add in the SEC champ and 1-loss B12 champ to complete the playoff bracket. If either FSU/Ore loses a game, it greatly complicates all other scenarios... and hurts chances of any B12 participant. That could also allow either Michigan St or Notre Dame to jump into consideration. And there is yet one other factor that can throw everything into chaos... if GA wins the SEC championship game; that increases odds of 2 SEC teams making it, and could even produce the (unlikely) odd situation of a 2-loss GA conference champ being bypassed in favor of 1-2 western division teams. There is NO SCENARIO for 3 SEC teams making the playoffs... no matter what others say/hope... that would cause an armed rebellion within the NCAA community.

So there you have it...

As the critical contender games are decided, we should be able to quickly see just how the selection committee is going to lean in their pick strategy. So far, they're clearly honoring strength of schedule; this helps the B12 champ. The first week list is encouraging, but lots of top games still remain to clear up (or muddy) the picture. But only for this year... selection committee members change annually, so things could be radically different next year. But that's another argument, for another article.

Go TCU Horned Frogs!

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