3. The known unknown is …
Who’ll finish 12-1 with a Power Five conference championship?
2018 Ohio State is the only team that finished 12-1 or better with a Power Five championship to not make it into the College Football Playoff, and that’s because Notre Dame went 12-0.
(Yeah, Georgia finished fifth and Ohio State sixth, but had the Irish been 11-1, but guessing the committee would’ve put the Big Ten champ in.)
Will there be a 12-1 Pac-12 champion? Will there be a 12-1 Big 12 champion?
A 12-1 SEC or Big Ten champion – if there is one or both – will be in no matter what this year, and a 12-1 ACC champion will almost certainly be out no matter what. But for now, let’s assume that LSU, Ohio State and Clemson all win out.
If that happens, then No. 4 Georgia would get hit with another loss. Or, for now, let’s say Georgia suffered its second loss of the year this weekend at Auburn. Next week, Alabama would almost certainly move up from 5 to 4.
Would the committee set a new precedent and keep out a 12-1 Power Five conference champ – again, if there is one from the Big 12 or Pac-12 – for an 11- 1 Alabama who’s only loss was by five to the No. 1 team in the country?
Or, would it keep Bama in at 4 all throughout the process, and then pull a 2014 TCU and drop it out of the top four in the final rankings for a 12-1 conference champion?
At the very least, Alabama is hardly dead like many are saying it is.
– Rapid-fire first reaction
– The known unknown
– The Group of Five situation
– What it all really means