The first College Football Playoff rankings of the season are out, and while there’s nothing particularly shocking about them, it does help to shed some light on the situation facing college football heading into its final month of regular season games.
Outside of undefeated Florida State, the lone playoff contender from the ACC, there appear to be two teams from each of the remaining Power Five conferences with a shot at a playoff berth. Thankfully, this is the kind of math problem that’s going to solve itself, as each of these remaining contenders will play each other either the final week of the regular season or in a conference championship game.
Before we get to those epic showdowns, however, those remaining contenders have to tread carefully and avoid a costly slip-up that could remove them from contention before they even get a chance to play for it on the big stage.
In our weekly suggestions for which games you should be watching this week, we’ve got a couple of high-profile conference showdowns that could have major playoff implications, as well as a desperation game between two teams with equal talent levels who are having very different seasons.