Poll Dancing: Playoff Edition No. 2

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During the writing of this piece (which doesn’t take exceedingly long, mind you), Baylor will be flagged for 6 more pass interference penalties, Texas A&M will give up 30 points, and Bill Gates will make $295 times how many seconds it takes this to be finished.

College football almost always figures itself out to the point where you end the season starved for enough teams that look worthy of playing for a title rather than having a glut of them, which is what makes a playoff such a silly idea. What makes it less silly of an idea are the polls every week that would determine who plays for the title, which at this point read like nothing more than an SEC fan message board.

The point is, people aren’t watching any better than they normally do. There is a small shakeup in the playoff projections, but nothing Earth-shattering, nor do we need a czar to sort it out. We’ll use beers to designate how far away each group is. The better the brew, the better the playoff shot.

Projected in

1. Florida State
2. Ole Miss
3. Oregon
4. Notre Dame

‘Splaination: Again, eventually, all those SEC West teams will have to play one another unless you can do some sort of in-season schedule flexing so the top 4 all ends up being one-loss SEC West squads. Ole Miss has the best schedule of the bunch, so it’s easy to project them. As for Notre Dame … losing shouldn’t automatically drive you down the rankings. That’s shallow, and this isn’t Spring Break in Daytona Beach, where such things are encouraged. The Fighting Irish went toe to toe with a program that hasn’t lost in over a year and a half in their place at night, and were a play away. That’s stout.

Just on the outside having a beer on the porch waiting to get in

5. Mississippi State
6. Michigan State
7. TCU
8. Auburn

‘Splaination: Sparty gets white-hot Ohio State at home, so let’s just say that while it’s probably a toss-up game, you can plug the winner of that game into the spot. A Big Ten team is likely getting in from that contest. Auburn probably needs to win out. TCU slips in over Baylor by virtue of Baylor losing and the Horned Frogs defeating Oklahoma a few weeks ago.

Waiting to text her if the guys above all screw up somehow and let her go

9. Arizona State
10. Ohio State
11. Georgia
12. Baylor

‘Splaination: Georgia has the best chance to make up ground of this bunch, getting Auburn, having the SEC East be the SEC East, and then basically making the SEC title game a playoff game to get in. As I said earlier, Ohio State has a one-game playoff with Sparty to have a shot at the big playoff in January. Baylor still has to go to Norman, but if the Bears win, they’ll probably take the catbird seat in the “Big 12 minus 2.” Arizona State is tough to evaluate, because one must wonder if the Sun Devils would be saddled with a loss if Taylor Kelly had not been injured.

At the comic book store on Friday night hoping someone invites them to do something

14. Alabama
15. Nebraska
16. Kansas State
17. Arizona

‘Splaination: KSU has a brutal schedule down the stretch. Nebraska should cruise in the tepid bath water that has become the Big Ten West and could feasibly be a one-loss team in the Big Ten title game against a top 5-ish Sparty or Brutus. Alabama has the best chance to move up because of Auburn and Missy State on the schedule. Arizona is on this list because if the Wildcats win out, a one-loss Pac-12 champ has a shot for obvious reasons.

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