After the seventh week of the 2014 college football season, it sure seemed that a repeat of the crazy 2007 season was a distinct possibility.
In 2007, Pittsburgh (above, cover photo) stunned West Virginia on the final Saturday of the regular season to knock the Mountaineers out of the BCS National Championship Game. On that same night, Oklahoma knocked Missouri out of the BCS title game by defeating the Tigers in the Big 12 Championship Game in San Antonio:
LSU, with two losses, backdoored its way into the BCS title game against once-beaten Ohio State. When the smoke cleared after the bowls, Kansas — a winner over Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl — was the ONLY power conference team with fewer than two losses. The 2007 season is the modern benchmark for insanity in one parade from late August through early December. After week seven, the 2014 season had a chance to match it.
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After week seven of this season:
* Georgia and Missouri had lost
* Oklahoma, Kansas State, and TCU had lost
* Michigan State and Ohio State had lost
* Auburn and Alabama had lost
* Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, Arizona State, USC, and Arizona had lost
At least half of the season remained, and already, so many dominoes had fallen. Chaos was waiting to take over, but it was somehow held at bay.
Alabama escaped Arkansas and LSU on the road. Oregon steadied itself. Ohio State never faltered. TCU surged. Florida State continued to dodge bullets. Baylor lost once, but only once. Arizona amazingly avoided defeat against Washington. Georgia Tech improbably avoided defeat in the final 20 seconds of regulation against Georgia.
Yet, the fact that teams such as Arizona and Georgia Tech are still in the hunt for a College Football Playoff berth — albeit on a peripheral level and to a very small extent — gives this weekend a chance to become a lot like the final weekend of the 2007 season.
What if Iowa State pulled a Pitt from 2007 and shocked TCU?
What if Kansas State wins in Waco against Baylor?
What if Georgia Tech beats Florida State?
What if Missouri upends Alabama?
What if Arizona beats Oregon again?
What if Wisconsin beats Ohio State?
If these events happen, how are we going to make sense of Ohio State should the Buckeyes find a way to beat Wisconsin? How would Arizona compare to TCU? How would Missouri compare to Georgia Tech? How would Georgia Tech compare to Alabama? How would Kansas State fit into the picture?
It’s not ridiculous to think that at least two of the above events will happen. What if, however, four of the six occurred, or even three? Will the College Football Playoff Selection Committee be prepared?
Here are some notes to consider:
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— If TCU loses and Kansas State does win (two of the six outcomes mentioned above in a 2007-style hypothetical), the Wildcats would be outright Big 12 champions.
— If Georgia Tech and Missouri win their conference championships, Georgia Tech would have a road win over Georgia, while Missouri — already beaten by Indiana at home — would have to concede that it got destroyed by Georgia at home.
— If Arizona wins, it will not only have two wins over Oregon, but neither one at home in Tucson.
— If Arizona and Missouri win, Arizona’s best non-conference win will have been Nevada. Missouri’s best non-conference win will have been UCF. However, Arizona plays in the Pac-12 South, while Missouri plays in the diminished SEC East, and its crossover wins in the SEC West came against Texas A&M and Arkansas, two teams closer to the bottom of the division than the top.
— If Ohio State and TCU lose, the Kansas State-Baylor winner would almost surely be in the playoff as the Big 12 champion.
— If Ohio State and Alabama lose, Wisconsin would have a deficient profile thanks to losses to both LSU and Northwestern. In an OSU-Alabama comparison under these circumstances (for a fourth seed at best in the playoff), OSU’s loss to Virginia Tech would linger.
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You can figure out the combinations in many more directions, but the bottom line is this: If at least three chaotic events happen on Saturday (and in Friday’s Pac-12 title game), you could see one of three outsiders — Georgia Tech, Kansas State, or Arizona — get into the playoff. Missouri, Ohio State, and Wisconsin all have particularly damaging losses that are not offset by as many hugely strong wins. Georgia Tech, Kansas State, and Arizona would move upward if this Saturday becomes a lot like December 1, 2007.
The more one looks at various resumes, the more one realizes that if at least two other top-six teams lose on Saturday, the Arizona Wildcats — should they beat Oregon in Friday’s Pac-12 Championship Game — would crack the College Football Playoff and very likely play in the first Rose Bowl in the history of this snake-bitten program. Arizona is so close to moving out of the shadows forever.
Assuming all hell broke loose on Friday and Saturday, such that the Yellow Jackets and the two Wildcats were in the running for one or two playoff spots, be warned: This would be a clean one-team decision, but a two-team decision would be contentious.
Of those three teams, Arizona would definitely have the best resume — not just because of two non-home-field wins over Oregon, but because of wins over Arizona State and Utah plus losses that are not bad ones — to USC and UCLA.
Georgia Tech would own heavyweight wins over Georgia and especially Florida State, but the Yellow Jackets’ profile would be hurt by a loss to North Carolina. The ACC Coastal did not wind up being as strong as it had a chance to become in early November. The Pac-12 South is clearly better than the ACC Coastal, so Arizona would be better than Tech if the Wildcats and Jackets both won on Saturday.
Kansas State — if it managed to win the Big 12 — would be able to tout a special achievement, capped by a win at Baylor. However, the late-season deterioration of Oklahoma would take away from the Wildcats’ profile. The downward slide of West Virginia would also reduce the value of that particular road victory. Kansas State might have played Auburn, but Georgia Tech beat the Georgia team which thrashed Auburn. If indeed Arizona gets into the playoff and there’s still one more slot left, a Georgia Tech-Kansas State fight for the fourth and final seed would be too close to call.
The only question left is: Will we see that level of uncertainty come Saturday night and Sunday morning? The ghosts of 2007 could make it so.
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