With just one week remaining before the conference championship games, a whopping 30 teams still have a shot at the College Football Playoff. Three teams have already locked themselves into bids (Ohio State, Indiana, and Texas A&M) with 11-0 starts to the season. That means there are 27 teams fighting for the final nine spots. And since Ohio State and Indiana are in the same conference, we already have at least one at-large bid locked up.
The fight for the at-larges heats up, and chaos in rivalry week can shake up a lot of bids. By our count, there are only 18 teams that can still earn an at-large (and one of those––James Madison––looks increasingly unlikely). Of those 18, five of them will almost certainly earn auto-bids. So, realistically, there are 18 teams fighting for 11 Playoff spots (the AAC champion, Mountain West champion, or James Madison will earn the 12th), unless we see some chaos and an unlikely power conference champion.
Who are those 18 teams? They’ll be the 18 we look at in this week’s Bubble Watch, but they are: Miami and Georgia Tech from the ACC; Texas Tech, BYU, and Utah from the Big 12; Ohio State, Indiana, Oregon, and Michigan from the Big Ten; and Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, and Texas from the SEC. It would be a stunner to see anyone else outside this group earn a Playoff bid at this point.
Before we get to the eliminator, I also need to apologize. I did the math incorrectly on the ACC tiebreakers last week, and I eliminated Duke improperly. Duke can still reach the ACC Championship Game, so we’re removing them from the eliminated list for now. But the Blue Devils need to win the ACC, and they probably also need James Madison to not win the Sun Belt in order to get a Playoff berth.
First, let’s give a quick table of the teams still alive in the Playoff race. (Of the two independents and two Pac-12 teams, only Notre Dame is still in contention.)
Remember, I don’t predict the outcomes of games here. I have one rule for how I eliminate a team. I ask: Does this team have a chance to reach the Playoff if it wins out? If the answer is maybe or yes, then that team isn’t eliminated. If the answer is no, then it makes the list.
In addition to this weekly article, I will be counting down the teams in this thread on X (formerly Twitter). I will also have a second thread detailing which teams (using the same principles) are out of contention for the seven at-large spots.
Week 13 College Football Playoff Eliminator
39 teams entered Week 13 with a chance of making the College Football Playoff if they win out, and one entered as a lock. We eliminated 11 more in Week 12 and locked two more teams into the Playoff, and we added back one team we accidentally falsely eliminated leaving 27 still in contention for the final nine spots.
Previous Weeks
Week 12
Week 11:
Week 10:
Week 9
Week 8:
Week 7:
Week 6:
Week 5:
Week 4:
Week 3:
Week 2:
Week 1:
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This article originally appeared on Buckeyes Wire: Week 13 College Football Playoff eliminator
Reporting by Yesh Ginsburg, Buckeyes Wire / Buckeyes Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
