Halloween weekend is here, and for the college football playoff contenders chasing a spot, the scariest game on the schedule might be the one nobody is talking about. CBS Sports just ranked the most frightening game left for 15 contenders ahead of Tuesday’s first committee rankings. I read it, and I have thoughts.
Here’s the thing: the committee reveals its first top 25 on Tuesday, Nov. 3, at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN. That makes today’s games the last real audition, and a stumble now sticks to the resume like a bad group photo. If you missed how the race got here, our college football recap from October 4 sets the stage.
The college football playoff contenders and their nightmares
CBS names Ohio State’s trip to USC as the Buckeyes’ scariest game. The twist is at quarterback. Julian Sayin hurt his throwing arm late in Ohio State’s 19-15 win at Indiana on Oct. 17 and is out indefinitely. According to On3, true freshman Luke Fahey will start in his place, though the school hasn’t made it official.
So far, Fahey has thrown just 13 passes this season. He completed nine, with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
His first career start comes inside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum against a Trojans team that needs a win like this to crash the playoff conversation. That’s a lot of pressure for a three-star kid from Mission Viejo.
Meanwhile, top-ranked Miami (7-0) heads to North Carolina, and CBS warns the Hurricanes not to peek ahead at Notre Dame. Texas Tech hosts Arizona at home, in a game CBS frames as a must-win for national respect. Ole Miss, for its part, hosts an Auburn team CBS says stunned Georgia a few weeks ago, with the big Georgia game looming.
Georgia’s scariest game is the one CBS skipped
Now for the part CBS missed. The piece lists Georgia’s scariest game as a Nov. 7 trip to Ole Miss. But the No. 3 Bulldogs (6-1) play No. 17 Florida today in Atlanta, after a bye week. Georgia’s last game was a home loss to Auburn, according to NCAA.com. Our preview of Georgia and Florida in Atlanta covers why this one matters.
Is it an error? No. It’s an omission. But it’s a big one.
Picture a team coming off a loss, playing a ranked rival, hours before the rankings are set. Pretty scary to me.
The same goes for Kentucky and Alabama. Kentucky ranks ninth and faces Tennessee and Florida before its showdown at Missouri. Alabama has a Nov. 7 trip to LSU. LSU didn’t get its wanted night kickoff, which CBS says could help the Tide.
What the rankings tell the playoff hopefuls
The latest AP poll lines up with CBS’s list. Miami is No. 1, followed by Ohio State, Georgia, Indiana and Notre Dame. Utah is sixth, UCLA seventh and BYU eighth, per SI’s breakdown of the poll. Texas sits 11th, Ole Miss 12th and Texas Tech 13th. USC is unranked, with only seven votes.
That means one thing for the playoff hopefuls: any loss to an unranked opponent costs more than a game.
It costs a seed.
That said, a few details in the CBS piece deserve a grain of salt. We couldn’t independently verify several game-level claims, like Miami’s long losing streak at North Carolina. Neither could we confirm the Arizona and Missouri rankings. And the article says “two weeks” for games it also dates to Nov. 7, which is only one week away. Check those before you bet on them.
What to watch next in the playoff race
The results are coming in all day. Utah also travels to Cincinnati, and Texas Tech hosts Arizona. Yahoo’s projection has Miami, Georgia, Ohio State and Indiana at the top of the first bracket, but that’s a projection, not the committee’s word. For a sense of who was supposed to be good, see ESPN’s SP+ rankings.
The National Football Post reports the final field is set on Dec. 6. So breathe. Even so, if your team is among the contenders, a Halloween upset makes for a very long Tuesday.
