Monday, September 23, 2024

College Football Playoff, bowl predictions: Paths for the nine remaining contenders with one spot clinched

College Football Playoff, bowl predictions: Paths for the nine remaining contenders with one spot clinched

What scenarios need to play out for Oklahoma State, Notre Dame or Baylor to make the field?

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CBS Sports graphic

We are down to the final Saturday of the 2201 college football season with conference championship games set to be played as teams battle to earn the top four spots in the College Football Playoff. With so few games left, the playoff picture has become much clearer.

There are only nine teams with any chance whatsoever of being selected on Sunday, Dec. 5, and eight of them will be fighting for three spots because one team has already clinched a playoff berth.

As one might expect, the top teams all have some level of a chance to make the field, but the teams that are not playing this weekend — with the exception of Notre Dame — have no chance at all regardless of where they are ranked now.

Without further ado, here is a ranking of the remaining CFP contenders in order of their current ranking along with an explanation of what each team needs to accomplish to get in. I have found scenarios in which nine of the top 13 teams either definitely get in or at least get considered for the fourth and final spot. Here is a look at how those teams stack up.

In addition to this list of playoff contenders, I have released my penultimate bowl projections for the 2021-22 season. Reminder: These projections are not how things stand now but rather how I expect them to look following the conference championship games Saturday.

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