Week 9 Preview - Who's (Not) In

Dissecting Playoff resumes before flipping to November

Earlier this week while watching New Mexico State take down Louisiana Tech on the CBS Sports Network, the bottom line that shows scores for games that evening kept advertising the below article that was published on CBSSports.com:

I can’t remember the exact phrasing that the bottom line was using, but it was something along the line of “Georgia resume not playoff caliber.” Basically, the point of this clickbait article is that Georgia has not played a Playoff-caliber worthy season.

Normally, I wait at least a couple of more weeks to start throwing out some Playoff thoughts, but with the debut College Football Playoff rankings coming out next week combined with the potential idiocy of that statement about Georgia, I’ll start this week with providing my Playoff thoughts a little earlier in the season than normal.

Like the article above, I’ll talk about teams who I think would make the Playoff based on their resume today. Instead of traditional rankings, I’ll go conference by conference talking about the top teams in each conference who are in or out of the playoff if we took resumes based on where teams are today. Let’s dive in:

SEC

• Who’s In: Nobody

• Who’s Out: Everybody

This might be shocking. But Jerry Palm might have a point on Georgia not being in the top 4. After all, they have a weak schedule and have played really only one somewhat quality team. The biggest issue for Georgia though is that they only have 7 wins. No 7 win team has ever made the playoff. Have to agree with Palm that Georgia sits outside the top 4 with that in mind. Same goes for Alabama who only has 7 wins and LSU only has 6. The haters are right, the SEC is having a weird down year.

BIG TEN

• Who’s In: Nobody

• Who’s Out: Everybody

It’s stunning that both Ohio State and Michigan are out of the playoff, but like the other top teams in the SEC they just are lacking in the wins department. Michigan only has 8 wins (despite apparently illegally stealing signs using a former Marine named Connor Stalions man I love this sport), with 0 over a ranked team. Ohio State only has 7 wins, although admittedly they at least have a couple of good wins against Penn State and Notre Dame. However, based on their resumes today I just have to exclude both of them from the Playoff. Strange year in college football.

ACC

• Who’s In: Nobody

• Who’s Out: Everybody

Florida State has had stretches of looking like maybe the best team in the country this year, but considering they only have 7 wins I don’t think I can include them in the Playoff. Which is tough because I think they are really good, but they just don’t have the resume right now. Sure, they have nice wins over LSU and Duke (albeit only because of a hurt QB) and a maybe nice win over Clemson, but those quality wins just don’t make up for the fact no 7 win team has made the playoff. Sorry, Noles.

BIG 12

• Who’s In: Nobody

• Who’s Out: Everybody

Oklahoma has a great win over Texas in what was a classic Red River Shootout, and that same Texas team went to Alabama and won by double digits. These two teams have shown real potential to maybe be 2 of the absolute best teams in the country this season. However, Oklahoma only has 7 wins and Texas only has 6. Just can’t put them in the Playoff when they have only won roughly half their games on their schedule. Considering these are the only two ranked teams in the Big 12, unfortunately for them it looks like the Big 12 is out.

PAC-12

• Who’s In: Nobody

• Who’s Out: Everybody

Considering the Pac-12 hasn’t made the Playoff since 2016 Washington this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Yes, the Pac-12 looks stronger than normal in their final season but they still don’t have a team with a Playoff resume. Washington has had an awesome offense most of the season, but that has resulted in only 7 wins. Oregon has, at times, looked almost unbeatable yet they only have 6 wins. You know how we feel about Oregon State, but unfortunately that has only resulted in 6 wins for them as well. Same for a really physical Utah team that absolutely smoked Florida to start the year but has only won 6 games this season. Just don’t see a Playoff resume here.

Group of 5/Independents

• Who’s In: Nobody

• Who’s Out: Everybody

With the Power 5 conferences struggling to get teams into the Playoff, you would think the door is open for the Group of 5/Independent teams.

Notre Dame? Only 6 wins. G5 darlings Air Force and Tulane? 7 and 6 wins, respectively. Just not their year it appears.

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Did you actually think I was going to give Playoff rankings there for a second? Lol come on you know I’m not giving in to the system. Stay strong people. Don’t click on stupid Playoff clickbait articles until at least mid-November.

Alright let’s make some picks.

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There have been a couple of weeks this season where I have bitched and moaned about getting unlucky with some of my picks the previous week because I know you guys really want to hear me make excuses for bad picks. I am not doing that this week. We went 7-5 here at FT last week and that I think is literally as good as I could have done. I’m not going to do a full audit, but let’s just say that picking Army (who lost 62-0), Arkansas (who scored 3 points and then fired their OC), and Indiana (who lost by 17 at home in a non-competitive affair) were some of my worst picks of the year and I was bailed out with close wins by Wake Forest (which really should have been an L) and USF.

You have to take the good with the bad in gambling, so we will take the good this past week. Can we keep the good vibes going? We have 4 straight winning weeks going after a slow start to the season so let’s see what we can find.

THE PICKS - WEEK 9 (Last Week: 7-5; 2023: 43-39-4). Picks below are in bold

• UConn +14 vs. Boston College - Yes. I am starting this weeks slate of picks with UConn covering versus Boston College. Friend of the blog Kyle, who you might remember from earlier this season when he went on a wonderful vacation but missed some great college football doing so (like a psychopath), is making amends for this error by GOING TO THIS ATROCIOUS FOOTBALL GAME. This is why he is a friend of the blog. We love that here at FT. Anyways, go Huskies.

• Eastern Michigan +3 vs. Western Michigan - You know what pick wasn’t a lucky pick last week? Eastern Michigan, who easily covered as an underdog yet again. We continue to ride with EMU as a dog this week.

• Utah +6.5 vs. Oregon - Unfortunately this spread has dipped under 7 here at publishing time, but there is a reason money is coming in on Utah. It’s that time of year where Utah turns into an absolute war machine. Utes cover.

• Pitt +20.5 vs. Notre Dame - Don’t let Notre Dame’s big win over USC fool you. We will continue to bet against Notre Dame as a big favorite. Pitt, meanwhile, definitely stinks but they are at least slightly improved since benching QB Phil Jurkovic, who played about as well as I would play if I was also playing FBS level college football. For context, I am a 5’11” dude in my 30s who has been going to physical therapy for the last 2 months because I hurt my neck by sleeping on it wrong and having bad posture. Last week I shared a therapist with an 80 year old woman who was stepping on and off a stool for her therapy (she was doing a great job! Nice lady). But I digress. ND wins, Pitt makes it ugly and covers.

• Nebraska -2.5 vs. Purdue - Speaking of benching terrible QBs, Nebraska finally benched Jeff Sims and replaced him with a QB who doesn’t turn the ball over nearly every possession. Weirdly, Nebraska started winning games when that occurred. Odd how that works. Nebraska continues their hot streak against a slightly better-than-their-record indicates Purdue

• Mississippi State/Auburn Under 41.5 - This number being in the 40s makes me think I am missing something here and that this is a trap, but I’ll take the bait. This is a Big 10 West game disguised as an SEC game. And don’t think these teams haven’t done this before. Real ones remember this one from 2008:

  

• Tulane vs. Rice - I am not picking a team here. I just want to call out that one of my favorite teams (Tulane) is playing one of my favorite players (JT Daniels). This game has, rightfully, gotten the call up to big boy television and will be on ESPN2 at 4:00. I hope everyone wins in this game.

• USC -11 vs. Cal - I am, however, going to pick a team here. USC is going to smoke Cal and then everyone’s going to say “oh hey see USC is back.” They are not back. Cal just isn’t very good.

• Wisconsin +14.5 vs. Ohio State - We absolutely have a letdown situation here. Ohio State just wins one of it’s biggest games of the season last week, and now has to go on the road to a not very good Wisconsin team at night. It’s going to be ugly and Ohio State will beat them like they always do, but I think Bucky the Badger will have a couple of tricks up his sleeve to keep Marvin Harrison Jr. in check and keep the game close.

• Arizona State +6 vs. Washington State - The shine might be coming off of the Wazzu train as the schedule gets ready to flip into November, and now they have to go on the road to Arizona State after playing a physical Oregon team for 60 minutes last week. Pacific NW teams are notorious for going to the state of Arizona and sucking wind. I am not sure what the deal is there, but we are going to ride that trend and back an improving Arizona State squad….

• Oregon State -3 vs. Arizona - AND THEN I AM GOING TO COMPLETELY IGNORE MY OWN ADVICE AND BACK THE BEAVS AT ARIZONA LET’S MAKE IT 4 STRAIGHT COVERS FOR OUR BEAVERS THIS WEEK WE RIDE WITH OREGON STATE.

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It’s Georgia/Florida week. Go Dawgs.