The party continues. Nobody wants to leave. At this point last year, we were down to just six unbeaten college football teams. This year, even with North Carolina suffering a shock upset against Virginia, we've still got nine. Of the 10 conferences in FBS, eight still have a blemish-free team atop the standings. That's strangely clean and orderly for this sport, but it could also give the College Football Playoff committee a pretty big headache if it remains the case for a few more weeks.
It probably won't, of course. According to SP+, none of the remaining unbeatens has a better than 38% chance of getting to 12-0, and on average, only 2.4 of the nine will get there. We always talk about nightmare scenarios for the committee, and the questions all tend to answer themselves by the time we get to the final rankings reveal.
Still, we're probably going to learn something interesting about the committee when the weekly rankings begin next week. Do they really look at things differently than the average college football pollster? Do they really take things like strength of schedule into account? Are they going to give Georgia the benefit of the doubt just like the pollsters are currently doing?
Assuming Georgia beats Florida for the sixth time in seven years this Saturday, the Dawgs will be unbeaten heading into the first cycle of CFP rankings. They will almost undoubtedly remain No. 1 in the AP and Coaches polls, and honestly, that makes sense -- they're the two-time defending national champions and they've won 40 of their last 41 games. But a playoff committee tasked with evaluating this year's performance against this year's schedule doesn't really have a case for making them No. 1. They've looked like the best team in the country once all season (against Kentucky). They rank sixth in my Resume SP+ rating, eighth in ESPN's Strength of Record and 17th in Game Control. They barely beat 3-4 Auburn.
Michigan has played an equally weak schedule but has very much looked the part. Ohio State and Florida State have been less dominant but have each scored a couple of lovely résumé-building wins. Oklahoma and Washington are somewhere in between from both dominance and résumé perspectives. Everyone has looked awesome at some point, but each team's Playoff portfolio is a bit different. How the committee ranks them a week from now will tell us quite a bit about what they really look for.
But that conversation's for next week. The nine unbeatens have to get there first, and on average SP+ projects about 1.7 losses for this week's Divine Nine. Here's how they rank after Week 8:
9. Liberty Flames
Last week's ranking: 11th