Tich’s Take

College football has always been crazy. From Doug Flutie, to the Stanford trombone player, to last year’s Iron Bowl, it has always boasted the best regular season in sports.

A playoff threatened to screw everything up. With more teams having a shot at the title come postseason, there was a possibility that the importance of the regular season would be diminished. Then this season happened.

Nine weeks into the season, three teams remained undefeated: Florida State, Mississippi State and Ole Miss. Yes, two teams from Mississippi. Two teams from Alabama might have made sense, but Mississippi?

Come on now.

Now, even with the Rebels’ loss to LSU in Baton Rouge this past weekend, there is still a possibility that both Mississippi squads could be playing in the four-team College Football Playoff in January. But predicting which teams will be playing in the mini-tournament is a tougher task than making a snowman in a desert.

There is only one team close to being a lock — Florida State. The defending national champions have already dealt with the toughest part of their schedule, narrowly escaping down-to-the-wire contests against Clemson and Notre Dame. Still, the Seminoles have an Oct. 30 Thursday night game against Louisville that has “trap game” written all over it. So, do not pencil in the ’Noles quite yet.

The Southeastern Conference (SEC)West division will eat itself alive. Four of the top seven ranked teams in the country right now are in that division. No. 1 Mississippi State still has to play at No. 3 Alabama and No. 7 Ole Miss. No. 3 Alabama must still face No. 1 Mississippi State and No. 4 Auburn. No. 4 Auburn must still travel to No. 3 Alabama and No. 9 Georgia. Is your head spinning yet?

Either way, it is a pretty good bet that at least one playoff participant will come out of the SEC West. The selection committee will reward whichever team comes through the brutality the least scathed.

Now things get fun. There is still a smorgasbord of good one-loss teams out there. Top-10 teams Oregon, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Georgia and TCU all have very good chances at remaining that way until conference championship weekend.

A realistic scenario: Oregon, Notre Dame, Michigan State and TCU all finish with one loss. An SEC West team finishes with two losses, but both losses are to top five teams. Can the selection committee ignore a 10-2 SEC West champion who went through a schedule twice as difficult as any of the one-loss teams? Good luck, selection committee. (My picks to be the last four standing: Florida State, Ole Miss, TCU and Michigan State).

The playoff was supposed to solve all of this confusion, ensuring that all deserving teams would be allowed a chance to win the national title.

Then this season happened.

Tichenor is the sports editor.