I think you are overestimating the objectivity of the committee members. I would put the probability of the SEC being left out of the playoffs at .1%. If Bama wins, they will jump over FSU.
The SEC is averaging over 1.2 teams per playoff. The noise in the media is reflected in the teams selected. The SEC will have a team in the playoffs.
We get that onside kick at the end with over 2:00 left and their sphincters would have been puckering big time. A good friend of mine, who is a mutt, said that the last team with the ball was going to win.
They found a way to get 4-5 teams in the playoffs every year starting next year. I am sure that the SEC realized they were eventually going to be left out of a four team playoff. They were against expanded playoffs, then (it appears) when they knew they were going to add Texas and Oklahoma, they pushed hard for the expanded playoffs with very loose selection criteria past the first six teams.
Agree with your thinking on this. The only case where I think it could go differently is Scenario 3 where FSU crushes L'ville and Texas ekes out a close one to win their conference. The committee might think 13-0 FSU deserves to be in over 12-1 Texas. But your scenario is more likely.
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In your scenario, I think both Texas and Bama leapfrog FSU. The committee has them 4th and I imagine they would take the SEC winner over them regardless if FSU is undefeated and Bama is not. Since they would have Texas above Bama, both get in over FSU.FWIW, here are the CFP resumes for the 7 teams I think are in contention for a spot.
UGA - wins #9 Missou, #11 Ole Miss, #21 TN(@), remaining game #8 AL
Mich - wins #6 Oh ST, #10 Penn St(@), remaining game #16 Iowa
Wash - wins #5 OR, #15 AZ(@), #20 OR ST(@), remaining game #5 OR
FSU - wins #13 LSU(N), #23 Clemson(@), remaining game #14 L'ville
OR - wins #20 OR ST, loss #3 Wash(@), remaining game #3 WA
TX - wins #8 AL(@), #25 K ST, loss #12 OK(N), remaining game #18 OK St
AL - wins #11 Ole Miss, #13 LSU, #21 TN, loss #7 TX, remaining game #1 UGA
The best win is either TX @AL or Wash against OR.
Wash and FSU are the only teams with more than 1 road/neutral win.
AL is the only team without a road/neutral win.
Nobody has a loss to a team ranked lower than 12th.
There has never been a CFP with 4 undefeated teams. Will their be chaos this weekend or will we have the most chalky CFP for what has been one of the most chalky seasons ever in college football.
College Football Playoff Rankings: Michigan moves to No. 2, Florida State returns to field in new top 25
The penultimate top 25 rankings of the 2023 season have arrived from the CFP Selection Committee
Some analysis of the current rankings from Jerry Palm.
"Do not get too worked up over where teams are right now. The CFP Rankings are not a poll. There are no conference champions yet, and the committee has a preference for conference champions in the playoff. That said, it is not intended to be strictly a tournament of champions. That is more of a tiebreaker, per se.
Another factor that the committee takes to heart is head-to-head results, especially involving one-loss teams. We have seen Texas ahead of Alabama all season in part because of the Longhorns' win in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It's also the best win any team has this season, and that will still be true on Sunday. The committee has been consistent all season with the relative placement of those teams. Alabama beating Georgia, should that happen, is unlikely to change that.
One more thing to keep in mind is that the committee does not care about the history of these programs or their conferences in this event. Their job is to evaluate these teams based on what they have done this season. That's it."
If you want to see UGA left out I think the road to that would be the following
Mich and FSU win.
AL beats UGA by a solid margin.oops up on OSU.
If all that happened then I think the final four would be Mich, WA/OR winner - preference would be Wash as they would be undefeated, FSU, TX.
That is probably the only scenario where UGA would fail to make the CFP at this point.
I'll disagree on that one.
There is zero chance of that, zero.
We shall see. I think both FSU and Bama will win. The question is Texas. If Uga wins or Texas loses, it makes the decision easy. But if FSU, Bama and Texas all win, then the committee either leaves the SEC out of the playoffs, which I do not see happening, or they drop FSU. I would bet on the latter. Six pack, winner's choice.
Maybe you need a new tin foil hat.
I will add that there is a HUGE gap between the top three conferences, PAC, B1G, and the SEC, and the ACC in the Colley conference rankings. It is large enough to justify taking a one loss conference champion in any of the top 3 over an undefeated ACC champ.
