Every Friday, the Friday Five will rank something in the world of college football -- anything and everything from the logical to the illogical. This week, we rank the five teams currently ranked outside the top 10 with the best chances of crashing the College Football Playoff.
In 2014, the very first set of College Football Playoff rankings ever were released. In that first set of rankings, Mississippi State was ranked No. 1, with Florida State at No. 2, Auburn at No. 3 and Ole Miss at No. 4. By the time the regular season came to an end, only Florida State remained in the top four and was selected for the College Football Playoff.
At No. 16 in those initial rankings was Ohio State, the team that would end the season as the first national champion in the new playoff system.
When the first set of CFP rankings were released in 2015, the top four in order was Ohio State, Baylor, Clemson and LSU. Clemson was the only one of those four to actually reach the playoff. One of the other three teams to join Clemson was Oklahoma, which was ranked No. 14 in the initial rankings.
The point I'm trying to make here is that a lot can change between the CFP's Week 10 rankings and the ones that actually determine the playoff participants. So when we look at the short history of the CFP, and we look at the first set of 2016 rankings released earlier this week, the idea of a team not currently in the top 10 making the CFP isn't exactly far-fetched.
Hell, based on history, it's a guarantee.
But which school will it be? That's what I'm trying to figure out in this week's Friday Five. The only predictable thing about college football is that something unpredictable will happen, so it's hard to know anything for certain, but based on what I do know -- or at least think I do -- these are the five teams I believe have the best chance of crashing the party this season.
5. No. 15 Colorado: Colorado beat UCLA on Thursday night in a game that could best be described as ugly, but even if it was a beautiful victory, I can't put Colorado any higher than fifth on this list.
The reason for that is that at the moment, Colorado's most impressive win is a 10-5 victory over a 5-3 Stanford team. Its losses to Michigan and USC are certainly respectable, but those were also Colorado's two best chances this season to impress the selection committee. The good news for Colorado is that if it manages to win out, it will pick up wins against both Washington State and Utah. Then, should it win the Pac-12 title game, it will likely do so against Washington. If the Huskies are still undefeated at that point, it's even better for Colorado's chances, because we know how much the committee values (Power Five) conference champions.
4. No. 20 West Virginia: The Mountaineers are coming off a loss to Oklahoma State, and I think the recency bias of it affected their ranking. I'm not writing them off yet, though, because the Big 12 is still a very interesting place going forward should chaos reign.
West Virginia's biggest problem at the moment is it doesn't have a signature win.
It has three conference wins over Kansas State, TCU and Texas Tech, but those three are a combined 13-11 on the season. In non-conference, it beat a 2-6 Missouri team and a 4-4 BYU team. Nothing there will make the committee stand up and take notice.
What West Virginia does have going for it is that it still only has one loss, and if it can manage to win out, it will pick up wins against Oklahoma and Baylor. Those will boost its stock, and even if it doesn't end the season with the most impressive strength of schedule, an 11-1 Big 12 champion would be hard to ignore. Having said that, the Mountaineers would still need somebody like Washington to drop a game, or for Clemson to lose the ACC Championship.
3. No. 11 Florida: Florida has an amazing defense. What Florida doesn't have right now is a win over anybody that's really worth anything. Its six wins have come against teams with a combined record of 21-28. By record, the best team Florida has beaten this season is Kentucky, and its loss to Tennessee looked a lot better at the time, but the Vols have cratered since then.
The committee may still understand that the Tennessee team Florida lost to was a lot better than the one we see now, however, because half of it hadn't been injured or suddenly decided to transfer at that point.
What works in Florida's favor -- aside from that amazing defense -- is that it has games remaining against LSU and Florida State. If Florida can get through Arkansas and South Carolina, and head into those final two games of the season at 9-1, it can actually afford a loss in either of them because it will have wrapped up the SEC East. That means the Gators would get a shot at the SEC West champion -- which will be a big resume booster no matter who it is -- and if they could pull off a win in the SEC Championship, I have a very hard time believing the committee will turn away an SEC champion, even if it has two losses. When 10 of the 13 teams in the CFP rankings are from the SEC or Big Ten, that tells you all you need to know about what the committee thinks of those two conferences.
2. No. 13 LSU: I was going back and forth about whether to put LSU ahead of Florida or behind it in these rankings, but clearly I chose to go with LSU. The reasons for this are based on nothing more than the fact that LSU has three huge games left -- Alabama, Florida and Texas A&M -- and that two of them are in Baton Rouge, including the Florida game.
We won't have to wait very long to find out what's going to happen with LSU, either. Should the Tigers pull off the upset over Alabama on Saturday night, they're going to jump into the top 10, and maybe even top six. After that, they'll still have their games against Florida and A&M to boost the resume even further.
If they win those games, they're definitely playing in Atlanta, and if they win that game -- likely a rematch against Florida -- there's no way in hell this team isn't in the playoff.
1. No. 14 Oklahoma: If either Florida and LSU win out, they'll have a better resume than Oklahoma would if the Sooners finish 10-2, but there's a very simple reason I'm putting Oklahoma ahead of both on this list.
It'll be a lot more difficult for either Florida or LSU to win out than it will be for Oklahoma, not that it'd be easy for any of them.
Oklahoma just has a clearer road to a conference championship, as it's already in first place in the Big 12, and while it doesn't have a great win, it still has to play West Virginia, Baylor and Oklahoma State. As of now those three teams are a combined 18-4, so wins there would certainly boost the resume.
Working against Oklahoma at the moment is its two losses. Neither are embarrassing, but the Sooners had two spotlight games in non-conference play against Houston and Ohio State, and it lost them both, including a 21-point home loss against the Buckeyes. Those losses will certainly hurt its case, but as we've seen before, the committee definitely puts weight into how you're playing at the moment, so two losses in September may not seem to be such a big deal if the Sooners finish the regular season with three big wins and on a nine-game winning streak.
Much like West Virginia, the Sooners would still need a few other things to happen around the country, but a 10-2 conference champion with the brand name Oklahoma has will receive consideration.
And as I wrote in the intro to this list, it wouldn't even be the first time Oklahoma goes from No. 14 to the top four.
Honorable Mention: Baylor, Utah, Virginia Tech