The college football calendar is the oddest in sports. We spend eight months arguing about what might happen, teams spend two months basically establishing pole position, and then almost everything that we will actually remember from a given season happens in a single month: November. Conference title races play to their finish, someone clinches the Heisman, the national title push goes from third to fifth gear, and if we're going to end up with a truly indelible, lasting moment, this is probably when it's going to happen. Hail Flutie. Harrell to Crabtree. The Kick Six. The Bluegrass Miracle. Clint Stoerner. Johnny Rodgers' punt return. Wide Right I. They all happened in November.
It's Nov. 1, so welcome to the college football season. Here's how everything has taken shape as we dive into the most exciting month any sport can boast.
Where the national title race stands
We'll obviously get the lay of the land when the College Football Playoff committee releases its first top 25 on Tuesday evening, but when you take projections for the coming weeks into account, there are basically four tiers of playoff contenders at the moment.
Tier 1 (greater than 90% chance of reaching the playoffs, per ESPN's Allstate Playoff Predictor): Georgia
Tier 2 (50-70% chance): Alabama, Cincinnati, Ohio State, Oklahoma
Tier 3 (15-20% chance): Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame
Tier 4 (1-5% chance): Baylor, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Pitt, Wake Forest
The lone team in Tier 1 is just about in at this point, the four teams in Tier 2 are each probably in if they win out (though obviously someone's getting left out if they all win out), and the eight teams in Tiers 3 and 4 are working with varied combinations of "would need some help even if they win out" and "probably won't win out."
Georgia's dominance through the first two months has basically earned the Dawgs a mulligan at this point -- they could lose a game (probably to Alabama) and remain pretty comfortably in the top four. That might be the only mulligan left to hand out, however. If Alabama or Ohio State were to lose again, or even if Oklahoma were to lose for the first time, they would need lots of help to get in. (And it goes without saying that Cincinnati has a chance only at 13-0.)
Where each conference race stands
As we head into the final four weeks of the regular season, only a few division title races have been particularly sorted out. So let's walk through each conference race. I'm listing teams by division (where applicable) and in order of their current odds of reaching their conference's title game, per ESPN's FPI. Any team with at least a 4% chance is included.
SEC
East: 6-0 Georgia (100%)
West: 4-1 Alabama (83%), 3-1 Auburn (12%), 3-2 Texas A&M (5%)
Sometimes things play out as expected. Granted, Alabama has actually dropped a game -- which we never really expect -- and has lost its safety net and needs to win at Auburn, something the Tide have done only once in their past four trips. Still, they're a clear and obvious West favorite, while Georgia managed to clinch its fourth East title in five years before the calendar even flipped to November.
Big Ten
East: 5-0 Ohio State (74%), 5-0 Michigan State (15%), 4-1 Michigan (11%)
West: 4-1 Minnesota (44%), 3-2 Wisconsin (33%), 3-2 Iowa (22%)
Ohio State has been one of the two best teams in the country since losing to Oregon and is the official Big Ten East front-runner after surviving a tough challenge from Penn State. Michigan State's win over Michigan, meanwhile, gives the Spartans a key tiebreaker if Ohio State slips up.
In the West, Minnesota controls its destiny, thanks in part to Wisconsin's Saturday blowout of Iowa. The Golden Gophers still have to play both of the other main contenders: Wisconsin at home, Iowa on the road. P.J. Fleck's team has been strong enough of late that it makes the Gophers' Sept. 25 loss to Bowling Green maybe the single most baffling result of the season, so baffling that it's not particularly easy to trust this team just yet. The Gophers will obviously have a chance to earn that trust moving forward.
ACC
Atlantic: 5-0 Wake Forest (50%), 3-1 NC State (41%), 4-2 Clemson (10%)
Coastal: 3-1 Pitt (69%), 4-2 Virginia (14%), 2-2 Miami (14%)
Wake Forest's offense is one of the most unique in the country -- lots of tempo, plenty of deep shots and a healthy sample of those "hold the mesh point far longer than anyone else in the world ever has before" RPOs that always make you think something has gone wrong when it hasn't. The Demon Deacons are a joy to watch, and they control their destiny in the Atlantic Division, but there are tests on the horizon. Over the next three weeks, they will play at both North Carolina (technically not a conference game this year) and Clemson and, in Week 11, host NC State in a game that might determine the Atlantic champ.
The Coastal race got a little blurrier on Saturday -- Miami's upset win at Pitt dropped the Panthers' division title odds from 90% to 69% and kept both the Hurricanes and Virginia in the race. But Pitt is still the front-runner.
Big 12
6-0 Oklahoma (87%), 4-1 Oklahoma State (54%), 4-1 Baylor (41%), 3-2 Iowa State (17%)
The big question for Oklahoma isn't whether the Sooners will reach the Big 12 championship game for the fifth straight year -- the odds are very much in their favor -- but whether they can get there unbeaten. Five of the Sooners' nine wins have come by a touchdown or less this season, and a sixth (a 35-23 win at Kansas) came mostly down to the wire. They had sunk to 11th in SP+ before Saturday's blowout of Texas Tech (they're now eighth), and they still face games against each of the conference's three other primary contenders, traveling to Waco and Stillwater and welcoming Iowa State to Norman.
We usually don't see the best Lincoln Riley's teams have to offer until November, however. The Sooners have won 21 straight November games; their last loss in the month was a 38-35 home upset against Oklahoma State in 2014, the year before Riley arrived in Norman as offensive coordinator. The OU team we've seen to date might lose at least once in the coming weeks, but it's hard to bet against the Sooners winning out, isn't it?
Pac-12
North: 4-1 Oregon (63%), 3-2 Washington (17%), 4-2 Washington State (12%), 3-2 Oregon State (8%)
South: 4-1 Utah (96%), 3-2 Arizona State (4%)
Whereas some division races play out like a Marvel movie -- long, slow-building drama that culminates in a dramatic fight scene 2½ hours in -- the Pac-12 South race was a good, old-fashioned rom-com: There are too many plot twists and hilarious misunderstandings to count, and everything's resolved within about 90 minutes.
USC was the preseason favorite but bombed out by laying home eggs against Stanford and Oregon State. UCLA's early prowess gave the Bruins the edge heading into October, but they've lost three of their past five. Arizona State leaped to the front of the line following a 42-23 win at UCLA, then lost to Utah and Washington State by a combined 27 points. And that has left Utah -- a team that lost to both BYU and San Diego State in nonconference play and dropped a 42-34 decision to Oregon State in Week 8 -- as the almost default champion. The Utes still have to win three games as a heavy favorite (at Stanford, at Arizona, Colorado) to avoid drama, but they went from 20% odds to nearly 100% in a month.
The North might still have some drama left in it. Oregon is the conference's only CFP contender, but the Ducks' propensity for playing to their level of competition has given them ho-hum computer rankings. They remain vulnerable to an upset, and they still have to travel to Salt Lake City to face Utah and also still play all three of the other North contenders above. Their work is far from over.
American
5-0 Houston (99%), 4-0 Cincinnati (91%), 3-1 SMU (9%)
Cincinnati's dominance and Houston's thrilling Saturday night win over SMU pretty much set the table for the American conference title game. The surging Cougs would need to lose two of three to USF, Temple and Memphis to let SMU back into the mix, and SMU would still have to win at Cincinnati to avoid falling out of the mix.
Mountain West
Mountain: 4-1 Utah State (69%), 2-2 Boise State (20%), 3-2 Air Force (9%)
West: 4-1 Fresno State (74%), 3-1 Nevada (13%), 3-1 SDSU (13%)
Utah State's resounding win over Hawaii kept the Aggies a game up in the loss column in the Mountain Division, and they hold the tiebreaker edge over Air Force. Boise State's excellent late performance against Colorado State, however, has kept the Broncos -- and their head-to-head win over USU -- in the hunt.
In the West, Fresno State's 30-20 win over San Diego State knocked the Aztecs from the ranks of the unbeaten and gave Fresno the tiebreaker over both SDSU and Nevada. There's no margin for error, and the Bulldogs still have to beat Boise State at home, but they're the leader for now.
Sun Belt
East: 3-1 Appalachian State (70%), 3-1 Coastal Carolina (30%)
West: 5-0 Louisiana (100%)
After easing their way into the season, Billy Napier's Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns have improved of late, stomping both Appalachian State and Texas State at home to lock up the West title. In the East, we're just waiting to see if App State can win out. The Mountaineers' Oct. 20 home win over Coastal Carolina gave them the tiebreaker, and they'll be favorites in each of their last four games. Win out, and they're in. Lose, and Coastal will likely be right there to take advantage.
Conference USA
East: 3-1 Western Kentucky (37%), 3-1 Marshall (32%), 3-1 FAU (25%), 2-2 MTSU (5%)
West: 4-0 UTSA (88%), 3-1 UAB (10%)
The West numbers stand out a bit, if only because UTEP is also 3-1 in conference play. The Miners host UTSA this weekend and could upend the race with an upset. The problem: It would be one hell of an upset. FPI ranks UTEP just 109th, SP+ 106th. They haven't beaten an SP+ top-100 team yet, and both UAB and UTSA are in the top 70. The Miners remain long shots ... though they were long shots to reach bowl eligibility too, and did that. Maybe they'll remain in "Never tell me the odds" mode for a while longer.
Things are only getting started in the East. WKU is smoking hot but has to play each of the three other contenders -- Florida Atlantic and Middle Tennessee at home and Marshall in Huntington. Marshall plays at FAU this coming weekend, so this could be a two-horse race pretty soon.
MAC
East: 3-1 Miami (Ohio) (54%), 3-1 Kent State (45%)
West: 4-0 NIU (52%), 2-2 Toledo (25%), 2-2 Ball State (11%), 2-2 WMU (9%)
November means MACtion, and there are at least a few high-stakes MACtion games on the horizon. Northern Illinois has built a two-game lead in the West, but still has to face Ball State and Western Michigan (both at home), and barring any surprising plot twists between now and then -- not exactly unheard of in this wacky conference -- Miami and Kent State will play for the East over Thanksgiving weekend.
The biggest remaining conference games
There are 27 remaining games between the conference contenders above. Needless to say, most of them will be pretty high-stakes battles even if (or when) plot twists change the odds. Here they are, listed with each team's current AP ranking:
Week 10 (four games): No. 12 Auburn at No. 13 Texas A&M, No. 7 Oregon at Washington, MTSU at WKU, Marshall at FAU
Week 11 (six games): No. 4 Oklahoma at No. 14 Baylor, Washington State at No. 7 Oregon, NC State at No. 10 Wake Forest, Minnesota at No. 19 Iowa, Ball State at NIU, Nevada at SDSU
Week 12 (seven games): No. 5 Michigan State at No. 6 Ohio State, No. 23 SMU at No. 2 Cincinnati, Iowa State at No. 4 Oklahoma, No. 10 Wake Forest at Clemson, UAB at No. 16 UTSA, Virginia at Pitt, FAU at WKU
Week 13 (10 games): No. 6 Ohio State at No. 9 Michigan, No. 3 Alabama at No. 12 Auburn, No. 4 Oklahoma at No. 11 Oklahoma State, Oregon State at No. 7 Oregon, Wisconsin at Minnesota, Washington State at Washington, WKU at Marshall, Miami (Ohio) at Kent State, Western Michigan at NIU, MTSU at FAU
Four huge storylines to follow
Can Cincinnati do it?
I made my case for Cincinnati in Sunday's SP+ rankings release:
"Their strength of schedule may be worse, but they have dominated their schedule more than Michigan State and Wake Forest and far more than an Oklahoma team that beat Tulane by 14 fewer points than Cincinnati and beat Kansas by only 12 a week ago. Their 24-13 win over Notre Dame -- the Fighting Irish's only loss to date -- is one of the best résumé wins in the country, and they've beaten five of eight opponents by at least 19 points. They should be rewarded for this. If the CFP committee ranks Oklahoma ahead of the Bearcats on Tuesday night, it will be an absolute injustice. ... They're holding steady at 10th in SP+, but they could certainly do themselves some favors by laying on some style points in the coming weeks. Either way, they've done enough to rank in the CFP top four this week. If they don't, then the committee is weighing the wrong factors."
As long as Cincinnati keeps winning, the Bearcats will be maybe the biggest conversation topic of the coming CFP rankings releases. They haven't lost a regular-season game in nearly two calendar years, won at Notre Dame in October and physically matched up well with Georgia last year in bowl season. We know they can compete both physically and athletically, and when given a chance to prove they could hang with the big boys, they won comfortably. But how will the committee judge their résumé now? How many unbeaten teams are ahead of them? One-loss teams? And most importantly, will the Bearcats keep winning?
They definitely still have work to do. SMU, their Week 12 opponent, boasts an explosive offense and a No. 47 SP+ ranking, while likely AAC championship opponent Houston has a top-50 defense and an offense that might be finding its rhythm again. Cincy will be comfortably favored in both games, but SP+ still gives the Bearcats only a 46% chance of getting to 13-0.
Will all of the chaos to date actually produce a surprise CFP?
We saw shades of 2007 mixed throughout the first nine weeks of the regular season -- 30-point underdogs pulling upsets, record numbers of ranked teams losing and so on. By this point in the year, we're typically down to five or six unbeaten power-conference teams, and we're already at only four.
The 2007 chaos, however, was instructive. After the wildest regular season of any of our lifetimes -- after so many No. 2 teams had fallen, after all the surprise teams rising, after we came within a single weekend of a West Virginia vs. Missouri national title game -- we ended up getting a BCS championship game of LSU vs. Ohio State. That was one of the most likely pairings at the beginning of the year. As it turned out, there had been so much chaos that we had basically circled back to how things looked at the start.
It's not hard to see the same thing playing out in 2021. Sure, Oklahoma could still easily drop a game, Ohio State could suffer another upset, Bama could lose to Georgia and we could end up with some wacky Georgia-Cincinnati-Michigan State-Wake Forest playoff. As a chaos lover, that's certainly what I'm looking for. But if things play out as projected, we could get some combination of Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State and Oklahoma -- something plenty of people might have predicted in August.
Is the Heisman race wide open ... or down to two guys?
In the rush of adrenaline that accompanied a wonderfully entertaining game, some jumped to call Kenneth Walker III's fifth touchdown against Michigan on Saturday his "Heisman moment."
To be sure, Walker was brilliant, rushing 23 times for 197 yards and the five scores. Receivers Jayden Reed and Jalen Nailor have created plenty of explosions and key plays during the Spartans' unbeaten run, but Walker has done the heavy lifting. The Wake Forest transfer leads the country in rushing yards per game, and he has scored 15 total touchdowns.
0:19
Michigan State RB Kenneth Walker III finds a hole and rushes 23 yards for the go-ahead touchdown vs. Michigan.
If you squint just right, you can see one of the more wide-open Heisman fields in recent memory, one loaded with interesting non-quarterback contenders. In addition to Walker, Ohio State running back TreVeyon Henderson is averaging 7.9 yards per carry and just rushed for 152 yards on an awesome Penn State defense. And if there was any justice in the world, defensive players such as Georgia's Jordan Davis or Alabama's Will Anderson Jr. would be taken more seriously by voters.
Even at the quarterback position, you could make a solid case for players from atypical Heisman schools -- Ole Miss' Matt Corral, Pitt's Kenny Pickett, Wake Forest's Sam Hartman, for example. But Corral and Pickett have both lost twice, which fairly or unfairly hurts their odds, and unless Hartman throws for 400 yards on an awesome Clemson defense in a couple of weeks, he might not have enough marquee opportunities to win the thing.
We head into November with a number of players dreaming of holding the heavy trophy ... but it's hard for me to see past two favorites. If both Ohio State's C.J. Stroud and Alabama's Bryce Young win out as projected, I'm guessing they vacuum up a majority of the first-place votes. They are first and second, respectively, in Total QBR, and in 15 combined games, they've thrown for 4,723 yards, with 49 TDs and just six interceptions. They are statistically dominant players playing for statistically dominant blue bloods. Can Walker or Davis pierce that aura?
Can Michigan avoid another late-year slide?
Even after two months of stellar play, when you fall off of your perch, negativity can engulf you quickly. This was plainly evidenced by the volume of "same old troubles" and "another collapse" headlines we saw on Sunday following Michigan's loss to Michigan State on Saturday.
The Wolverines nearly got to the finish line in East Lansing, carrying a 30-14 lead late into the third quarter, going back ahead after State tied the game on two quick touchdowns and twice driving into or near Sparty territory in the final two minutes after falling behind. But one of their fatal flaws (red zone failures) eventually helped to knock them from the ranks of the unbeaten. They created more scoring chances than Michigan State but settled for four field goals, while the Spartans scored TDs on all four of their chances.
The Wolverines' season will be defined by what happens next. Michigan lost three of four to finish 2016, three in a row in 2017, two in a row in 2018 and 2019, and four out of five in a brief, disastrous 2020 season. After a potential recovery game at home against Indiana, they have to play at Penn State (win probability, per SP+: 52%) and Maryland (71%) before returning home to face an Ohio State team they have beaten only once since 2003. If the Wolverines rebound and play like a top-five team from here on out, they could easily win the Big Ten and/or reach the CFP. But history suggests they'll falter to about 9-3 or so. It's never too late for a plot twist, but this could indeed be the same old, same old.
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