On Tuesday, Nov. 5, the first official 12-team College Football Playoff bracket was released.
As of right now, the four teams who have the first-round bye are the University of Oregon, the University of Georgia, the University of Miami and Brigham Young University.
Even though these teams are not all ranked one through four, they would get the bye because of their records in their conferences. The official rankings disregarding the conference champions, have Ohio State University above the Bulldogs at two and multiple teams ahead of BYU, who are ranked ninth.
With pivotal games and conference championships still to be played, there is still a lot that can happen in these upcoming weeks.
Three of these teams are still undefeated: the Ducks, the Hurricanes, the Indiana University Hoosiers and the Cougars.
The Ducks have a solid resume, beating two ranked teams, Ohio State and Boise State. They have been the unanimous No.1 team for the last couple of weeks and look to stay there, as they have the University of Maryland, the University of Wisconsin and the University of Washington still left on their schedule.
Miami does not have a single win over a ranked team and has been in some nail-biters, to say the least. They have let teams like Virginia Tech, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Louisville hang around with them in very close games.
In most of those games, quarterback Cam Ward has had to play lights out in the fourth quarter, leading his team to comeback victories. However, their slow starts ultimately caught up with them, as they could not pull off a comeback at Georgia Tech, losing 28-23.
The question of how Miami will fare against one of the powerhouse teams, such as UGA or Ohio State, remains to be answered.
BYU is another team that has not played a top team this year. They got a big win against Southern Methodist University, which is ranked, as well as Kansas State University which is also ranked.
The Cougars will most likely remain undefeated and win the Big 12, but once they get into the playoffs, they will have to play a powerhouse program.
“BYU is probably the worst team in this 12-team playoff,” said Patrick Kryszczak, a junior management major. “They haven’t played a real team yet, and when they play any team from the SEC, they will lose.”
Just because a team is in right now does not mean they will be in by December.
There is a lot of controversy around Indiana, which has gotten off to the best start in school history. They have won every game by at least a touchdown but have not played the most difficult competition.
They did beat the University of Michigan on Saturday, Nov. 10, but the defending national champions are not the team they were last year under new head coach Sherrone Moore, sitting at a record of 5-5.
They have yet to play a ranked team this year. Their first true test against a top-ranked team will come against Ohio State on Saturday, Nov. 23. Indiana has never beat Michigan and Ohio State in the same season but has a good shot to do that this year.
“There’s no way that Indiana beats Ohio State,” said Luke Parris, a senior exercise science major and Ohio State fan. “Ryan Day does not win big games ever, but they have to come to us, and I don’t think they will stand a chance.”
With so many big games still left to play, it is impossible to say who will be in and who will be out at the end of the season. The college football world is in for an inevitably exciting and controversial finish these next few weeks.
