How do the FootballScoop Four's committee's brackets look after the first Saturday in more than 30 years where Nos. 2, 3 and 4 all go down together? All over the place. What else would you expect?
SCOTT
No. 1 No debate.
No. 2 Heisman winner (?) has his chance to shine Thursday night in primetime at Houston.
No. 3 Ohio State's loss (at Penn State) feels better than others'; and they have rebounded. Win out and this team might peak at the right time.
No. 4 WMU is undersized but rowing really fast. The Fightin' Flecks will show out the rest of the way. Hope it is enough.
LAST TWO OUT and
Throw out the early season losses and think about which teams no one wants to play right now. Alabama. Maybe Louisville. USC and LSU are right there. SC has won 6 straight conference games and LSU is 4-1 since Ed Orgeron took over, scoring 38 or more against everyone not named Alabama...and Dave Aranda's defense seems to be getting better each week.
ZACH
No. 1 Enough said.
No. 2 I don't have No. 2 Clemson on my Super 16 ballot. So why are they No. 2 here? Because I'm filling out today's ballot on the -- admittedly faulty -- assumption that everything plays to chalk from here.
No. 3 Ohio State can't win its way into the Big Ten title game, but they can win their way into the Playoff. Victories over Big 12 champion Oklahoma, Big Ten East champion Wisconsin plus solid victories over Michigan and Nebraska outweigh the resume of a 2-loss Big Ten champion that beat these very same Buckeyes.
No. 4 If this was still the BCS, the formulas would show Washington sneaked in over Louisville by the width of one of its snow-covered whiskers. However, Washington is of greatest risk among my CFP contenders of losing again. That defense hasn't been the same since Joe Mathis went down.
LAST TWO OUT: and
Fun as it would be to debate Ohio State vs. Penn State, I predict Paul Chryst's Badgers will render all the hot air spent on the topic moot when they knock off the Nittany Lions in the Big Ten championship. Meanwhile, Louisville fans get to spend the rest of their lives wondering why James Quick went out of bounds.
DOUG
No. 1 If you actually question this one, just turn on a Crimson Tide game. Go ahead. Any one of 'em, then come and try and make a case for someone else here.
No. 2So their combined opponent's record isn't as good as Clemson's, but the fact remains that they blew the doors off of Florida State, they have the Heisman front-runner, and they beat the teams that are on their schedule. It may not always be pretty, but they find a way to win every week and that has to count for something, especially in November. No team gains as much from the wild upsets on Saturday than Petrino's squad.
No. 3 Ohio State might be playing their best football of the season after beating the doors off of a top 15 Nebraska team, and doing the same on the road at Maryland, by a combined score of 124-6. Big games against a struggling Michigan State team and the rivalry with a depleted Michigan squad (who just lost their starting quarterback to a broken collarbone) remain, so we'll see how focused Ohio State really is after that loss to Penn State.
No. 4 Pitt somehow managed to beat Dabo Swinney's squad while playing in a very un-Narduzzi like fashion, and I can't really explain how I was still impressed with Clemson
LAST TWO OUT:and
I really believe that Washington is more than deserving of a playoff berth, and they've got a great shot to state their case with remaining games against Arizona State and their rivalry game with a red-hot Washington State squad. Why's Western on here over Michigan you might ask? Because winning all your football games is really, really hard to do, regardless of what league you're in...and it would just be fun to see PJ Fleck and the Broncos on the big stage to see what they're capable of.