Seven weekends. Seven. Not even including this weekend.
College football has seven weekends left on its regular-season calendar, regardless of what happens across the nation in a weekend slate that features undefeated Big Ten Titans Indiana at Oregon.
But forget those seven weekends and 50-plus days of season that remain on the calendar.
For Texas, for USC, and for Notre Dame, Michigan, Georgia, LSU and South Carolina, among a handful of others, the season has only this Saturday.
Why? Because Texas already has gone from preseason No. 1 to outside of the top 25. Lose to undefeated and archrival Oklahoma in the contest that shall forever be known in this print as the 'Red River Shootout' and your Longhorns season is over. Period. No debate.
Not still with Georgia, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt among additional contests left to be played for Texas.
Ask Penn State. The Nittany Lions host Northwestern this weekend trying to bounce back after consecutive losses, but one of those losses -- last week at UCLA -- ranks as the worst for any team in Football Bowls Subdivision play.
One-loss Michigan travels to one-loss USC; fine. Except the Trojans next week fly cross-country to face No. 16 Notre Dame, which has been playing to keep its season alive nonstop since falling at home against Texas A&M on Sept. 13 after opening with a loss two weeks prior at Miami. Plus, the Irish, who host NC State this weekend, have no conference race to keep them seeking different paths for a return trip to the College Football Playoff.
Similarly, the Trojans and Wolverines have the Big Ten Conference -- which means both have additional tough tests remaining. Michigan still has top-ranked Ohio State at season's end among other tilts, and USC still has a late-season date with former Pac-12 nemesis Oregon.
LSU and South Carolina are similarly in must-win mode week after week if the CFP is to remain a realistic goal, and they meet in Death Valley.
It's a plant-your-flag type of game for Hugh Freeze and Auburn on the plains as they welcome in Georgia in the 'Deep South's Oldest Rivalry.'
Freeze has no signature win; this is as good an opportunity as he is likely to get -- though obviously Alabama remains to close the regular season.
But it's hard to see the Tigers holding it all together that long if they cannot find a way to upset the one-loss Bulldogs, who have their quality win at Tennessee but a home loss to Alabama and still must face these Auburn Tigers, Florida and Texas, among others.
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