We're still in the early stages of conference play in the FBS: of the 132 teams in conferences, all have played between two and four league games. Of those 132, 110 have already lost at least one game. You may have heard that preseason No. 2 Penn State has lost all four.
A peak at the nine respective conference races will reveal that one is not like the other eight:
-- American: Navy (4-0), South Florida (3-0) and Tulane (3-0) are all unbeaten, but Navy hosts USF on Nov. 15.
-- Big 12: BYU (4-0) and Cincinnati (4-0) are the only remaining unbeatens.
-- Big Ten: Indiana (4-0) and Ohio State (4-0) are the only remaining unbeatens.
-- Conference USA: Jacksonville State (3-0) and Kennesaw State (2-0) are the only remaining unbeatens.
-- MAC: Buffalo (3-0), Miami (3-0) and Western Michigan (3-0) are all unbeaten, but Miami hosts WMU on Saturday and visits Buffalo next month.
-- Mountain West: Boise State (3-0) and San Diego State (2-0) are the only remaining unbeatens.
-- SEC: Alabama (4-0) and Texas A&M (4-0) are the only remaining unbeatens.
-- Sun Belt: James Madison (4-0), Southern Miss (3-0) and Troy (3-0) are all unbeaten, but as the only FBS league still split into divisions, the Sun Belt is exempt from the type of chaos scenarios the other eight leagues bring upon themselves. Troy will host Southern Miss for the presumptive SBC West crown on Nov. 29.
By process of elimination, that leaves the ACC. The top of the ACC standings currently look like this:
Georgia Tech -- 4-0
Virginia -- 3-0
SMU -- 3-0
Georgia Tech does not play Virginia, Virginia does not play SMU, and SMU does not play Georgia Tech. That's a long way of saying the ACC has three undefeated teams, none of whom play each other.
The ACC has a 7-step procedure to break 3-or-more team ties, most of which involve winning percentage against certain opponents, all of which would become moot in the event the Yellow Jackets, Cavaliers and Mustangs all 1.000 in that department.
By my reading, a scenario where all three finish 8-0 would immediately go to tiebreaker E, the combined winning percentage of conference opponents.
-- Georgia Tech's past opponents are 7-8 in ACC play, and its future opponents are 5-10.
-- Virginia's past opponents are 4-7, and its future opponents are currently 7-8.
-- SMU's past opponents are 5-8, and its future opponents are 6-9.
That adds up to 12 wins for Georgia Tech's opponents, advancing the Yellow Jackets to Atlanta. Virginia and SMU's opponents have both won 11 games; should they remain tied, the next tiebreaker would be decided by SportSource Analytics's Team Rating Score. Your guess is as good as mine at that point.
The ultimate irony here is that Virginia actually has lost to an ACC opponent already, but their 35-31 defeat to NC State back on Sept. 6 was technically considered a non-conference game. Turns out, a 17-team, coast-to-coast, division-less conference that plays only eight games has some messy side effects. Who could have guessed?
Now, I know what you're saying: This chaos scenario isn't actually going to play out in real life. Kelley Ford gives Georgia Tech a 25 percent chance to win out in ACC play, Virginia a 16 percent chance, and SMU a 9 percent chance. This calculator I found on Google projects a 0.3 percent chance of a 1-in-4 event, a 1-in-6 event, and a 1-in-11 event all happening simultaneously. It's far too early for the folks in the ACC offices to enter freakout mode.
One of these teams will lose a game at one point, probably two and maybe all three. Similarly, one (or both) of the unbeatens in the other leagues will drop games down the stretch, at which point their own tiebreaker nightmares will come into play.
We'll dive all the way into the weeds in those leagues when appropriate, but right now it's the ACC's turn with the hand shovel.