What scenarios need to play out for Notre Dame or Baylor to make the field?
4 min read
The final Saturday of the 2021 college football season has arrived with conference championship games set to be played as teams battle to earn the top four spots in the College Football Playoff. With so few games left, the playoff picture has become much clearer. That’s why we’re here: to help you sort through it all.
There are only seven teams with any chance whatsoever of being selected for the CFP on Sunday, Dec. 5. Six of them are fighting for three spots because one team has already clinched a playoff berth. Yes, that’s undefeated and unanimously No. 1 ranked Georgia. As one might expect, the top teams all have some level of a chance to make the field, but those programs not playing this weekend — with the exception of Notre Dame — have no chance at all regardless of where they are ranked now.
Without further ado, here is list of the remaining CFP contenders in order of their current ranking along with an explanation of what each team needs to accomplish in order to get into the top four. I have found scenarios in which nine of the top 13 teams either definitely get in or at least get considered for the fourth and final spot.
Let’s take a look how those teams stack up with Championship Week and the final CFP Rankings ahead.
In addition to this list of playoff contenders, I have released my penultimate bowl projections for the 2021-22 season. Reminder: These projections are not how things stand now but rather how I expect them to look following the conference championship games Saturday.
