Ranking the most interesting College Football Playoff and conference races

The signs are everywhere. It's yet hoodie upwind successful the Midwest. We're getting acceptable to reason each implicit again astir daylight redeeming clip and whether candy maize is good. (It is! I don't similar that it is, but it is.) That's right: It's astir November. And November is assemblage football's top month.

We participate this November with acold much uncertainty successful the aerial than usual. Sure, it astir surely looks similar Ohio State and Indiana volition vacuum up 2 of the 12 College Football Playoff slots, with Oregon apt nabbing a third. The top-heavy Big Ten should proceed to fend disconnected immoderate of the "Has parity taken implicit assemblage football?" speech en vogue astatine the moment. But everyplace else, it's thing but uncertainty arsenic acold arsenic the oculus tin see.

We cognize the SEC should onshore rather a fewer CFP bids, but we person nary thought who volition drawback them. (Okay, we person some idea, but not a lot!) We thought the ACC (Miami) and Big 12 (Texas Tech) some had teams susceptible of charging to 12-0 and casual CFP bids, but Miami and Texas Tech mislaid past week. So did Memphis, which plunged the American Conference contention into chaos. And person you looked astatine the Heisman betting lately? It feels similar we inactive person immoderate large crippled twists to travel with that.

Per the Allstate Playoff Predictor, determination are 30 teams with astatine slightest a 10% accidental astatine a playoff bid. Most of what's up appears unsettled, truthful let's effort to marque immoderate consciousness of it. Here are the 10 FBS races I'm astir looking guardant to arsenic hoodie upwind -- the best upwind -- further takes implicit our world.

1. SEC rubric race

Per SP+, we caput into Week 9 with 8 teams clinging to astatine slightest a 5% accidental of winning the league title: Alabama (25.8%), Texas A&M (17.6%), Georgia (13.9%), Oklahoma (10.4%), Texas (7.7%), Missouri (7.4%), Ole Miss (7.1%) and Vanderbilt (5.5%). They each person either zero (Bama and A&M) oregon 1 league loss, and determination are 8 remaining games betwixt them implicit the adjacent six weeks, including 2 imaginable elimination games successful Week 9 (Ole Miss astatine Oklahoma and Missouri astatine Vanderbilt).

I tin archer you however galore antithetic teams person a chance, but it's hard not to deliberation of Alabama arsenic the front-runner. The Crimson Tide moved to 4-0 successful SEC play past week with a 37-20 triumph implicit Tennessee, and they've present played 4 of the 5 champion opponents connected their league schedule. They're lone up to ninth successful SP+, however, acknowledgment chiefly to statistically subpar performances successful wins implicit Georgia and Missouri (and, of course, the season-opening dud against Florida State, an progressively inexplicable result). That means their remaining games against LSU, Oklahoma and Auburn are projected arsenic one-score affairs. Their spot successful Atlanta isn't a gimme conscionable yet. Still, wi...