We do it every year. Alabama has only four possible losses on its whole schedule! It’ll be favored in every game the rest of the season! Missouri ’s whole season comes down to only two games! Tennessee ’s path to the Playoff is a cakewalk now! And every year, college football reminds us about the foolishness of making assumptions. Advertisement A sport built around 18- to 22-year-olds’ performance from week to week is always going to invite variance, and now the sport is played with rosters that fluctuate wildly from season to season and teams fly thousands of miles across the country for conference games.
We never learn to expect the unexpected, and Saturday provided the latest lesson that looking ahead on schedules and assuming wins is always a dangerous exercise. A week of games without a mammoth showdown like the previous week’s Georgia -Alabama instant classic gave way to chaos and unexpected losses. For the first time since Nov.
12, 2016, five teams in the top 11 lost. Four lost to unranked teams, and Miami needed a dramatic 25-point, second-half comeback to avoid adding to both lists. In a world with a 12-team College Football Playoff, that means all these upsets shake up the field even if losses like Alabama falling to Vanderbilt and Tennessee to Arkansas might not knock them all the way out of the field.
Seeding matters. The field shifts. More games matter.
Texas A&M demolishing Missouri isn’t just playing spoiler anymore. It’s a team stating a case to .