The latest College Football Playoff rankings handed Utah and BYU something rare to chew on at the same time: a real path, however messy, to the same postseason conversation.
Utah landed at No. 2 on Tuesday night, while BYU stayed at No. 10 despite taking its second loss. That alone says plenty about how the committee views the Big 12 right now.
Texas Tech checked in at No. 12, Houston at No.
14, Arizona at No. 23 and Oklahoma State at No. 25.
At this point, the only conference ranked higher in the committee’s eyes is the SEC.
Utah’s place was no surprise. An undefeated team sitting near the top of the board is exactly what most people expected.
BYU hanging on inside the top 10 after a second defeat, though, raised eyebrows. Still, the Cougars are in the same neighborhood as other two-loss teams such as Alabama at No.
3, Texas at No. 6 and Tennessee at No. 8, so the door is clearly not shut.
For the Utes, the path looks straightforward enough. If they handle their final three regular-season games - at Arizona, at TCU and home against West Virginia - they should reach the Big 12 championship game.
And even if they don’t win that title game, they likely would still make the playoff. Barring some kind of weirdness, they’d be favored in all three of those games.
That leads to the bigger question: what happens to BYU?
If the Cougars win out - home against Baylor, at Kansas and home against Cincinnati - but miss the Big 12 title game because one-loss Texas Tech keeps rolling, would BYU still get a playoff spot? The setup suggests they’re positioned well enough to have that case.
There’s another twist, too. If Utah keeps winning and Texas Tech slips, the Utes and Cougars could meet again in the conference championship game.
That rematch would carry plenty of juice, especially if BYU gets a healthy LJ Martin back to strengthen the run game. Martin was the Big 12 offensive player of the year a season ago, but he wasn’t himself in last week’s rivalry game after being unable to immediately return from injury and reach his top gear.
And if that title game turns into a close one, what then? Would both teams still hear their names called for the playoff no matter who wins? It’s tough to picture a three-loss BYU getting in, even if two of those losses came against the highly regarded Utes.
Then again, the bracket gets even stranger if Utah and Texas Tech win out, meet in the championship game and BYU handles the rest of its schedule. In that case, could all three teams make it, with the Cougars leaning on their win over No. 5 Notre Dame?
Or flip it again: if Utah and Texas Tech meet for the title and the Red Raiders beat the Utes, Texas Tech would lock up an automatic bid and Utah would probably still be in with only one loss. But would that knock BYU out?
It’s even possible that a Utah loss to Texas Tech would be the worst outcome for BYU. That would leave Cougar fans pulling for a Ute win and hoping the rest breaks their way.
At this point, nobody really knows how this is going to shake out. The scenarios are wild, and this season has already made a habit of refusing to behave. Next year the playoff expands to 24 teams, but for now the uncertainty is part of the fun.
Utah’s season has already been notable. It still has a chance to become spectacular if the Utes stay on their current track, and Morgan Scalley may be the perfect coach to keep them from looking too far ahead.
That kind of discipline isn’t just theory for him. Scalley once had that conversation as a senior safety before Utah’s undefeated 2004 season, and he wasn’t interested in talking big-picture.
He stayed locked on the next game, and he said so. That approach worked then, and it still makes sense now.
One game at a time may be the oldest cliché in sports, but it survives because it’s true.
For Utah, that means no looking ahead. For everyone else, the fun is in the guessing.
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