Just when it looked like we might have a college playoff without Ohio State and Alabama, championship weekend threw everything into chaos.
It started on Friday with USC’s loss to Utah in the Pac-12 championship. It continued on Saturday with TCU’s 31-28 overtime loss to Kansas State, putting an end to their undefeated season and giving the playoff selection committee some big decisions to make.
USC’s loss pretty much eliminated it from playoff contention and put Ohio State back in the driver’s seat for one of the four spots, despite its loss to Michigan a week ago and not getting an opportunity to play in the Big 10 championship game.
But the big question to watch now is whether or not TCU’s loss — its only loss of the season — will be enough to remove the Horned Frogs from the top four and re-open the door for a two-loss Alabama team.
TCU entered the weekend ranked No. 3 in the most recent playoff rankings.
There seems to be a strong belief that TCU did not need a win on Saturday to secure one of the top-four spots and that a two-loss Alabama team that is not even playing in its conference title game would jump over them. But anytime that decision is up to a subjective group of humans you can never fully be sure of anything.
If TCU does miss out is going to have a lot to think about this offseason of the way overtime went on Saturday.
The Horned Frogs opened overtime with the ball and drove all the way down inside the one-yard line for a second-and-goal situation.
They ended up getting stopped on three consecutive plays, while they did not give quarterback Max Duggan the chance to make a play on the third-or fourth-down plays that ended up getting stopped for a loss. It was bizarre given the way Duggan almost single-handedly drove TCU’s late fourth-quarter comeback, helping it to overcome what had been a 28-17 deficit with under 12 minutes to play in regulation.
Kansas State ended up winning on a Ty Zentner 31-yard field goal on its first possession in overtime.
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