After Latest CFB Playoff Rankings, Does OSU Still Have a Chance?

Welcome to the Nate Silver portion of this broadcast. The CFB Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday evening, and Oklahoma State slithered up to No. 11 in the new top 25. This feels significant. Just seven spots back with three weeks still to go. There’s a chance, right? There’s a possibility OSU could get into the top four.

Truthfully, I don’t think there is barring the most absurd final three weeks we have ever seen in recent years. But technically, yes, there is. Here is what Silver’s 538 model says about OSU’s chances. This is the best I could do this week without breaking the model. Maybe you can do better.

Side note: Is Washington State (!) which lost to a FCS team (!) going to make the CFB Playoff??

The path for the Big 12 (i.e. OSU) is probably something like this, as Sharon Katz laid out in this ESPN Insider article.

1. The Big 12 champion wins out
2. Michigan or Ohio State wins the Big Ten
3. The Pac-12 champion has two or more losses
4. Louisville loses again

This is basically what Matt Hinton says as well although he thinks the Pac-12 champion needs to have three losses. So Washington State would have to beat Washington and Colorado and then lose in the Pac-12 title game. Or something like that. You can see the schedules of the teams OSU needs to lose just below.

The point is that the path to the CFB Playoff for a Big 12 champion is pretty haggard which is really a shame for any conference champion. The answer to the question in the headline, by the way, is, “no, not unless something apocalyptic happens at the end of November.”