Here’s what a playoff with Oklahoma State in it would look like

Photo Attribution: USATSI

This would have been a much easier post if OSU’s defense could have just finished off Blake Bell and Co. last Saturday but it’s still not that big of a stretch to say that a college football playoff of the future could include a team like Oklahoma State this year.

There are two feasible future playoff scenarios under which this would happen. Let’s look at both of them.

16 at-large teams

The top 16 teams in the country. Fun, but not as fair or good as the next scenario.

Here’s how it would look:

This is just straight BCS rankings which causes several problems, most notably the OU-Baylor rematch and FSU having to play LSU (!) while Auburn gets UCF. OSU would have to get past Michigan State and Stanford to get its shot at (presumably) FSU so that would be borderline football suicide.

11 conference champs, five at-large teams

This is my favorite playoff scenario (and was outlined perfectly in Death to the BCS). It means North Texas knows at the beginning of the season it can win a national title if it wins all its games instead of knowing it won’t.

We’re going to take some liberties and assume two things in this scenario. 1. A conference can’t have more than two at-large bids. 2. A committee would select the at-larges and, given their bodies of work, select OSU over OU (not really a huge stretch).

Here’s how this would look this year:

This is a better tournament. No rematches, FSU gets UL-Lafayette (as it should), Auburn gets Rice (as it should) and all is well. OSU now would have to get past Michigan State and Alabama.

Yikes.

But man, wouldn’t it be fun.