College Football Playoff vibe check, Week 1: Ohio State picks up critical win for resume, LSU bails out SEC

There’s a lot of football to be played between now and when the final College Football Playoff Rankings are released in December, but games played in late August can decide a team’s playoff fate the same way those in November do, and the first full week of college football did not come with a shortage of ptentially season-defining results.

We saw the No. 1 team in the country go down. That was followed by No. 8 Alabama falling on the road to an unranked Florida State squad coming off a 2-10 season. Then, to finish Saturday night, No. 4 Clemson fell at home to No. 9 Clemson.

And that’s just the start. Whose playoff resume got a boost? Whose is already in peril? Let’s break down all the key developments in the race for the CFP.

Texas was not a clear-cut No. 1 team entering the season. The Longhorns finished only five points ahead of No. 2 Penn State in the AP Top 25 and were one of six different teams to receive first-place votes. Ohio State was one of those teams.

The Buckeyes — currently the favorite to win the national championship, per FanDuel Sportsbook — will receive plenty more in this week’s poll, but that’s not our concern here. While beating Texas in Week 1 doesn’t clinch anything, it sure gives Ohio State a fantastic trump card should it fall short of winning the Big Ten again and need an at-large berth. Texas may not live up to the preseason hype, but it’s difficult to envision a scenario in which this win isn’t looked at as one of the more impressive wins of the season come the end of the year.

It’s the kind of win that could result in the Buckeyes receiving a first-round bye even if they don’t win the Big Ten. In the new format that doesn’t put as much emphasis on winning conferences as last year’s did, that’s a massive advantage.

Here comes Florida State

There’s an argument to be made that nobody received a bigger playoff bump this week than Florida State due to its 31-17 win over Alabama. I don’t know that you can say Florida State was even in the playoff picture entering the season. If it was, you definitely had to squint really hard to see it. Perhaps just in the corner over there, behind, like, I don’t know, James Madison or something.

Well, it’s there now. Wins over top-10 teams tend to throw you into the conversation when you have a brand like Florida State does. That 2-10 record from last season has already been forgotten thanks to Tommy “Nick Saban Ain’t Gonna Save You From This Whooping” Castellanos and Gus Malzahn’s gap integrity napalm rushing attack. There wasn’t a more jarring outcome in the country this weekend.

Now, that’s not to say Florida State doesn’t have plenty of work left to do. For all we know, Alabama is about to have a 7-5 season, and this win won’t carry nearly as much weight later in the season. But if the Tide bounce back and perform at the level expected of them coming into the year, this win also gives the Seminoles some wiggle room. Florida State has conference games with both Miami and Clemson this season, as well as a regular-season finale against a Florida team that might be in the conversation. If Florida State had lost to Alabama, the Noles would have needed to win at least two of those three games while remaining perfect against everyone else.

LSU may have saved the SEC

Here’s the thing, SEC. You can’t spend the entire offseason crying about how you were screwed by the committee last year because they didn’t value your strength of schedule, then come out and have both Texas and Alabama lose. Strength of schedule is a great way to break ties, but you have to win some of the tough games, too! Simply playing them isn’t enough!

If LSU had fallen to Clemson, it would’ve been an absolute nightmare for the league. For all we know, Week 1 may have proven the difference between the SEC getting four teams in or having to settle for three again.

But LSU didn’t lose. It won, and it took an ACC scalp in the process. No. 10 Miami won’t host No. 6 Notre Dame until Sunday night, but if the ‘Canes can win there, and Clemson could’ve held on against LSU, we’re suddenly looking at an ACC that’s likely to get two teams into the field and could damn well get three.

Big 12 is already a one-bid league

I saw a path for the Big 12 to get multiple bids this year, but they’ve all gone up in smoke. You aren’t going to get the respect from the committee to consider your schools as an at-large unless you grab a few nonconference pelts along the way. TCU still has a chance to take down North Carolina on Labor Day, but so far, this is what the Big 12’s nonconference resume looks like.

The league is 14-3 in nonconference games, but it’s a misleading record.

The conference had four shots at Power Four competition this weekend and went 1-3 with home (and “neutral” site) losses to Nebraska, Auburn and Georgia Tech. The lone win came against a UCLA team that was 5-7 last year. Ten of the league’s nonconference wins have come against FCS competition. The league will have more chances (SMU, Iowa, Oregon, Missouri, Mississippi State and Stanford are on the schedule next week), but unless Oklahoma State knocks off Oregon, I don’t know that any win will be enough to truly move the needle. The league may need to sweep its nonconference games from here out to have a chance.

Mountain West is in trouble, too

The Mountain West’s biggest loss so far came Thursday night when Boise State got waxed by South Florida 34-7. It was not an encouraging start for a Boise State team seen as the favorite to represent the Group of Six leagues again this year but came with questions about how life would look without Ashton Jeanty.

If Boise’s looking for a silver lining, however, it’s that the rest of the Mountain West looks awful. The Broncos can still go undefeated in league play to finish 10-2 (assuming a loss to Notre Dame) and possibly get in. The problem is, if Boise does lose to Notre Dame, what win will it have to hang its hat on?

UNLV is 2-0 but barely beat Idaho State. Fresno State got the doors blown off it by Kansas last week before recovering Saturday to take down Georgia Southern. San Jose State lost at home to Central Michigan. We’re not just losing nonconference games here; we’re losing them to other G6 leagues. That hurts your ability to say our champ is better than your champ.

Considering South Florida took down Boise and Tulane blew out Northwestern, the American has an early lead in the race to grab the bid.

Resume loss of the week

Not all losses are created equal. Sometimes the CFP selection committee looks at a loss and finds it more impressive than somebody else’s win! Each week, we will give out the Resume Loss of the Week Award to the team most likely not to receive any punishment for its failure.

This week’s award goes to Texas. Honestly, the Longhorns did not look good. Arch Manning will wear most of the criticism because that’s just how things work now, but for all the faults Texas displayed in its 14-7 loss to Ohio State, it only lost 14-7. Seriously, it had a chance to tie the game in the final minutes.

Nobody is going to look at a close loss on the road to the defending national champions as a reason to keep Texas out of the playoff.

Week 2 vibe shifters

A look ahead to the five games on next week’s slate most likely to impact the playoff race

No. 14 Michigan at No. 18 Oklahoma
No. 12 Illinois at Duke
Iowa at No. 22 Iowa State
Kansas at Missouri
South Florida at Florida