College Football Playoff rankings: 5 chaos scenarios entering Rivalry Week

4. Pittsburgh beats Miami

The next step into chaos unfolding and the playoff committee taking on an impossible task is Pittsburgh beating Miami. The Hurricanes are undefeated currently and them winning out makes the job of the committee a lot easier.

If they lose, their chances of making it in take a hit and then they’re really backing the committee up against a wall. Losing to Pittsburgh would mean Miami would have to defeat Clemson in the conference title game to get in.

If they lose to Clemson then they are done as well. Now, there are teams behind them that can jump in, but those are all safety nets that could be wiped away if those programs manage to drop another game too.

What would be worse is if Clemson is a two-loss team going into that game. That would effectively eliminate Clemson from the title hunt and if they pushed Miami to two losses it would remove the ACC.

Then the discussion of two-loss teams getting becomes stronger looking at Auburn, Ohio State and others, provided those teams don’t have three losses by then. Auburn plays Alabama this week, so that’s a real chance as well. Essentially, Pittsburgh winning removes all margin for error.