With one Saturday remaining in the college football regular season before Championship Week and then Selection Sunday, fans and talking heads are starting to speculate on hypothetical College Football Playoff match ups.
And based on Tuesday’s rankings, the College Football Playoff committee only had one team in the 12-team playoff, with Arizona State coming in at No. 12. If the Sun Devils were to win the Big 12 and those seedings were to hold, it would be Arizona State theoretically playing No. 5 seed Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio in the First Round Playoff game.
And if those two teams were to meet, the spread would be Ohio State -21 points, according to Josh Pate of Josh Pate’s College Football Show.
Pate mentioned this hypothetical match up during his show on Tuesday night and said that FanDuel provided him with the the odds for potential first round match ups.
Related: Big 12 Bowl Projections: Arizona State Lands Lone CFP Bid for Big 12
Other Hypothetical First Round Spreads
Tennessee at Georgia (-8.5)
Indiana at Penn State (-9.5)
SMU at Notre Dame (-10)
Pate goes on to note how large the spread would be on these games, while adding, “The format of this thing is a much bigger problem than the rankings are. Auto bids are a disaster of an idea.”
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How to Get the Match Up
But of course, multiple things need to happen to get the Sun Devils to travel to Columbus in a couple of weeks.
First off, Arizona State would need to beat Arizona on Saturday and then win the Big 12 Championship Game the following week to get into the Playoff. Also, Boise State would have to win out, and the committee would then need to give the Broncos the final auto bid as the No. 4 seed, which would bump the Big 12 winner from getting an auto bid.
And of course, Ohio State would need to beat Michigan on Saturday, and then promptly lose the Big Ten Championship Game to Oregon.
That’s a lot that needs to happen to get the Arizona State at Ohio State match up, but it’s far from a long shot for all those things to transpire.
