Staples: The ‘root for chaos’ College Football Playoff guide

Every Saturday night, Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman react to the weekend’s slate of games on The Andy Staples Show & Friends. On Mondays, Andy revisits his and Ari’s biggest takeaway from Saturday night’s instant reaction. This week: “Rooting for chaos” scenarios to wrap up the college football season.

I fell into a trap late Saturday night.

As we recorded our podcast, Ari Wasserman and I discussed multiple College Football Playoff scenarios. I was trying to prepare the listeners for the likelihood of an 11-1 Tennessee edging out a 12-1 conference champion because the CFP selection committee has demonstrated that it loves good wins more than anything, and Tennessee has a home win against Alabama and a road domination of LSU that will buoy the Volunteers.

But Ari reminded me that it didn’t necessarily have to be an either/or scenario. I kept assuming that TCU would go 13-0 and claim one spot. The Big Ten and SEC champions would claim two others, and that would leave only one for everyone else. As Ari pointed out, we don’t usually get chalk in the season’s final weeks. Something crazy will happen. The question is what?

That’s what makes these next few weeks so much fun.

Obviously, we’ll be watching Michigan–Ohio State because of its Big Ten and national title ramifications. But it’s highly likely that some game we’re assuming is an easy win for the favored team will have us on the edge of our seats and ultimately shake up the CFP picture. Arizona’s win against UCLA on Saturday was one of those games. There will be more.

The best part is none of us know which game or games will change everything. But that doesn’t mean we can’t run through the scenarios. Today, we’ll examine four (still theoretically plausible) scenarios that require some chaos to happen. Consider this your handy “User’s Guide to 2022 College Football Chaos.”

To rank them, we’ll use the Nuts scale. In other words, how nuts is this if it happens?

The Pac-12 Makes The Playoff!

The Pac-12 hasn’t placed a team in the bracket since Washington in 2016. Even before Oregon’s loss to Washington and UCLA’s loss to Arizona on Saturday, USC probably was the league’s best hope for a CFP berth because it still has the chance to collect a decent non-conference win against Notre Dame. But after the events of Saturday night, USC now is the conference’s only hope.

Here’s what needs to happen for the Trojans to make the field.

• USC needs to beat UCLA next week, beat Notre Dame the following week and then win the Pac-12 title game on Dec. 2. If the Trojans beat the Bruins, they’re in and UCLA is out. USC would play Oregon in the title game if the Ducks beat Utah and Oregon State in consecutive weeks. If the Ducks lose to Utah, it opens up the possibility of USC getting a rematch with the Utes, who beat the Trojans in Salt Lake City on Oct. 15. (The committee loves avenging sole losses.) If Utah beats Oregon but then loses to Colorado but…