Championship week: No CFP worries for Big Ten with No. 1 vs No. 2 matchup; anxiety reigns elsewhere

The conference championship games are upon us, providing the College Football Playoff committee one last look at contenders for the 12-team field and requiring anxious coaches and players on bubble teams to keep the antacids handy.

The Big Ten will be the only conference with a sense of calm this weekend with No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Indiana squaring off in Indianapolis. Those two unbeaten teams are locks for the playoff, and even the loser could receive a top-four seed and the first-round bye that goes with it. Oregon will be the third Big Ten playoff team.

This is where it could get messy.

Georgia will be in the playoff win or lose against Alabama in the Southeastern Conference game. If Alabama loses — after beating the Bulldogs in the regular season — the committee will have to decide whether to let a three-loss Crimson Tide join Georgia, Mississippi and Texas A&M from the SEC. Oklahoma, Texas and Vanderbilt also will plead their cases.

Texas Tech should secure a top-four seed if it beats BYU for a second time this season in the Big 12. A BYU win likely would give the Big 12 two playoff teams.

The Atlantic Coast Conference game between Virginia and Duke could have ramifications for the Group of Five. Virginia would be in the playoff with a win and out with a loss.

James Madison, if it beats Troy in the Sun Belt on Friday night, would be pulling hard for Duke to beat Virginia. A Duke win probably allows JMU to sneak in as the fifth highest-ranked conference champion, ahead of what would be the five-loss Blue Devils. That doesn’t mean the ACC would necessarily get shut out. The CFP committee could give an at-large spot to Miami,

The first, and maybe only, G5 bid will go to the winner between North Texas and Tulane in the American Conference.

Finally, there’s idle independent Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish lost their first two games of the season to ranked opponents (Miami and Texas A&M) by a total of four points and have been dominant while rolling off 10 straight wins but slipped one spot to No. 10 in this week’s CFP rankings.

Best game

No. 2 Indiana (12-0, No. 2 CFP) vs. No. 1 Ohio State (12-0, No. 1 CFP) in Indianapolis, Saturday, 8 p.m. ET (Fox)

The nation’s first 1-2 matchup in two seasons is a clash of the high-scoring Indiana offense against a Buckeyes defense that could go down as one of the best all time.

Never mind the Hoosiers haven’t beaten Ohio State since 1988. This isn’t your father’s or grandfather’s Indiana. The Hoosiers were 10-0 and on their way to the CFP last year when they lost 38-15 to the Buckeyes in a top-five matchup, the only meeting since Indiana hired Curt Cignetti after the 2023 season.

Heisman watch

The 48-hour voting window for the Heisman Trophy opens Saturday at 5 p.m. ET, and based on wagering markets and media surveys, it appears to be a three-man race among quarterbacks Fernando Mendoza of Indiana, Julian Sayin of Ohio State and Diego Pavia of Vanderbilt. Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love is in line to be a finalist.

BetMGM Sportsbook listed Mendoza as the favorite, just aheaed of Sayin and Pavia.

Voters undecided between Mendoza and Sayin will get one more look at them in the Big Ten championship game.

Numbers to know

3 — Coaches in championship games who will or could leave their team after the season: North Texas’ Eric Morris (hired by Oklahoma State), Tulane’s Jon Sumrall (Florida) and James Madison’s Bob Chesney (linked to UCLA).

6 — Championship games that are rematches of regular-season games.

19 — Conference championship game winners that have gone on to win that season’s national title, including 13 of the 33 SEC winners.

21 — Five-loss teams, including Duke, that have qualified for championship games in power conferences and the Group of Five, according to Sportradar. The other power conference teams were 2018 Pittsburgh (7-5) in the ACC, 2012 Wisconsin (7-5) in the Big Ten, 2012 Georgia Tech (6-6) in the ACC and 2011 UCLA (6-6) in the Pac-12.

2009 — Last time a conference championship game was a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup (Florida-Alabama in SEC).

Under the radar

UNLV (10-2) at Boise State (8-4), Mountain West, Friday, 8 p.m. ET (Fox)

Boise State has been a bit out of sight, out of mind since Heisman Trophy finalist Ashton Jeanty and the CFP-qualifying Broncos dominated the Group of Five last year. Here they are, playing for a third straight Mountain West championship thanks to a one-point win over Utah State on Friday and finishing in the top two of the computer analysis of metrics that resolved the four-team tie for first place.

This will be a rematch of the October meeting in Boise, which the Broncos won 56-31 to spoil UNLV’s 6-0 start under first-year coach Dan Mullen.

Hot coach

Conference championship week means it’s time for our annual pick for a coach poised to move up rather than move out.

The herd of sought-after Group of Five coaches has been thinned with four from the American Conference having left for power-conference schools and another, James Madison’s Bob Chesney, poised to make the jump to UCLA.

Next to go could be Western Kentucky’s Tyson Helton. He’s been a model of consistency and is ready to take a step up from Conference USA to the G5’s premier conference, the American, where four jobs are open.

Helton has led the Hilltoppers for seven seasons. Not counting the 2020 pandemic season, he’s won eight or nine games every year, and WKU is set to go to a seventh straight bowl.

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