COLUMBIA, Mo. – As the College Football Playoff pool expands from four teams to 12 this season, the Missouri Tigers find themselves somewhat in striking distance of a highly-coveted playoff spot. However, they’ll need a series of favorable outcomes to keep that hope alive.
The College Football Playoff (CFP) committee released its second set of rankings for the 2024 season on Tuesday, moving Mizzou up one spot, from the 24th-ranked team to the 23rd, after a dramatic come-from-behind win over the Oklahoma Sooners last weekend.
Now 7-2 overall and 3-2 in conference play, the Tigers’ pace looks encouraging to some on paper. At least enough for head coach Eli Drinkwitz to declare, “This keeps us in the playoff hunt. That’s right, I said it, playoff hunt” in a viral on-field postgame interview after the win over Oklahoma.
It appears Drinkwitz has high hopes, but with where Mizzou currently stands, a trip to the College Football Playoff is not guaranteed. Entering the weekend, eight teams from Mizzou’s own SEC Conference are still ranked ahead of them in the CFP rankings.
Over the next several weeks, Mizzou will need to leapfrog most of those teams and some other non-conference CFP contenders for a fighting chance at one of 12 playoff bids. The Tigers will almost certainly need to finish 10-2 after their final three regular-season matchups and benefit from lots of luck along the way.
That said, there’s not really a definitive mathematical formula for Mizzou to secure a playoff seed. Unless the Tigers make an improbable run to win the SEC conference Championship for a guaranteed spot, the Tigers’ fate of playoff or no playoff will ultimately depend on the CFP committee’s final evaluation of the team come Sunday, Dec. 8.
According to the official College Football Playoff website, “The selection committee ranks the teams based on the members’ evaluation of the teams’ performance on the field, using conference championships won, strength of schedule, head-to-head results and comparison of results against common opponents to decide among teams that are comparable.”
The CFP website also notes, under the new 12-team format, that champions of five college football conferences ranked highest (out of 25-team ranking) by Dec. 8 will automatically qualify for a playoff bid, followed by at-large bids for the next seven-highest ranked teams.
What are some circumstances that could help Mizzou’s odds of qualifying for the college football playoff? Even without an end-all, be-all path, there’s quite a bit to explore.
Winning the SEC Championship
The surest way Mizzou would qualify for the College Football Playoff is by winning the SEC Championship. To potentially qualify for the SEC Championship game, Mizzou would need to finish the regular season among the conference’s top-two-seeded regular season teams.
For a feasible chance to reach that stage, Mizzou would not only need to win its next three matchups, but also need a string of losses among contenders. Mathematically, Ole Miss, Alabama and Georgia would all need to all lose at least one more game, while at least two of three current one-loss teams (Tennessee, Texas and Texas A&M) would need to lose at least two of their final three games. And that’s all to avoid potential SEC standings tiebreakers.
Since Mizzou already lost to Texas A&M this season, their best bet of getting to a possible SEC championship game would rely on one of Tennessee or Texas winning out to be a hypothetical SEC Championship opponent and the other losing at ;east two of their final three games, in addition to Texas A&M losing two of their final three games. Texas’ upcoming matchup with Texas A&M could slightly help the cause one way or another.
With all of this in mind, in the longshot case that Mizzou made the SEC Championship only to later lose it, that could possibly be another variable that works against Mizzou in the final playoff rankings. At that point, it would depend how the CFP evaluates Mizzou’s quality of play in the hypothetical loss to the conference champion.
Tennessee or Texas winning the SEC title
If Mizzou finishes the regular season at 10-2, but doesn’t qualify for an SEC Championship game, they could be in limbo based on how the conference title matchup unfolds.
In this case, Mizzou ideally would not want Texas A&M or Alabama to reach or win the conference championship game, due to both defeating Mizzou convincingly earlier in the season.
The CFP committee may compare Mizzou’s season to the pre-playoff season performances of Texas A&M and Alabama. A dominant conference title win by either team could lead to committee to question whether Mizzou could once again compete with a team of that caliber. The Tigers’ blowout losses to both teams earlier in the season would likely weigh heavily against them in such evaluations.
By contrast, if Tennessee or Texas wins the SEC Championship, Mizzou would not have played or lost to either team. This could slightly improve the Tigers’ outlook as a stronger playoff contender, free of a loss to the eventual SEC champion. As a result, the blowout losses to Texas A&M and Alabama may be seen more as outliers than something to be expected had either won a conference title. And Mizzou could present a more favorable narrative to the CFP committee: A season blemished only by losses to two other non-conference champions.
This scenario also would require Mizzou to leapfrog most, if not all, of Alabama, Texas A&M, Georgia, Ole Miss, and LSU in the SEC standings or CFP rankings, likely by virtue of other contenders losing some of their remaining regular-season games and Mizzou winning out.
Common opponents playing spoiler
Aside from their two conference losses to this point, Mizzou’s SEC schedule could be analyzed as such:
Mizzou defeated conference foes Vanderbilt, Auburn and Oklahoma. And hypothetically to keep CFP dream alive, Mizzou would beat conference foes South Carolina, Mississippi State and Arkansas.
If any of these teams could beat an SEC opponent currently ahead of Mizzou, it could improve the Tigers’ chances of rising in the CFP standings by comparison. Mizzou’s wins over teams they have already beaten would appear more impressive weeks later as those opponents would look stronger overall to the CFP committee if they could pull off late-season upsets.
Which foes behind Mizzou in the SEC standings could possibly help the Tigers with an upset based on their schedules?
Vanderbilt has LSU and Tennessee remaining.
Oklahoma has Alabama and LSU remaining.
Auburn has Texas A&M and Alabama remaining.
Arkansas has Texas reamining.
Mississippi State has Ole Miss remaining.
South Carolina has no more common opponents.
It seems Vanderbilt, Oklahoma and Auburn, the three teams who Mizzou already played and narrowly escaped with victory in each, are most likely candidates to play spoiler, based on projecting as more of a middle-of-the-pack SEC opponent and from having more matchups in which an opponent loss could help Mizzou’s case of climbing CFP rankings.
Mizzou dominates end of regular season
And most importantly to maximize CFP chances, the Tigers will likely need decisive wins to prove themselves as a strong team with an impressive midseason turnaround.
Winning by more than one possession against each of South Carolina, Mississippi State and Arkansas would be a good starting point. Stout defensive efforts could go a long way too. Victories by substantial margins could improve the team perception as being balanced and capable of a late-season surge.
A head-to-head road win over South Carolina this Saturday, currently two spots ahead of Mizzou in the CFP standings, would seemingly eliminate another CFP contender out of Mizzou’s path and perhaps represent Mizzou’s strongest win of the season by the time the regular season ends.
One projected scenario
On Wednesday, St. Louis sports radio program “The Morning After” featured a loyal listener named D’Angelo Hopkins, who shared an ambitious projection of what scenarios could work strongly in Mizzou’s favor for the College Football Playoff. His vision was dubbed as “Mizzou’s path to chaos.”
These were the scenarios proposed….
Mizzou convincingly wins its final three games
Tennessee wins out against Georgia and Vanderbilt
Texas A&M loses to Auburn and Texas
Texas loses to Arkansas and Kentucky, but beats Texas A&M
Georgia loses to Tennessee
Ole Miss loses to Florida or Mississippi State
Alabama loses to Auburn
LSU loses against Florida or Vanderbilt
All of this would put Mizzou against Tennessee in the SEC Championship game after conference tiebreakers, though given how Mizzou has a narrow margin for error, it would also likely require a surprise win in the championship to avoid a possibly consequential loss.
Assuming Mizzou could still qualify for one of several at-large bids, they might not need all of these outcomes to happen, but most make their CFP aspirations more likely. Which scenarios are needed most?
Alabama losing to one of Oklahoma or Auburn remaining on their schedule would be essential, as Mizzou would have a stronger overall winning percentage, fewer conference losses and two wins over common opponents that Alabama doesn’t (Vanderbilt and one of the others).
Texas A&M losing both to Auburn and Texas would be almost equally important. That too would give Mizzou stronger overall winning percentage, fewer conference losses and one win over a common opponent that Texas A&M wouldn’t have (Auburn). And Texas A&M losing to their currently higher-seeded in-state rival would fit them into the narrative Mizzou is trying to avoid if a team they lost to this season (Alabama or Texas A&M) were to win the conference.
Georgia losing to Tennessee would be pretty important. Tennessee, who hasn’t played Mizzou this season, would improve their bid for a top seed or conference championship. Georgia, then who would have more conference losses than Mizzou, would likely drop in the CFP rankings.
LSU losing one more game would give Mizzou two more wins overall (if the MU Tigers win out) and likely drop LSU out of the CFP picture for good.
Any possible upsets against Ole Miss and Texas could improve Mizzou’s odds, but since they don’t have as many common opponents against Mizzou as other teams, they may not seemingly have much consequence on how far Mizzou moves up by the final standings.
Final thoughts
For Mizzou, winning out in the regular season is essential, and an SEC conference title (only possible to attain if they finish among the SEC’s top two regular season teams) remains the only direct route to a playoff spot.
If many of Mizzou’s rivals falter down the stretch, the Tigers could see themselves in a bit of a holding pattern for a possible CFP spot. If the final few weeks of the regular season play out without many losses from Mizzou’s competition ahead of them, however, chasing a playoff spot would inevitably be harder.
Being in the CFP Top 25 with nearly a month to go until the final standings, Mizzou has a chance. It’s not the most favorable chance, and not really quantifiable by a percentage, but it’s at least a chance. Time will tell, sooner or later, if the Tigers’ destiny is filled with more promise or uncertainty around the hope of qualifying for the 2024 College Football Playoff.