Ranking CFB’s 9 Undefeated Teams by Likelihood to Finish 12-0

More than halfway through the college football regular season, nine FBS programs remain unbeaten and control their own destinies with the 12-team College Football Playoff on the horizon. That number was 10 until Wednesday night, when Liberty suffered its first loss of the year to previously winless Kennesaw State, a 25-point underdog playing its first season at the FBS level.

The sport has an impressive amount of parity this season, with the top of the AP Top 25 shuffling week to week. The SEC no longer has an undefeated team after Georgia’s win at Texas. The Bulldogs, Longhorns and Alabama have all dropped games after ascending to the No. 1 spot in the poll. Six teams in the league now sit at 6-1. The SEC is joined by Conference USA, the MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 and Sun Belt as leagues without an unbeaten team.

The Big Ten leads the way with a trio of undefeated programs: No. 1 Oregon, No. 3 Penn State and No. 13 Indiana. The ACC and Big 12 each have two teams without a loss, Miami and Pitt in the former, and BYU and Iowa State in the latter. AAC programs and service academy rivals Army and Navy round out the list.

History tells us most of these teams will lose a game before conference championship week. Five teams finished the regular season undefeated last year, the most of the College Football Playoff era. Only two or three make it through unscathed in most seasons. Somewhat surprisingly, there is just one game left in the regular season between undefeated teams — the Army-Navy Game — although that won’t featured an unbeaten team, as the Black Knights and Midshipmen will face each other a week earlier if they both run the table. Thanks to conference realignment thinning out league schedules and a general flattening of the sport this year, there is a chance for real chaos this fall.

Here is the likelihood that each team will reach conference championship weekend without a loss, ranked from nine to one:

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9. Pittsburgh Panthers (AP No. 19)

Pitt is out to a strong start, highlighted by a home win against rival West Virginia. The Panthers have cut it close in their Power 4 games, beating Cincinnati on the road by one, WVU by four, and Cal by two. Its road win at spiraling North Carolina (34-24) was the only particularly decisive victory against a peer opponent. It seems unlikely the Panthers can keep it rolling for another six games, especially with a road trip to SMU and a home game against Clemson, both of which should find Pitt as an underdog. Every team on the Panthers’ remaining schedule is 4-3 or better, making for a lot of coin-flip games down the stretch, starting with Thursday’s game against rival Syracuse.

8. Navy Midshipmen (No. 24)

*at Metlife Stadium (East Rutherford, New Jersey); **at Northwest Stadium (Landover, Maryland.)

Army’s move to the AAC puts it and Navy in one of the most interesting playoff scenarios in all of college football — and one that is unexpectedly playing out in the first year of the expanded CFP. The AAC championship takes place during conference championship weekend, a week before the Army-Navy Game’s traditional standalone spot on the calendar, which will be contested as a nonconference game . That game also will take place after the 12-team CFP field is decided, introducing the very real possibility that undefeated Black Knights play the undefeated Midshipmen for a conference title and a likely playoff spot on Dec. 7 — then rematch the next week with nothing on the line but pride.

Army and Navy have similar schedules down the stretch, with neutral-site games against Notre Dame and one more game against another AAC contender. Navy draws Tulane, perhaps the most talented team in the league, and has one more game remaining than Army, making their path to an undefeated finish a bit more difficult.

7. Army Black Knights (No. 23)

*at Yankee Stadium (Bronx, New York); **at Northwest Stadium (Landover, Maryland.)

In addition to the aforementioned games against Notre Dame and Navy, Army also draws North Texas, one of the more explosive offenses in the Group of 5. The Mean Green defense doesn’t quite live up to the “Mean” billing, however, at No. 128 in SP+. Rival Air Force has bottomed out this year, and is the weakest game left on either Army’s or Navy’s schedule. The Midshipmen already beat the Falcons on the road, 34-7.

6. Indiana Hoosiers (No. 13)

Indiana’s shot at an undefeated regular season features a few major hurdles:

1.) Quarterback Kurtis Rourke, one of the top signal-callers in the country this season, will miss at least this Saturday’s game against Washington after undergoing thumb surgery. The Hoosiers have been rock solid across the board in their first season under Curt Cignetti and should be able to get by the up-and-down Huskies with Tayven Jackson taking the snaps in Rourke’s absence — although Washington is no walkover opponent.

2.) The Hoosiers travel to Ohio State in late November to face what may be the most talented team in the nation. Oregon showed that the Buckeyes aren’t invincible, but Indiana will be at a solid talent deficit. The bye ahead of that game will help, but that comes after another game in which IU will have to face a more talented team on paper in Michigan, although the Wolverines’ quarterback woes haven’t improved in nearly two months. Still, winning both of those games and getting through a quarterback injury is a tall task.

5. Penn State Nittany Lions (No. 3)

Ohio State remains a major roadblock for Penn State as well. Between Penn State and Indiana, the Nittany Lions likely have the most difficult non-Buckeyes game remaining, with Saturday’s trip to face an improving Wisconsin team. However, Penn State gets the narrow edge as the more likely team to go 12-0, as they host Ohio State, while Indiana must play at Columbus. PSU’s schedule is very manageable after the Nov. 2 showdown with OSU, with Washington coming to State College before a pretty easy finish to the season against Purdue and Maryland.

4. Iowa State Cyclones (No. 10)

Iowa State likely will be favored in every game from here on out, but none of them can be totally penciled in as a win. Texas Tech and Cincinnati are both inconsistent but will likely be solid bowl teams. The worst team on the remaining schedule by record, Kansas, entered the year considered a Big 12 title contender, and four of its five losses are by less than a touchdown. The Cyclones are lucky to draw Kansas State at home, but the Wildcats may still be the best team in the Big 12, even with a loss on their ledger. That game could decide a spot in the Big 12 championship game.

3. BYU Cougars (No. 11)

BYU’s blowout win over Kansas State is a huge feather in the program’s cap as the College Football Playoff race heats up. The Cougars don’t have the most explosive offense or a true lockdown defense, but they do everything pretty well, and that should be enough to finish out a 12-0 season and reach the Big 12 championship — likely against Iowa State or a rematch with the Wildcats, although the wide-open Big 12 race has seven teams at 5-2 or better. The rivalry game against Utah could be a throw-out-the-records type game, and the most difficult game might be the trip to face Arizona State in the Cougars’ penultimate regular-season game.

2. Oregon Ducks (No. 1)

The Ducks’ win over Ohio State is one of the best in all of college football this season, and it puts Oregon in control of the Big Ten race. A rematch with Ohio State in the conference title game may be in the works and would decide whether the Ducks hang on to a first-round CFP bye, but the Ducks have a workable path to get to 12-0 before a trip to Indianapolis. Saturday’s home game against Illinois is the only game against a currently ranked team left on the schedule. Road trips to Michigan and Wisconsin and a home game against Washington are far from easy, but Oregon will be a strong favorite the rest of the way.

1. Miami Hurricanes (No. 6)

Miami vs. Oregon for the No. 1 spot on this list is a real toss-up. The Ducks have been the better team, while the Hurricanes have teetered on the brink of disaster at times over the past few weeks, but Miami’s schedule should be more forgiving. Two of the remaining five teams have losing records, and ESPN’s FPI matchup predictor ranks the trip to Georgia Tech as the most likely loss, at just 27.4%. That game is in just a few weeks, but Tech has been without QB Haynes King since last week’s loss to Notre Dame.

The ‘Canes will need to shore up a struggling defense to get through the rest of the ACC slate after winning their first three conference games by an average of just four points. If they win out, they may face red-hot Clemson in the conference title game with an automatic CFP bid on the line. At this point, Mario Cristobal’s team needs to take it one game at a time.

Related: College Football Playoff 12-Team Projections After Week 8

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