The School Soccer Playoff Race Is Pure Chaos

On the onset of fall, it was clear that the expansion of the School Soccer Playoff from 4 groups to 12 would make this season unlike any other. It was much less clear that issues would get this bizarre.

Triple the scale of the sphere for the game’s largest postseason occasion, and extra groups will play nationally significant soccer deeper into the yr. Ideally this wouldn’t be obligatory; folks appeared to love common bowl video games simply positive till the mid-2010s, when ESPN’s protection of the game grew to become so intensely in regards to the new playoff system and plenty of gamers stopped caring about nonplayoff bowls. However the toothpaste was not going again into the tube, and in a playoff-centric world, the best way to imbue the game with extra which means (and extra tv {dollars} for the largest conferences) was so as to add extra playoffs to the playoff.

But with one week left within the common season, issues are a lot messier than even most of us prognosticated after we mapped out what a 12-team playoff marketing campaign would appear like. The daybreak of superconferences with 16 or 18 groups has made league championship races into a complete ruckus, and that’s left a weird array of potential playoff situations on the desk with just one full week (plus convention championship video games after that) left to go. Extra issues may nonetheless occur than have ever been in a position to occur in school soccer, and as foolish as chances are you’ll assume it may get, it may get sillier.

A number of conferences have easy footage. Precisely 4 Large Ten groups are nearly sure to make the sphere: Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State, and Indiana. The Hoosiers, 10–1, briefly seemed in hassle as they have been getting routed at Ohio State final Saturday, however a brigade of Southeastern Convention groups misplaced their third recreation of the season later that day and supplied some cushion. So long as Indiana doesn’t trifle with 1–10 Purdue, the worst staff within the Energy 4 conferences, the Hoosiers are positive. In the meantime, the ACC will ship both SMU, Miami, or Clemson to the playoff, with some probability that the league grabs a second bid if Clemson wins this week in opposition to South Carolina however misses the ACC Championship. In the meantime, the Pac-12, Mid-American, and Convention USA will ship no person to the playoff.

Elsewhere, it’s a lovely mess so far as the attention can see.

The Large 12 is the pièce de résistance of School Soccer Playoff variance. This league now has 16 faculties in it, and roughly 9 of them have fairly near the identical caliber of soccer staff. These 9 are all inside one recreation within the standings, and it is possible that as many as eight of them finish the weekend with matching data. All 9 nonetheless have not less than a distant path to creating the convention championship recreation subsequent weekend in North Texas, and the Large 12 says that 256 mixtures of opponents and seeds stay in play for that matchup. Arizona State (going through rival Arizona this week) and Iowa State (going through a troublesome Kansas State) have the closest factor to regulate of their very own future however may, in response to the league, miss out in complicated tiebreakers even when each win this week.

Baylor and West Virginia followers have spent a lot of the previous two years clamoring to fireplace their present head coaches, however neither of them is technically lifeless but within the Large 12 race. Neither is Texas Tech, whose continued presence within the race permits the newspapers in Lubbock, Texas, to sell a bit of information and hope to Purple Raiders followers: “Texas Tech soccer can nonetheless make the Large 12 championship recreation. Listed here are the situations.” This may be cool, as Texas Tech has by no means reached the sport.

The race within the SEC, the game’s finest league, additionally has heaps happening. Georgia has wrapped up one spot within the championship recreation, and both Texas or Texas A&M (whoever wins their rekindled rivalry on Saturday night time at A&M) will join them. The championship recreation matchup is straightforward sufficient, then, however SEC followers have been racked with questions over the previous few days about what occurs after that. Final yr, Georgia was the No. 1 staff in America via the common season however misplaced its playoff spot when it misplaced its first recreation of the yr within the SEC Championship in opposition to Alabama. No one has any actual concept how the playoff choice committee will penalize convention championship losers in a 12-team bracket, and thus issues have gotten uncomfortable for lots of followers with vested pursuits within the SEC race. At the least 4 groups from the league ought to make the sphere, however no person—not even Georgia with its ticket already punched to the convention title recreation—is aware of with absolute certainty that it’ll make it.

There are extra massive questions down poll within the SEC. Tennessee will make the playoff if it beats Vanderbilt in Nashville this weekend, but when not, it’ll be a part of a jumble of three-loss SEC groups that the committee has to select via. South Carolina has charged exhausting late within the season and risen to No. 15 with an 8–3 document, and it may bounce into the sphere if it wins at No. 12 Clemson on Saturday. However then what to do about No. 14 Ole Miss, which appears to be like prone to have the identical document because the Gamecocks and in addition beat them 27–3 earlier within the season? Ole Miss is probably going out of the playoff race as a result of it performs depressing Mississippi State this week, and beating a staff that goes winless in SEC play mustn’t assist the Rebels leapfrog anybody. However may Ole Miss’ presence trigger the committee to maintain out South Carolina? The state of affairs is awkward sufficient that it’s exhausting to foretell. Compounding it, Alabama sits at No. 13, forward of each the Rebels and Gamecocks, with its personal three losses and a date this weekend with a sub-.500 Auburn staff. Alabama additionally has a win over South Carolina.

In the meantime, the 12-team playoff reserves a spot for not less than one (and, most have figured, precisely one) staff from the nonpower conferences, also called the Group of 5. (That’s everybody exterior of the Large Ten, SEC, ACC, and Large 12.) The Mountain West’s Boise State has the within monitor at 10–1 and has up to now ranked forward of the complete Large 12, organising the Broncos to get a bye week within the first spherical of the playoff whereas whoever wins the Large 12 must slug it out with some SEC or Large Ten staff. The Large 12’s commissioner, Brett Yormark, is already pounding the table about why that wouldn’t be proper, nevertheless it received’t be as much as him. In the meantime, there’s a nonzero probability that the Large 12 produces a champion with three losses. In that occasion, it’s extremely unlikely however not completely unattainable that the Large 12 misses out on the playoff altogether. It might require Boise State to remain on monitor behind the nation’s finest working again, Ashton Jeanty, and the choice committee to seek out itself falling for an AAC champion Military staff with one loss at simply the proper second.

Or Tulane and Boise State may each miss out, and the Group of 5 playoff spot may both go to Military—which is 9–1 however simply misplaced by a billion factors to Notre Dame, a possible playoff staff. Or, if Military have been to lose this weekend after which beat Tulane within the American Athletic title recreation, maybe the nonpower playoff spot may go to the Mountain West’s UNLV (which must beat Boise State) or, to get even crazier, the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns of the Solar Belt. These are distant prospects however actual ones, a testomony to only what number of issues stay on the desk because the season winds to a end.

Because it stands, I assess that 28 groups have a greater than 0 p.c probability to make the playoff. Maybe I ought to say 28.5, in case the committee reconsiders Ole Miss within the massive pile of three-loss SEC groups. Final yr at this similar time, the variety of remaining contenders was eight. Tripling the scale of the bracket has greater than tripled the variety of quasi-contenders. Most haven’t any probability past a rounding error at really profitable the event. The eventual winner can be Oregon, Texas, Ohio State, or Georgia. However probably the most enjoyable you may have with school soccer just isn’t asking the query, “Who’s the most effective staff?” It’s asking one thing extra basic, which followers of extra groups can get behind: “So, you’re telling me there’s a probability?”