College Football: Playoff picture clears and other Week 10 takeaways

The 2017 season officially begins for Washington and Miami this week.

You thought the last two weeks were fun, didn’t you? Well, things will get even crazier this coming week. There are six games where both teams are ranked and that carry both conference and playoff implications. By the end of the night, we may have one or even two potential playoff teams be completely out of it and things will continue to crystallize.

Two teams that need a win to place themselves into the playoff discussion are Washington and Miami. The one-loss Huskies will play at Stanford on Friday night at Stanford, a Stanford team that they slapped around a year ago. The chances we see that happening again are very slim and in some circles, you could probably consider Stanford the favorite, despite coming off the loss to Washington State.

The thing about the Huskies is that they’ve yet to look at least somewhat impressive at any point this season. Now, the Huskies have the opportunity to make their presence known with a win on The Farm and with teams in front of them more than likely knocking each other out, a win on Friday has the Huskies looking good as we trek to the heart of November.

Just 24 hours later Notre Dame, ranked No. 3 will go on the road to face Miami who are ranked 7th in America. This will be Miami’s biggest game since their 2002 Fiesta Bowl game against Ohio State, that is not hyperbole, for all the things that the program has gone through and now with a title contender in Notre Dame coming into their house, it is perfect for the buildup that it’s going to get.

Next: Projecting the Week 11 College Football Playoff ranks

A Miami win sets up a possible College Football Playoff “Quarterfinal” with Clemson in the ACC title game but a loss ends hopes of being in the playoff and at best, the Hurricanes can knock Clemson out of the playoff in the ACC title game. If that happens, that could possibly open up a spot for guess who, the Washington Huskies.