College Football Playoff: Building the perfect chaos scenario

The 2-loss theme continues with one of the teams that made the first College Football Playoff rankings of the year, Clemson. The Tigers are the defending national champions and they should control their own destiny if they win out, but what if they don’t.

Clemson fell to Pittsburgh last season. This year they’ve already lost to Syracuse. For whatever reason the Tigers are prone to having a stinker at an inconvenient time. They hold the tiebreaker over NC State after beating the Wolfpack on the road 38-31 in Week 10.

If this is going to work the Tigers will need to pick up one more loss but still win the ACC Atlantic. That would require NC State to lose one more game as well. They travel to Boston College and Wake Forest in Week 11 and Week 12 respectively. It wouldn’t be shocking for them to be upset in either of those two contests.

That leaves a Clemson loss to either Florida State or South Carolina. The Noles are on the warpath for a bowl game and South Carolina played Georgia close. If NC State drops a game and Clemson loses one more as well the Tigers square off with Miami in the ACC Championship Game. Miami, after losing to Notre Dame in Week 11, will fall to Clemson too. That gives the 2-loss Tigers the conference championship and leaves the 2-loss Hurricanes out of the running.