LSU Football: 3 paths to the College Football Playoff for the Tigers

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BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA – NOVEMBER 27: Isaiah Spiller #28 of the Texas A&M Aggies runs with the ball as Jaquelin Roy #99 of the LSU Tigers defends during the second half at Tiger Stadium on November 27, 2021 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images) /

2. LSU loses to Texas A&M, beats Georgia

Here’s where things get fun. A three-loss team in the playoffs? Unlikely, but possible. For this to happen, two of the three following things would also need to happen:

No. 4 TCU loses out
No. 6 USC loses conference championship
No. 8 Clemson loses conference championship

Of course, there are other things that could help the Tigers’ cause. From USC and Clemson simply losing out to take the top competitors out of the picture, to No. 17 North Carolina and No. 9 Oregon losing this weekend to ensure three-loss Pac-12 and ACC champions.

Ultimately though, there’s a chance that the committee will take a three-loss SEC champion LSU over a two-loss conference champion elsewhere. Part of this is that those teams, likely Oregon and North Carolina, are barely scratching the top 10, if that. The other part is that LSU will have the best win in the country in Georgia. This also should put them ahead of the Ducks, who got blown out by Georgia earlier this year.

At this point, OSU/Michigan are unbeaten, and No. 1, whichever of the three above scenarios that doesn’t play out is No. 2, Georgia is No. 3, and No. 4 is up for grabs. The top competitors would be one-loss OSU/Michigan and a three-loss, SEC champion LSU. Given how much the committee seems to dislike Michigan’s strength of schedule and values the SEC, the Tigers could get the nod here.

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