Colorado football has enjoyed a resurgence in its second season under coach Deion Sanders.
A program that hadn’t been nationally relevant for much of the 21st century became one of college football’s most closely watched teams in 2023, when the Buffaloes got off to a 3-0 start before flaming out the rest of the way, dropping eight of their final nine games.
This season, that breathless media attention has come with on-field results.
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Led by Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders, Colorado is 8-3 heading into its regular-season finale Friday against Oklahoma State at Folsom Field in Boulder. Though they fell out of the US LBM Coaches Poll following a 37-21 loss last Saturday at Kansas, the Buffs are in a four-way tie atop the Big 12 standings, theoretically giving them a path to the conference championship game and, from there, a spot in the College Football Playoff.
While Colorado’s season has unquestionably been a success, it enters the final week of the regular season with some uncertainty of what might await it after its matchup with Mike Gundy’s Cowboys.
Here’s what you need to know about the Buffs’ road to the Big 12 championship game and why a win there might not guarantee them a berth in the 12-team playoff:
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Can Colorado make the Big 12 championship game?
The Buffs do still have a chance at making the Big 12 championship game, though they’ll need some help to get there.
Colorado is tied with No. 15 Arizona State, No. 17 Iowa State and No. 20 BYU atop the conference standings, with each team holding a 6-2 record in league play. The Buffs haven’t played any of those three teams this season, making a head-to-head tiebreaker moot.
As things stand, Sanders’ team has a few paths to make it to Arlington, Texas, all of which require a win against Oklahoma State:
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At least two of the other three first-place teams need to lose, giving the Buffs either a standalone spot in first place or a tie for first place with a 7-2 record.
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BYU loses to Houston, Texas Tech beats West Virginia, Baylor beats Kansas and Cincinnati beats TCU, which would put Colorado into a three-way tie with Iowa State and Arizona State, but would send the Buffs to the Big 12 championship game against the Cyclones as a result of conference tiebreakers.
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BYU loses to Houston, Texas Tech beats West Virginia and either Baylor or Cincinnati lose, which pushes the Buffs to a title-game matchup with Arizona State.
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Could Colorado win the Big 12 and miss the College Football Playoff?
Believe it or not, it’s a possibility.
The 12-team College Football Playoff reserves spots for the five highest-ranked conference champions, with the top four earning first-round byes into the quarterfinals. When the expanded playoff was first conceived, it was widely assumed that the champion from a Power Four conference would effectively be guaranteed a spot in the field, especially considering there are only nine viable FBS conferences following the Pac-12’s disintegration to just two teams.
As this season has shown, that’s not a safe bet.
Every team in the Big 12 has at least two losses. Its highest-rated team in the most recent playoff selection committee rankings, Arizona State, is No. 16, five spots behind Boise State and only one spot ahead of No. 17 Tulane in the most recent CFP top 25. Meanwhile, Big Ten-leading Oregon is No. 1, SEC-leading Texas is No. 3 and Miami, the top-ranked ACC team, is No. 6, putting each of those Power Five leagues in a secure position to be represented in the playoff.
If Boise State goes undefeated the rest of the way and wins the Mountain West Conference then it would finish with fewer losses than Colorado. In that scenario, the Buffs would be 10-3 while the Broncos would be 12-1, making it possible for the Broncos to receive the fourth and final first-round bye.
As things stand now, Colorado, at No. 25 in the playoff rankings, is 14 spots behind Boise State.
However, the Buffaloes received a gift from Memphis on Thursday after the Tigers upset Tulane, dropping them to 9-3 on the season. Assuming Colorado beats Oklahoma State on Friday and gets the help it needs to make the Big 12 championship game, it would still be in play to earn the final automatic qualifier spot in the 12-team bracket ahead of the AAC champion.
That scenario is contingent on several factors, including how Tulane and Colorado fare in their hypothetical conference title games. It likely would also require the CFP selection committee to drop the Green Wave below Colorado in the penultimate set of rankings.
The Buffs still have a road to the playoff, but they — or whoever ends up winning the Big 12 — have some hurdles along the way.
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Big 12 championship tiebreakers
Like the SEC and Big Ten, the newly expanded Big 12 doesn’t have divisions, meaning that the top two teams in the reconfigured 16-team league make the conference championship game.
Since Colorado will need some help to make it to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, here’s a look at the conference’s various steps, in order, for breaking ties in the league standings:
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The tied teams will be compared based on their head-to-head record during the season.
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The tied teams will be compared based on win percentage against all common conference opponents.
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The tied teams will be compared based on win percentage against the next highest-placed common opponent in the standings (based on the record in all games played within the Conference) proceeding through the standings.
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The tied teams will be compared based on combined win percentage in conference games of conference opponents.
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The tied teams will be compared based on total number of wins in a 12-game season.
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The representative will be chosen based on highest ranking by SportSource Analytics (team rating score metric) following the last weekend of regular-season games.
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The representative will be chosen by a coin toss.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Could Group of Five keep Colorado out of College Football Playoff?
