The playoff permutations entering championship week

Locked up spots
Oklahoma all but clinched a spot in the semifinals with their resounding win in Stillwater for the Big-12 title. They're a hot team right now and I see absolutely no way for it to shake out such that they are left out of the bracket.

The Big Ten Championship game is a defacto play-in game (likely for the 4 seed) between Michigan State and Iowa. If Notre Dame had won last night then I would say that Ohio State was functionally dead for the playoffs, but there is a chance.


Win and they're in
Alabama v. Florida in the SECCG. Could have been a likely play-in game with a Florida win over FSU but that didn't happen so all that could come from this SECCG is Alabama winning or losing their spot in the playoff.

Clemson v. UNC in the ACCCG. Some will argue that this should be a play-in game for the ACC but I think UNC's lacking strength of schedule and a loss to the worst SEC team makes it more likely that this is all about Clemson winning or losing their spot in the playoff too.

Needs one of the two immediately above to lose
Ohio State. With Notre Dame's loss in the waning seconds of their game against Stanford, Ohio State is still alive in this process but they need help.

Needs help and a judgement call
Stanford. Lets see how much playing a tough schedule and winning a conference means to the committee because you can make a convincing (in my opinion correct) argument that Stanford should be the team that gets in if Clemson or Alabama slip up this week. This is assuming that they win their conference against Southern Cal in San Fransisco. They have two losses but they went across the country to play an eventual 10-2 Northwestern at 11am Central to start the season. They also caught Oregon after they had healed up offensively and gotten as hot as any team in the nation. It's a tough call but if Alabama and Clemson don't hold serve then I feel that Stanford should get in if they win the Pac-12.

Edit: Chaos
The biggest chaos would be if Alabama AND Clemson lose this weekend. A lot of things could happen. UNC could reasonably just bubble up into the field with Ohio State or Stanford. It could be Ohio State and Stanford. I think the same players are still in the scenario except UNC could sneak into the field.

I see no way for UNC to get in without the chaos scenario because of how the committee seems to work. You're right that it may be Stanford then Ohio State in the "next man up" line. The reason why I think Ohio State is in good shape is because the committee kept them in the bracket all season despite not playing a good complete football game against Michigan yesterday. They like Ohio State a lot but a Clemson or Bama loss with a Stanford win will really put some of the guidelines to the test.

I disagree, if everything "goes chalk" this week then I see the Big Ten champion as the 4 seed and Oklahoma as the 3 seed. That means that yet again we'll catch the hottest team of the group in the semis...gotta play 'em sometime though.