Indiana should be able to breathe easy this week. It has very little chance of making it into the Big Ten championship game.
On the other hand, Georgia’s spot in the Southeastern Conference title game is so risky that if the Bulldogs lose they might have been better off sitting it out.
Over the next two weeks, the warm familiarity of conference championship games, which began in 1992 thanks to the SEC, could run into the cold reality that comes with the first 12-team College Football Playoff. League title games give the nation’s top contenders a chance to hang a banner and impress the CFP committee, but more than ever, the bragging rights come with the risk of a season-wrecking loss — even with an expanded field.
“I just don’t think it’s a quality conversation,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said last week, sticking with the time-honored cliche of looking no further than the next weekend’s opponent.
Those who want to have that talk, though, already know where Georgia stands. The Bulldogs (9-2) are ranked sixth in this week’s AP Top 25 and projected somewhere near that in the next set of CFP rankings that come out Tuesday. They already have two losses and will have to beat No. 3 Texas or No. 20 Texas A&M in the SEC title game on Dec. 7 to avoid a third.