Welcome to Before The Snap, For The Win’s college football series where we’ll break down the sport’s trending storylines, examine each week’s biggest matchups and track the College Football Playoff and Heisman Trophy races.
It’s still September, so it’s still way too early to have a clear idea of which teams have the best shot at making the College Football Playoff come selection day in December. There’s a whole lot of football still to be played.
But going into Week 4, USC has a 20.0 percent chance to make the playoff, while Oklahoma has an 18.1 percent chance, according to ESPN’s Playoff Predictor formula. The Trojans and Sooners are comfortably out of the top four for now — those spots are occupied by Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson, respectively — but those numbers are still some of the best in the country.
So hypothetically, if we assume Alabama and Georgia are in, along with Clemson or a Big Ten team, USC or Oklahoma could steal the final playoff spot. But looking ahead at both their schedules, it seems like the Sooners have a tougher challenge of winning out than the Trojans.
On this week’s Before The Snap, we break down which team we think has a better shot at the playoff, along with the most fun surprises of the season so far.
