Duke, West Virginia, Colorado and Kentucky are all undefeated along with Notre Dame.
Who gets left out?
One thing that would be relevant is that it is generally difficult to leapfrog teams without them losing so the current rankings give us a clue:
- #8 Notre Dame
- #12 West Virginia
- #17 Kentucky
- #22 Dook
- nr (but first among "others receiving votes so effectively 26th) Colorado
That suggests that it would be Colorado.
If it were up to me I would base my decision on SoS. I believe that this would also weigh heavily with the committee. It would REALLY hurt ND to sit on their hands on December 1 while the other four would likely all be playing (and beating) highly ranked opponents.
SoS notes for the five:
Notre Dame:
The Irish already have a win over (then) #14 Michigan and they would also have to beat #7 Stanford, VaTech, FSU, Cuse, and USC. SoS at this point is still up in the air for everybody but that is especially true of Notre Dame because unlike the others they wouldn't get a final chance to impress the voters on CG weekend. If Michigan, Stanford, VaTech, FSU, Cuse, and USC all completely tank then I could forsee the Irish being left out but obviously that is pretty unlikely.
West Virginia:
The Mountaineers already beat Tennessee but frankly that doesn't look very impressive right now. They would, however, probably have the best last two games of the group because their regular season finishes with #6 Oklahoma and then they would have to turn around a week later and play either the Sooners or another high-end B12 team that they already defeated again in the B12CG. They also have remaining games against #25 TxTech, #18 Texas, and TCU.
Kentucky:
As SEC schedules go, the Wildcats' is relatively easy because they avoid all of the SEC-W heavyweights. They already beat (then) #14 MSST and also play aTm. They also already beat (then) #25 Florida. The big problem for the Wildcats is that it is entirely possible that neither the Gators nor the Bulldogs will finish ranked. The Wildcats have the toughest (by ranking) remaining game of the group against #2 Georgia but that is their only remaining scheduled game against a ranked opponent. Their OOC of CMU, MTSU, Louisville, and and FCS team will not do them any favors. OTOH, to finish undefeated they would also have to beat the SEC-W Champion in Atlanta in the SECCG. The SEC-W currently has the #1, #5, #10, and #23 ranked teams so it is extremely likely that Kentucky's theoretical SECCG opponent would be the highest ranked victim of this group of five in the CG's. Depending on how things go that could still leave Kentucky with a serious deficit of quantity of ranked opponents despite the high quality of their ranked opponents.
DOOK:
The Blue Devils are in the ACC's Coastal Division (I had to look it up) opposite #3 Clemson. The only other ranked team in the Coastal is #16 Miami which started the year off with a loss to LSU. They haven't played a ranked team yet and their only scheduled ranked opponents are the aforementioned Miami and Clemson. However, to go undefeated they would likely need to beat Clemson twice in three weeks (at Clemson on 11/17 then in the ACCCG on 12/1).
Colorado:
The Buffaloes are unranked despite being undefeated because their victims so far are a winless Nebraska team, a Colorado State team that is 1-4, and an FCS team. Next up is winless UCLA! Colorado's only two scheduled ranked opponents are #11 Washington and #24 California.
I think Colorado would be the odd team out in this scenario but that is based on a whole bunch of assumptions about how teams will fare down the stretch.
