25 storylines for college football's home stretch

Alabama is a College Football Playoff staple and looks to be a lock to be there again this season. Not only has the defense been typically outstanding, but the offense hasn't missed a beat under new offensive coordinator Brian Daboll. Bama still must travel to Auburn and will likely have the SEC title game, but right now the Crimson Tide is far and away the class of the country.

Late last season, the Tigers lost at home to Pittsburgh yet managed to win the ACC championship, get into the College Football Playoff and win the whole thing. After losing to Syracuse already this year, can Clemson do it again? Deshaun Watson isn't walking through that door, but the Tigers have a stout defense and a capable offense. They also have landmines in Georgia Tech, NC State and Florida State on the schedule with a very worthy opponent (Miami, Georgia Tech or Virginia Tech) waiting on them in Charlotte for the ACC title game. There is a lot of competition for those coveted four playoff spots, meaning Clemson has no room for error.

Last year, Lamar Jackson started the season strong and held off all competition for the Heisman. This year, there are more players in the mix, but three seem to be at the top. Penn State's Saquon Barkley, Stanford's Bryce Love and Oklahoma's Baker Mayfield are the front-runners, though there are guys like Josh Adams, Mason Rudolph and, yes, Lamar Jackson who are right in the thick of it. With many big games remaining, which player will rise to the occasion and take the 2017 Heisman?

It is like Bracketology for college football. The College Football Playoff rankings will debut on Halloween, meaning we will get a peek at the selection committee's thinking on the top teams. While things can change in an instant (like those Bracketology brackets), it will allow us to see how powerful the committee members think certain teams and conferences are in comparison to each other.

Notre Dame is right in the mix for a College Football Playoff spot, and that could cause chaos for the Power 5 leagues. The Irish sit at 6-1 with their lone loss coming to Georgia by a single point. Their shellacking of USC last Saturday put people on notice that the Irish are really good. They have one of the best rushing offenses in the land and ample opportunities to impress the selection committee. They get NC State this week and end the season at Miami, hosting Navy and at Stanford. Finish the season 11-1, and it would be hard to deny Notre Dame a playoff spot.

Who knew when the season began that Florida State's 35-year bowl game streak would be in jeopardy? Since Deondre Francois went down with a season-ending knee injury in the first game, the Seminoles have spiraled out of control. FSU is 2-4 and has lost all three home games. With games against Clemson and Florida remaining plus a game against Louisiana-Monroe cancelled, it will be tough for the Seminoles to become bowl-eligible. One of the more amazing streaks in sports could come to an end.

College football is always filled with great games, and even though we are nearing we haven't run out of them. How about Penn State-Ohio State? Notre Dame-Miami? Oklahoma-Oklahoma State? TCU-Oklahoma? Washington-Washington State? Clemson-NC State? Alabama-Auburn? Ohio State-Michigan? Plus all those regional and conference rivalries on tap? Yes, please!

Georgia has spent over a decade tantalizing us with all this talent and promise only to lose head-scratchers and finish in that second tier of the SEC. The Bulldogs are a top five team with a win at Notre Dame on their résumé. They have rival Florida (who has beaten UGA three straight) and a trip to Auburn left, plus their non-conference rivalry at Georgia Tech. In past years, we would expect a letdown from the Bulldogs, especially when you figure a freshman is starting at quarterback. This team feels different.

Eight teams remain undefeated: Alabama, Penn State, Georgia, TCU, Wisconsin, Miami, South Florida and UCF. Since South Florida and UCF meet in November while Alabama-Georgia and Penn State-Wisconsin would meet in conference championship games if they remain undefeated, the max number to end up without a blemish before the bowls would be five. Can any of them make it that far? We haven't had an undefeated team since Florida State in 2013.

Right now, Baylor, UTEP and Georgia Southern are the only teams in FBS that have yet to win a game. Baylor, obviously, is the biggest name on this list and has a huge scandal that contributing to it. It isn't like the Bears have been bad: They lost to Oklahoma by eight and West Virginia by two. They can still put up points and are better than the team that lost to Liberty and UTSA to start the season. Baylor does have a tough slate down the stretch (Texas, Texas Tech, Iowa State, TCU) but one game to point to: Nov. 4 against Kansas.

It's a numbers thing. With five power conferences and just four playoff spots, someone will have to miss out. The Pac-12 missed out on the 2015-2016 playoff and may do so again. It seems as if the Washington-Washington State winner in the final week of the regular season has the only chance to nab a playoff spot, and Washington State would still be a long shot. The Pac-12 has been down this season, and it would be hard to justify putting the conference champ in over a team from the ACC, Big Ten or Big 12 — barring collapses from teams in those leagues. 

Obviously there are some coaches who are sitting on hot seats. Tennessee's Butch Jones, Arkansas' Bret Bielema, Nebraska's Mike Riley, UCLA's Jim Mora and BYU's Kalani Sitake are getting a lot of heat, and a couple of those jobs, among others, will be open. Those are big-time programs that could be looking for head coaches later this fall.

The Big 12 is reintroducing its championship game, though it will look different than what you are used to. The top two teams will face off in North Texas for the championship, which is unlike all the other title games that involve division winners. With the Big 12 still playing a true round robin schedule, anything could happen and anyone could end up in that game. Knowing that the two best teams will face off in that game makes it all the more exciting. 

The Wolfpack has a great front seven and is currently undefeated in ACC play. After a non-conference game at Notre Dame, NC State will host Clemson in what could be a defining moment for the program. A win over the Tigers would give the Wolfpack a two-game lead in the ACC's Atlantic Division with wins already over Clemson, Louisville, Florida State and Syracuse. With games remaining over the two league bottom feeders (Wake Forest, North Carolina), the Pack has a good shot at getting to the ACC Championship Game in Charlotte. Who knows, if NC State wins that (and the Notre Dame game), it could find a way to sneak into the College Football Playoff.

There will be lots of great football to be played among the Power 5 leagues, but don't sleep on South Florida vs. Central Florida the day after Thanksgiving. Both teams are undefeated, should stay undefeated and are headed for a showdown to close the regular season. While it is highly unlikely either would qualify for the playoff, the winner could end up in a New Year's Six bowl game, and guys like UCF's Tre'Quan Smith or USF's Quinton Flowers will get national attention.

The last eight winners of the SEC Championship Game have come out of the West division. The last time an East Division team won it was back in 2008 when Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators did it. It isn't just that the West is winning games — it is that it's absolutely dominated those games. The West has won the last eight title games by an average score of 43-19. Georgia looks to be the team that will get the next shot at it and is coached by Kirby Smart, a former Alabama assistant.

If you think the SEC East has had it tough, how about the Pac-12 South? That division has yet to win the conference's championship game. Six games and zero wins, and only one of them has even been close. Both divisions are a bit in the air, but the North remains the stronger division. USC looks to be the best of the South's bunch, but the Trojans may not be able to break through.

Jim Harbaugh is a darn good coach, but Michigan coaches get judged by their ability to beat Ohio State and play for Big Ten and national championships. Harbaugh isn't accomplishing any of that. He is 0-2 against Ohio State and 1-2 against Michigan State, and his teams have yet to play for a Big Ten title. Last week's 42-13 beatdown by Penn State piles more criticism on Harbaugh's tenure in Ann Arbor. Can he win the big games? Does he have his foot out the door to head back to the NFL? The Wolverines close the season against Wisconsin and Ohio State, which could go a long way to defining the relationship between Harbaugh and the Michigan program.

What a strange bowl season we may have. Despite 40 bowl games, we could have some of the biggest programs in the sport not playing in them this year. Florida State, BYU, Tennessee, Baylor and Oregon may miss out while possibly Florida, Nebraska, Texas, UCLA and Kansas State could join them. Quite amazing.

The Army-Navy game is one of the most special events in sports. Navy had dominated of late, winning every year from 2002 to 2015, before Army finally broke through last December. This year, both Army and Navy are having outstanding seasons and rank Nos. 1 and 2 in total rushing yards this season. The game is back in Philadelphia and should be another great spectacle when they go at it again.

When the ACC expanded in 2004, Miami was expected to be a perennial contender for the conference crown. The league dreamed of Miami-Florida State championship games so much that it put the first four games in either Jacksonville or Tampa. The thing is, Miami has never made it to that game. Well, this season, the U is looking more like the team the ACC was craving. The Hurricanes are undefeated and toppled Florida State already. They have huge games against Virginia Tech and Notre Dame at home remaining. Take care of business and the Hurricanes will finally be right where we expected them to be.

UAB ended its football program after the 2014 season but quickly resurrected it for this year. Despite just rebuilding the program, the Blazers may actually get to a bowl game. UAB sits at 4-3 with games against Rice and UTEP (a combined 1-13 this year) remaining. That gets the Blazers to six wins, making them bowl-eligible. If they beat UTSA to get to seven wins, it would mark an amazing feat for a program that was actually dead. 

Last season, Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey famously skipped out on their teams' bowl games so they didn't risk injuring themselves prior to the NFL Draft. Both were drafted in the top eight picks so it showed that the league did not mind not having that extra game to break down. With that in mind, could other high-profile prospects also decide to forgo bowl games in order to keep their health? The cautionary tale continues to be Notre Dame's Jaylon Smith, a probable top 10 pick who tore up his knee in the Fiesta Bowl and fell into the second round of the draft, costing him millions of dollars.

For the most part, Kiffin's first season at FAU has been uneventful. That is until recently, anyway, when he took to Twitter to essentially recruit Heisman winner Lamar Jackson to the school. But every Kiffin season anywhere usually has some drama attached to it as the season winds down. Whether it is bailing on Tennessee after just one year in Knoxville, being on the hot seat after taking a preseason No. 1 USC to unranked in four months, getting fired at the airport the following year, working for Alabama for a week in 2013 or last year where he was fired as Alabama's offensive coordinator a week before the national championship game, controversy seems to follow Kiffin. Will he be content at FAU when there will be some good jobs opening up?

The FBI scandal that has rocked college basketball hasn't made its way to college football ... yet. While there has been no noise to that effect, some feel that it is only a matter of time before college football will either show up somewhere in the ongoing investigation or that the FBI will end up moving on to the sport to try to dig up something there. After all, Louisville removing its athletic director also affects college football. All is calm for now, but there are a lot of people on edge that the storm could be coming.