I don’t weigh every chaos scenario equally

Six days before the first full Saturday of the season, certainty is cheap. We’ve had an entire offseason to arrange teams into clean tiers, identify the supposed safe bets and decide which programs are protected from ordinary failure.

I don’t buy the protected part. But after comparing these chaos scenarios against last season’s records, I wouldn’t weigh them equally. Alabama going 8-4 and Oregon going 8-4 would produce the same record, not the same shock.

Alabama is the best example. The historical line I used was four regular-season losses, something the Crimson Tide haven’t experienced since 2007. But Alabama finished 11-4 last season, including 7-1 in conference play. Four total losses aren’t some artifact from another age in Tuscaloosa. They happened last year.

The preseason polls recognize that distinction. Ohio State is No. 1 in both major polls, Oregon is No. 2 in both and Georgia is No. 3 in both. Alabama is No. 13 in the media poll and No. 11 in the coaches poll. Alabama isn’t in the same group as the other three. Three begin the season at the front of the national championship race; the fourth begins outside the top 10.

Oregon has the longest fall to reach the scenario I described. The Ducks went 13-2 last season and 8-1 in Big Ten play. An 8-4 regular season would give them twice as many losses before postseason play as they accumulated during the entirety of 2025. Their schedule includes a trip to Ohio State and a home game against Michigan, but getting to four losses requires damage beyond those two matchups.

Georgia and Ohio State each went 12-2 last year. My preseason bracket has them meeting for the national championship, with Georgia winning 31-28. I’m not going to smuggle an 8-4 scenario into the conversation as a hidden prediction when my actual pick has those teams playing for the title. A bad bounce, a protection problem that doesn’t get solved or repeated failures in one-possession games can stack losses faster than those programs have experienced in years.

Ohio State went 9-0 in conference play last season, while Oregon went 8-1. That’s a combined 17-1 league record from the two highest-ranked teams in the country. For the Big Ten race to become the three-loss pileup people expect in the SEC, the damage can’t remain contained to the games among the top teams. Somebody from the next tier has to break through.

Texas is a different kind of scenario because it can turn quickly. One detail matters: Ohio State travels to Austin on Saturday, Sept. 12, for a 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff. Texas wouldn’t be losing on the road to the No. 1 team. It would be losing at home, then facing the possibility of another defeat at Tennessee before Oklahoma arrives on Oct. 10.

Week-one upset candidates belong in their own category. Oregon is a 24.5-point home favorite against Boise State on Saturday. A Boise State win would be an immediate national jolt, but it wouldn’t by itself make Oregon an 8-4 team.

I still reject the Too Big to Fail Club. I’m only insisting we measure the distance honestly. Alabama finished 2025 with four losses. Oregon finished it with two.

— JP