Rob's Rankings: Undefeated teams most likely to stay that way

CLASS OF 2019 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | State | Position | Team

CLASS OF 2020 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | State | Position

Eight undefeated teams remain in FBS college football. Some were aided by easy schedules. Others by cancelled games. Some have looked like juggernauts and others have slipped by lesser opponents. Whatever the case, most of them will suffer losses before the regular season comes to a close.

It’s why this week in Rob’s Rankings we rank the eight unblemished teams by their chances of finishing the regular season without a loss. Again, the below rankings deal with the likelihood of perfect regular season. It does not take conference title games or bowls into account.

MORE: Farrell's Three-Point Stance | Ranking the conferences

Remaining schedule: at Navy, at Northwestern, Florida State, Syracuse, at USC

The fact that we’ve reached year five of the College Football Playoff without Notre Dame killing a major conference champion’s playoff dreams is a minor upset, but we may be in for such an occurrence in 2018. The only undefeated team without a Top 25 opponent on its remaining schedule, Notre Dame has the country’s easiest remaining road to 12-0.

A road game at USC in the season’s final week is the tallest task left on the slate, but the Trojans have been inconsistent this season. A 12-0 Notre Dame team would create a ripple effect that ends with an unlucky fan base or two throwing a spectacular we-got-screwed fit when playoff selections are announced.

What’s more fun than that? Nothing. The answer is nothing.

Remaining schedule: at Tennessee, at LSU, Mississippi State, Citadel, Auburn

Alabama is a much better team than Notre Dame. Nobody is disputing that. The Crimson Tide’s No. 2 ranking is simply the product of the schedule. Bama’s road meeting with LSU will likely be a night game, and such contests in Baton Rouge have a way of getting weird. And while Auburn currently looks like a calamity dressed in shoulder pads, that doesn’t always matter in the Iron Bowl, which, like night games at LSU, tends to take on a life of its own.

Nick Saban’s team would likely make the playoff with one loss, so there’s some semblance of room for error here. Will the Tide need that room? Probably not.

Remaining schedule: at East Carolina, Temple, Navy, Cincinnati, at USF

Only one AAC team can post a perfect regular season, and you have to give the benefit of the doubt to the team that did it a year ago. UCF has already gotten by Memphis but will have to navigate through a three-game stretch that includes meetings with Navy as well as fellow undefeateds Cincinnati and USF.

The Knights and dynamic quarterback McKenzie Milton could realistically go two full seasons without losing a single game and still never sniff the playoff, which seems totally fair and certainly isn’t the product of a flawed system. Everything is fine. Nothing needs to be changed.

MORE UCF: UCFSports.com

Remaining schedule: NC State, at Florida State, Louisville, at Boston College, Duke, South Carolina

The upcoming weekend will mean everything to Clemson’s shot at a perfect regular season. If the Tigers get by NC State, a fellow member of the unbeaten club, it may be relatively smooth sailing from there. Games at Florida State and Boston College aren’t total gimmes, obviously. Neither is a regular-season finale against in-state rival South Carolina, but the Tigers will be heavy favorites in all of those contests.

A case could be made to rank Clemson’s chances of running the table ahead of UCF’s or Alabama’s. But the fact that Dabo Swinney and company have six remaining games against FBS opponents while the Knights and Crimson Tide have five and four respectively counts for something. It would be easy to dock Clemson for starting a true freshman at quarterback and not having much depth behind him, but Trevor Lawrence doesn’t seem like an ordinary freshman.

Remaining schedule: Purdue, at Nebraska, Michigan State, Maryland, at Michigan

It’s easy to stare down the Buckeyes’ regular-season finale with Michigan and become blind to the games that precede it. So while Purdue nor Maryland has a great shot of knocking off Ohio State in Columbus and Nebraska isn’t beating the Buckeyes on this or any other planet, unpredictable Michigan State might be suddenly good again and the game with the Wolverines could easily be a loss.

That’s all to say pitfalls for the Buckeyes remain. In fact, I’ve likely just increased them by ruling out upset wins by the Boilermakers and Terrapins.

Writers note: I’m aware that I’ve also ruled out an upset by Nebraska, but no level of jinx is going to will that into existence.

Remaining schedule: at Temple, at SMU, Navy, USF, at UCF, East Carolina

The Bearcats have three remaining road games, including one at UCF. Navy and USF also pose threats when it comes to knocking off Cincinnati, a program that hasn’t won double-digit games since 2012. That said, Cincy did pull off a perfect regular season in 2009 as a member of the Big East, so it’s not totally impossible to imagine. That said, this is not the year, as the Bearcats still feel like the third-best team in the AAC.

MORE CINCINNATI: BearcatReport.com

Remaining schedule: at Clemson, at Syracuse, Florida State, Wake Forest, at Louisville, at North Carolina, East Carolina

Having an early-season meeting with West Virginia cancelled due to weather certainly helped the cause, but let’s get this out there right away: NC State is probably going to lose to Clemson on Saturday. The Tigers are currently a 16.5-point favorite, and they didn’t build luxury casinos in the desert by being bad at setting lines.

Upsets happen, of course, but the Wolfpack haven’t seen a team nearly as complete as the one they’ll run up against this weekend. If NC State wiggles by the Tigers, however, things could get interesting, as the rest of the schedule is filled with extremely winnable games. The problem here, of course, is in the wiggling.

Remaining schedule: Connecticut, at Houston, Tulane, at Cincinnati, at Temple, UCF

Having to play at Cincinnati and at Houston is less than ideal. And if that isn’t enough to toss water on the thought of a perfect season, then having to close the season against a rival that hasn’t lost a regular-season game since La La Land hit theaters should be.

USF hasn’t looked all that convincing in some of its wins to this point. Charlie Strong and company are coming off a narrow escape of Tulsa and is just a few weeks removed from allowing 42 points to UMass. A 12-0 Bulls team is nearly impossible to imagine.

MORE USF: RunningTheBulls.com

For no reason whatsoever, this week’s overtime section deals in horses – fictional ones at that. Below, we examine and rank the five coolest (fictional) equines to grace popular culture.

1.Mr. Ed – The Mr. Ed Show

Mr. Ed could talk. So, you know, big points for that. Also, my man once hit an inside-the-park home run at Dodger Stadium. Have you ever hit an inside-the-park home run at Dodger Stadium? Didn’t think so.

2. Epona – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

A nostalgia pick for me. While riding Epona, Link couldn’t be hurt by enemies. What other horse doubles as a forcefield? Related: I once logged so many hours playing this video game that I would often think about the fictional people of Hyrule and how they needed saving as I fell asleep at night.

3. Rocinante – Don Quixote

Don Quixote’s horse is every bit as awkward as Quixote himself, which makes the broken-down equine lovable. Black Beauty be damned, Rocinante is the undisputed champion of literary horses.

4. Paul Revere – The 1986 Beastie Boys song by the same name

Riding ‘cross the land, kickin’ up sand … Paul Revere the horse doesn’t ever actually do much, but simply being the namesake of a classic song is enough to land him on this list. Let’s face it, this isn’t exactly a cutthroat competition. Most horses are lame.

5. Bojack – Bojack Horseman

I’ve never actually seen an episode of Bojack Horseman. In fact, I’m not entirely sure what it’s about other than a horse, but I’m running out of interesting horses and people seem to like the dude. So congrats to Bojack, who lucks into a spot on the list by being part of a wildly underrepresented species.