Auburn football: 3 undefeated teams that need to lose for Tigers to make CFP

Auburn football has won enough games in 2021 to legitimately put their hat into the ring for the College Football Playoff. Currently ranked #12, with the third-highest ranking in the SEC, a National Championship is not off the table.

Very few teams can legitimately say that.

But losing to the new overlords of college football (for now), Georgia, and a then-#10 ranked Penn State in their infamous White Out game are not season-ending blemishes…unlike, say, a trap game home loss to Illinois or an OT loss to Stanford (if coupled with any other losses).

That said, there are three undefeated teams that cannot remain that way for AU to complete their rise to the top:

Undefeated team #1 that must lose for Auburn football to make CFP: Cincinnati

It’s a mostly easy stretch for Group of Five darling Cincinnati, who has the chance to parlay an AAC title and an undefeated season into crashing the CFP party this New Year’s. USF and Tulsa should be pushovers, while SMU is their last true challenge before the regular season concludes with a road game at East Carolina.

Somewhere in that pack needs to be a loss to open up a spot in the CFP for the Tigers. Even with one loss, Georgia could be a lock at this point considering their utterly dominant run this season.

The most likely candidate would seemingly be SMU, who ranks in the top 10 in both yards per game and touchdowns this season. Otherwise, we’d have a pretty sizable spoiler in the American given the three other aforementioned Bearcats opponents are currently .500 or worse.

Then again, a championship weekend loss could also be enough to knock Cincy out of the CFP’s top 4.