Party crashers

 You know who the usual suspects really like right now, in college football? 

They like the Houston Cougars.

The Notre Dames and Oklahomas and Michigans and Oklahoma States, they're all about the Coogs. They're buying the gear and waving the pennants and saying please-please-please-please, Houston, beat Cincinnati next week in the American Athletic Conference championship. Laminate 'em, flambe 'em, beat 'em on a bank-shot field goal off the post, but just beat 'em. The how doesn't matter.

Cincinnati, you see, is unbeaten and un-liked by college football's old money, because they're crashing the Members Only party. They're that annoying guest who somehow got through the door and is underdressed and oh my God, look what he's doing now, Martha, he's eating the foie gras WITH HIS FINGERS! 

Plus he just won't leave.

No, sir. The Bearcats keep winning and keep hogging the fourth and final College Football Playoff spot, and the only way to evict them is for Houston to beat them next Saturday. Houston is pretty darn good itself, 10-1 and about to be 11-1 after the Coogs flatten 1-10 UConn today. It's whomped its A AC foes about as badly as Cincy has, and its only loss was to Texas Tech by 17. 

But it hasn't handed Notre Dame its only loss, like Cincy has, and it needed overtime to beat East Carolina while Cincy cruised past the Pirates 34-13 yesterday. So, there's that.

There's also this: The old money's chances to evict the party-crashers at this point are pretty much zero if what happens today likely happens.

What happens is Michigan (No. 5 in the CFP) will get beat again by Ohio State today -- I know, everyone's making this the Big Game of the season, but I don't think the Buckeyes are beatable by anyone but Georgia right now -- and that will take the Wolverines out of it. Notre Dame (No. 6), after it flattens Stanford tonight, will be finished at 11-1 and can only sit and wait.  And of course Oklahoma will do what Oklahoma does in its annual rivalry game with Oklahoma State, which is beat the Cowboys (No. 7) and knock them out of it.

This means if Cincinnati takes care of its business next week against Houston, it's in. It's hard to see any scenario where the committee jumps Notre Dame or Oklahoma over an unbeaten Cincinnati team without revealing that the whole system is as rigged as everyone thinks it is.

Especially if Alabama loses to either Auburn or Georgia and still stays in the club as a two-loss team.

Logic says that shouldn't be likely, which opens a spot for the Irish or the Sooners and keeps the Bearcats around. But logic and college football rarely run in the same social circles, so who knows. 

In the meantime, in South Bend and Ann Arbor and Stillwater and maybe Norman and Tuscaloosa, the watchword is this: Go Cougars.