By the time the final College Football Playoff rankings are released, the sport may have reverted back to its tendency to reward the blue bloods.
After all, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, Alabama and Oklahoma have combined to snap up 10 of the last 16 CFP invites. It's entirely possible that three of those five teams punch tickets again this year, boxing out national upstarts coast-to-coast.
But this wouldn't be college football without an underdog story, and there are a few teams that have charted an improbable course to the playoff this season.
Who are these surprise teams that are controlling their destiny? Let's have a look.
Iowa Hawkeyes (+3200)
24th (AP) · 23rd (Coaches)
We're eight years removed from the viral hit that was “How To Talk To Your Kids About An Undefeated Iowa.”
That Hawkeye team opened the 2015 season unranked, fresh off of a mediocre 7-6 campaign the previous fall. They then proceeded to reel off 12 straight regular-season wins, including five one-possession victories.
They rose to No. 4 in the College Football Playoff rankings and came up just short in the Big Ten title game, losing to Michigan State, 16-13. Had they won, they would have made the playoff and appeared in the Cotton Bowl.
This is just a reminder that the Big Ten West is capable of sending surprising and seemingly out-of-left-field teams to the College Football Playoff.
But can Iowa climb all the way up to No. 4 in the CFP rankings? Does it have the scheduling ammuniti on? No, but a shiny Big Ten Championship could be enough to vault the Hawkeyes into the playoff if there's enough upset carnage in the coming weeks.
Iowa has a cakewalk ahead of it, playing three of its final five regular-season games in Iowa City, with one of those coming at neutral-site Wrigley Field against Northwestern.
Only Rutgers has a winning record (5-2) in that five-team grouping. If Rutgers can finish the season at a respectable 7-5, it could join Iowa State, Wisconsin and perhaps Nebraska as bowl-eligible programs that Iowa found a way to beat.
As it stands right now, Iowa has a surprisingly high strength of schedule in the eyes of at least one notable metric (ESPN's FPI, 16th).
An 11-1 finish would likely it in the 8-to-12 neighborhood of the CFP rankings ahead of the Big Ten title game. If that matchup featured an undefeated opponent like Michigan, Ohio State or Penn State as the nation's No. 1 team, a win could send the Hawkeyes to the playoff for the first time in program history.
On the field, Iowa is in the conversation as having the nation's best defense. Both Bill Connelly's SP+ numbers and the KFord Rankings rank it first overall on that side of the ball. Our internal Action Network metrics point out that the Hawkeyes are the second-best team in limiting explosive plays, and their special teams are unanimously ranked as a top-10 unit.
It will be ugly and it will require turnover luck, but it's time to acknowledge that Kirk Ferentz's team has a path, albeit a narrow one, to the College Football Playoff.
Oregon State Beavers (+1600)
12th (AP) · 13th (Coaches)
In the Pac-12's swan song, it's interesting to note that the lame-duck conference has an excellent chance to place a team in the CFP for the first time since 2016.
Moreover, it won't even need its conference champion to be undefeated to get it done. As of today, the league has six teams ranked in both polls. That gives the eventual conference champion plenty of opportunities to impress the committee.
The Beavers already own a pair of ranked vi ctories over Utah and UCLA and have a chance to grab a pair of top-10 wins down the stretch when they host undefeated Washington and travel to play Oregon in an in-state rivalry.