Welcome to scoreboard watching season.

With just a couple of weeks left in the regular season, conference title and College Football Playoff races are forcing fans to pay almost as much attention to other games as the one their favorite team is playing.

After watching No. 13 Miami take care of business in Blacksburg against Virginia Tech, Hurricanes fans then had to see how things went with No. 11 BYU, No. 12 Utah, No. 14 Vanderbilt, No. 15 USC and No. 16 Georgia Tech.

They got a little help, but not quite as much as it looked like they would at certain points in the day.

Week 13 of the season didn’t do much to clear up the CFP picture, and what we learned was there is still a lot to be decided during rivalry weekend — beyond just what Lane Kiffin plans to do with his career.

Duck season

Last week, we suggested it was best for the Big Ten to not get greedy and just have No. 7 Oregon take care of business down the stretch, get to 11-1 and enjoy its first-round game in Autzen.

The Ducks are almost there after beating No. 15 USC 42-27. That takes care of the Trojans (8-3) as a contender for an at-large CFP bid and eliminates them from the Big Ten title race.

Getting both Oregon and USC to 10-2 seemed like the Big Ten’s best path to getting four in the Playoff, but it also could have led to the Big Ten getting just two teams in.

The committee has nitpicked the Ducks’ resume, but beating USC should help. Oregon coach Dan Lanning seemed to be losing patience with the critique and decided to do what everybody does at this time of the year: pump up your conference while taking a jab at a competitor.

“A lot of times we play really good teams, they become unranked all of a sudden. That’s not our fault, right? Maybe it is our fault, but all we’re worried about is playing the teams that we play and doing the job that we need to do, and we did that job today, right?” Lanning said, alluding to Penn State and Iowa.

“This conference is a really good conference. It’s competitive, right?” he added. “We didn’t play Chattanooga State today, right? Like some other places, right? We competed. That being said, it’s tough playing nine conference games. It’s tough playing in this league.”

SoCon Saturday is not quite what it used to be, but the longstanding tradition of SEC teams using the weekend before Thanksgiving to take a little break against FCS teams was alive and well.

Samford (No. 3 Texas A&M), Charlotte (No. 4 Georgia) and Eastern Illinois (No. 10 Alabama) were among the opponents Playoff contenders from the SEC faced Saturday. Not great.

Though to be fair, none of those buy games were any less competitive than No. 9 Notre Dame over Syracuse. The Irish were up 21 points before running an offensive play. And Ohio State decided to do a little load management with banged-up star receivers Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate out the week before facing No. 18 Michigan and still easily beat Rutgers.

Cupcakes come in many flavors.

As for the Ducks, they have won three straight November games against teams with winning records and done so navigating an assortment of offensive injuries. Against USC, Oregon ran for 179 yards behind an offensive line with second-stringers at center and tackle. Oregon is sitting at 84 percent to reach the Playoff, according to projections by The Athletic’s Austin Mock.

The Big Ten’s last hope to get another team into the 12-team field comes next weekend in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Michigan (9-2) will try to make it five straight against No. 1 Ohio State. A victory by the Wolverines puts the Ducks back in the Big Ten Championship Game if Oregon takes care of business against Washington, and puts Michigan very much in the mix for an at-large bid. The Wolverines would have a 30 percent chance to reach the CFP if they beat Ohio State, according to Mock’s projections.

ACC chaos

The ACC inched closer to having a championship game matching two teams that have no shot at an at-large bid.

Pitt took down Georgia Tech, jumping out to a four-touchdown lead and then hanging on for 42-28 victory.

Is Georgia Tech eliminated? With a game still remaining against Georgia and a mathematical chance to win the ACC title, no. Realistically, it certainly looks like it. The Yellow Jackets (9-2) have crumbled in November, allowing 124 points in the past three games. They look incapable of putting up a legit fight against the Bulldogs, let alone pulling off the upset. And Georgia Tech would need two upsets within the ACC next week to get into the title game.

Heading into the final weekend of the season, No. 19 Virginia (9-2) and SMU (8-3) are in charge. If the Cavaliers beat Virginia Tech and the Mustangs knock off Cal, they will meet in Charlotte, N.C., with the winner almost certainly heading to the Playoff as one of the five highest-ranked conference champions in the FBS. SMU would be trying to reach the CFP for a second straight season.

Meanwhile, Miami next Saturday will go to Pitt as the selection committee’s highest-ranked ACC team and will still be scoreboard watching. Within the ACC, the Hurricanes need either SMU or UVA to lose to open a path for Miami to get to the league title game.

It got a little weird in the fourth quarter Saturday for the Canes against Virginia Tech because they couldn’t recover an onside kick. Coach Mario Cristobal had his team tack on a late touchdown pass to make sure anybody who was just box-score scouting didn’t get the impression it was a truly close game.

In the CFP rankings, Saturday’s results didn’t do Miami any big favors. BYU (10-1) won at Cincinnati to keep the Cougars on track for a Big 12 title rematch against No. 5 Texas Tech (10-1).

Utah gave up almost 500 yards rushing and needed a wild comeback to knock off Kansas State. Maybe that creates an opportunity for Miami to creep up a spot, but with two weeks to go until Selection Sunday, keep in mind that the cut line in the committee’s rankings is really the top 10 if things keep going the way they are in the ACC.

Both the ACC champ (unless it’s Miami) and the highest-ranked champion among the G5 conferences are destined to finish well outside the committee’s top 12 but get in the CFP by being among the five highest-ranked league champs.

If Miami misses the CFP, it can draw a direct line to its overtime loss at SMU to explain why.

SEC six-pack unlikely

The SEC remains well positioned — but certainly no lock — to have five teams in the field after No. 8 Oklahoma smothered No. 22 Missouri. 

No team with a realistic chance to secure an at-large bid has a worse offense than the Sooners, but coach Brent Venables’ defense is dynamite, and the Sooners have the best kicker in the country in Tate Sandell. That victory against Michigan in September is a nice card for Oklahoma and the SEC to play just in case the Wolverines beat the Buckeyes next week.

Diego Pavia and Vanderbilt (9-2) kept themselves in the mix by blowing out Kentucky. The Commodores face No. 20 Tennessee next with one more chance to jump over some teams, but they have a long way to climb in the rankings and no victories against any of the five SEC teams ahead of them: Texas A&M, Georgia, Ole Miss, Oklahoma and Alabama.

And Sunday morning, The Athletic’s latest projections have five SEC teams in the field, with Alabama as the last at-large team in, just ahead of BYU. The Crimson Tide have a 58 percent chance of reaching the Playoff compared to 52 percent for the Cougars. Vanderbilt is the second team out at 29 percent.

Now, let’s address the Kiffin thing. The Ole Miss coach is expected to declare his future plans the day after the sixth-ranked Rebels play Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl on Black Friday.

It has been suggested that if Kiffin decides to take the LSU or Florida job and is no longer the coach at Ole Miss, the committee might penalize the Rebels similarly to the way that unbeaten Florida State was snubbed from a top-four ranking after star quarterback Jordan Travis suffered a season-ending injury in 2023.

First off, if Ole Miss beat the Bulldogs to finish 11-1, there would be no justification for the committee to drop the Rebels, no matter what happens with Kiffin. The committee protocol says that it’s not supposed to project ahead, and it would not have seen Ole Miss play without Kiffin on the sideline. Secondly, let’s be real. There is no way the committee would penalize an 11-1 team for the actions of the coach.

Now, if Ole Miss loses to its hapless rivals, the committee wouldn’t need the possible loss of Kiffin to justify leaving the Rebels out. Ole Miss got a favorable SEC schedule this season, facing five of the bottom six in the conference standings, and it didn’t schedule a Power 4 nonconference opponent. The Rebels did beat American Conference contender Tulane. Ole Miss at 10-2 compared to 10-2 Vanderbilt would be a brisk debate for the committee that could also include an 11-win loser of the Big 12 title game, Miami and maybe even Michigan with a win over Ohio State.

Bottom line, the Kiffin situation should not and will not lead to a committee snub. Losing to Mississippi State could be more than enough to keep the Rebels out, with or without Kiffin.

Two more things you need to know about the CFP right now

No. 24 Tulane was the only non-Power 4 team ranked last week, which factors into both the CFP race and the American Conference standings tiebreakers. There is a chance that North Texas, Navy and Tulane all finish tied at 7-1. If that happens, the likely title game would be UNT and Tulane because UNT beat Navy and the Green Wave’s ranking by the committee would be the deciding factor between them and the Midshipmen. An American title game matching 11-1 UNT and 10-2 Tulane would almost certainly be for a CFP spot.

The alternative? If things get weird in the American next week — Charlotte-over-Tulane weird — James Madison still looks like the next team up if it can win the Sun Belt. The Dukes (10-1) rallied in the second half to beat Washington State in a nonconference game Saturday.

Mock’s model gives North Texas a 48 percent chance to make the CFP, followed by JMU at 26 percent and Tulane at 24 percent.