Going into the fall, it was clear that the College Football Playoff’s growth from four to 12 teams would make this season unique. It was less clear that things would get so strange.

Triple the size of the field for the sport’s biggest postseason event, and more teams will be playing football of national significance throughout the year. Ideally, this wouldn’t be necessary; People seemed to like regular bowl games just fine until the mid-2010s when ESPN’s coverage of the sport became so focused on the new playoff system and many players stopped caring about non-playoff bowls. But the toothpaste didn’t return to the tube, and in a playoff-centric world, the way to give the sport more prominence (and more TV money for the biggest conferences) was to add more playoffs to the playoffs.

But with one week left in the regular season, things are a lot more chaotic than even most of us predicted when we considered what a 12-team playoff campaign would look like. The start of 16- or 18-team superconferences has caused the championship races around the league to become a veritable turmoil, and that has left a bizarre array of possible playoff scenarios on the table with only a full week (plus conference championship games) left afterwards) remains. More things could happen than ever before in college football, and as silly as it may be, it could get sillier.

Some conferences have simple images. Exactly four Big Ten teams will almost certainly make the field: Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State and Indiana. The Hoosiers, 10-1, briefly appeared to be in trouble when they were defeated at Ohio State last Saturday, but a brigade of Southeastern Conference teams lost their third game of the season later in the day, providing some cushion. As long as Indiana doesn’t mess around with 1-10 Purdue, the worst team in the Power Four conferences, the Hoosiers will be fine. Meanwhile, the ACC will send either SMU, Miami or Clemson to the playoffs, with some chance the league will receive a second bid if Clemson beats South Carolina this week but misses the ACC Championship. Meanwhile, the Pac-12, Mid-American and Conference USA will not send anyone to the playoffs.

Otherwise it’s a beautiful mess as far as the eye can see.

The Big 12 is the pièce de résistance of College Football Playoff variance. There are currently 16 schools in this league, and about nine of them have football teams of nearly the same caliber. These nine are all within one game in the standings, and it’s possible that up to eight of them could end the weekend with the same records. All nine have at least a remote path to reaching next weekend’s conference championship game in North Texas, and the Big 12 says so 256 Combinations of opponents and seeded players remain in play for this match. Arizona State (this week against rival Arizona) and Iowa State (against tough Kansas State) are the most in control of their own destiny, but could fall out in complex tiebreakers even if both win this week, according to the league.

Baylor and West Virginia fans have spent much of the last two years calling for the firing of their current head coaches, but neither is technically dead yet in the Big 12 race. Neither is Texas Tech, whose continued presence in the race allowing the newspapers in Lubbock, Texas, to sell some information and hope to Red Raiders fans: “Texas Tech football can still make it to the Big 12 championship game.” Here are the scenarios.” That would be cool, since Texas Tech still has the game never achieved.

There’s also a lot going on in the SEC race, the sport’s best league. Georgia has secured a spot in the championship game, and either Texas or Texas A&M (whoever wins the reignited rivalry at A&M on Saturday night) will join them. So the championship game matchup is pretty straightforward, but SEC fans have been plagued with questions in recent days about what happens afterward. Last year, Georgia was the No. 1 team in America throughout the regular season, but lost its playoff spot when it lost its first game of the year to Alabama in the SEC Championship. No one has any real idea how the playoff selection committee will punish conference championship losers in a 12-team battle, and as a result, things have become uncomfortable for many fans with vested interests in the SEC race. At least four teams from around the league should make the field, but no one — not even Georgia, whose ticket to the conference title game has already been punched — knows with absolute certainty that it will make it.

There are other big voting questions in the SEC. Tennessee will make the playoffs if it beats Vanderbilt in Nashville this weekend, but if not, it will join a hodgepodge of three-loss SEC teams for the committee to sift through. South Carolina attacked hard late in the season, moving up to No. 15 with an 8-3 record, and that’s what it is could Jump into the field for a win at No. 12 Clemson on Saturday. But then what to do with No. 14 Ole Miss, which probably has the same record as the Gamecocks and also beat them 27-3 earlier in the season? Ole Miss is likely out of the playoff race because it plays abysmal Mississippi State this week, and beating a team that remains winless in SEC play shouldn’t help the Rebels get past anyone. But could Ole Miss’ presence lead the committee to keep South Carolina away? The situation is so embarrassing that it is almost impossible to predict. Additionally, Alabama sits at No. 13, ahead of both the Rebels and Gamecocks, with three losses of its own and a date this weekend with a sub-.500 Auburn team. Alabama also won South Carolina.

Meanwhile, the 12-team playoff team reserves a spot for at least one (and, as most suspected, Exactly one) Team from the non-power conferences, also known as the Group of 5. (That’s everyone outside the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12.) The Mountain West’s Boise State has the inside track at 10-1 and also sits well ahead of the entire Big 12, setting the Broncos up for a bye week in the first round of the playoffs, while whoever wins the Big 12 will have to contend with some SEC or Big Ten team. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is already arguing about why that wouldn’t be right, but it’s not his fault. Meanwhile, there’s a non-zero chance that the Big 12 will produce a three-loss champion. In this case, it is highly unlikely, but not entirely impossible, that the Big 12 misses the playoffs entirely. It would require Boise State to stay on track behind the best running back in the country, Ashton Jeanty, and for the selection committee to fall in love with an AAC champion Army team at just the right moment with a loss.

Or Tulane and Boise State could both be out, and the Group of 5 playoff spot could go to either Army — which is 9-1 but lost nearly a billion points to Notre Dame, a likely playoff team. OrIf Army lost this weekend and then beat Tulane in the American Athletic title game, the non-power playoff spot might go to UNLV of the Mountain West (which would have to beat Boise State) or, to get even crazier, Louisiana Ragin ‘Cajuns of the Sunbelt. These are distant but real possibilities, a testament to how many things are still on the table at the end of the season.

Currently, I estimate that 28 teams have more than a 0 percent chance of making the playoffs. Maybe I should say 28.5 in case the committee reconsiders Ole Miss in the large group of three-loss SEC teams. At the same time last year, the number of remaining candidates was eight. By tripling the size of the group, the number of quasi-aspirants has more than tripled. Most have no chance of actually winning the tournament, aside from a rounding error. The eventual winner will be Oregon, Texas, Ohio State or Georgia. But the most fun you can have in college football isn’t asking yourself the question, “Who’s the best team?” It’s about something more fundamental that fans of multiple teams can get behind: “So you’re telling me that there is one Chance?”