Games to watch for this weekend's college football regular-season finale

The GIST: Three months of thrilling, controversy-laden, down-to-the-wire college football later, this weekend’s regular-season finale slate will decide which four teams make the reason for the season: the College Football Playoff (CFP). Chaos, potentially loading.

The context: Unlike other college sports with sprawling championship brackets, a 13-member committee selects the four CFP teams based on metrics including strength of schedule and conference championships won.

• The four lucky bachelors squads will square off in the CFP semis later this month, hoping to advance to the CFP National Championship on January 8th.

As it stands: Heading into Conference Championship weekend, eight teams are still in playoff contention, though the path is considerably easier for the current top four: defending champs No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Michigan, No. 3 Washington, and No. 4 Florida State.

• All undefeated, they’ll likely ink a spot with a win. And if they lose? Well, then the selection committee is in for a real headache come the 12 p.m. ET Selection Show on Sunday.

Games to watch: All of them, but if you have to choose, tonight’s 8 p.m. ET Pac-12 championship between No. 5 Oregon and Washington has major implications. The Huskies’ path is clear, but if the Ducks can pull off the road dub, they’ll almost certainly leapfrog into the top four. Quack, quack.

• The other can’t-miss showdown is tomorrow’s 4 p.m. ET SEC title game between Georgia and No. 8 Alabama. If the Tide can, ahem, roll to an upset of the two-time champs, it’ll cause a drama-filled tsunami in the final CFP rankings.