Kendrick Rogers’s touchdown helped Texas A&M beat L.S.U. in seven overtimes on Saturday. Bob Levey/Getty Images
When the four-team field for the College Football Playoff is determined, three programs will have had an outsize influence on the bracket: Louisiana State, Oklahoma State and Purdue.
That might be appear to be a surprising list: None of those teams will make the playoff, their combined record is 21-15, and this past weekend — the final games before conference championships — the three teams went 1-2.
Yet the final selection process — in which a committee considers several dozen teams from five major conferences (and five other ones seemingly, if unofficially, discounted from inclusion) and chooses four teams to play in the national semifinals on Dec.