Is a trip to the CFP more likely than a 7-5 season?

ESPN’s Brandon Chatmon recently wrote an article over the hypothetical dream and nightmare scenario for the upcoming Oklahoma State football season. You can check out that article here.

In a nutshell, Chatmon lays out OSU’s dream scenario as follows. In a perfect Oklahoma State utopia, Barry J. Sanders is as good as advertised, Mason Rudolph and James Washington are the most lethal one-two combo in the country, and, oh yeah, apparently a 10 point Bedlam road victory.

All of that boils down with a loss to Alabama in the semifinals of the College Football Playoffs. Of course, the Cowboys don’t go undefeated through the regular season. Gary Patterson and his defensive ways find a way to slow down Rudolph, and get revenge on last years 49-29 debacle.

So is 11-2 and a berth in the College Football Playoff the ceiling for this year? It certainly wouldn’t be the worst season ever.

The Pokes have a favorable non-conference schedule, with Southeastern Louisiana, Central Michigan and Pittsburgh all coming to Stillwater. At Baylor and home to Texas will be a tough couple of weeks, but surely in a dream scenario the Cowboys can come away with a pair of victories.

Notch a W for Kansas, Iowa State and West Virginia, while a road trip to Kansas State and a home matchup with Tech is all that separates Oklahoma State from 10-0 for the second straight year.

If this is true, there is a decent chance Oklahoma State can lose to TCU and make the CFP if they respond with a win in Norman.

Give me that hypotethcial over the 2015 season.

Chatmon also released a nightmare scenario for the Cowboys in which they go 7-5. It’s funny to think that 10 years ago, 7-5 would have been an overwhelmingly successful season.

The run game looks the same from last year, and Rudolph doesn’t have J.W. Walsh to take some of the burden of carrying the offense. Even with a non-existent run game, Rudolph carries the Cowboys to wins against Pitt and even Baylor to go 4-0 in September. Personally, a road loss to Baylor is a lot more likely than a home loss to Tech, but I’m analyzing Chatmon’s thoughts, not my own.

Texas wins at BPS for the fourth straight year, while four straight losses to K-State, Tech, TCU and Oklahoma send the Cowboys to the Independence bowl, or something like that.

I don’t believe 7-5 is a true nightmare scenario. To me, a nightmare scenario is Rudolph going down with a torn ACL in game one, and the run game is actually worse than last year. That may be extremely pessimistic, but 7-5 doesn’t scream nightmare to me.

After all, doesn’t Tech go 7-5 pretty much every year?