re: Official In-Season Practice, Injury Reports and Press Conferences Thread: 12-0

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There are two key components to having an undefeated season. The first and most important is having a good football team. But having a schedule full of teams you're likely to beat helps, too. This is a look at which teams have both.

Please consider the most likely undefeated teams to win their remaining regular season games, according to ESPN's Football Power Index.

10) Washington (4-0), 6.2 percent

You were mystified by the Washington hype over the summer, but now here they are: undefeated with one third of the season in the rear-view mirror. The Huskies' toughest remaining test comes Friday when reigning Pac-12 champion Stanford comes to Seattle. Washington is a narrow favorite in that one, and if they survive the Cardinal, the Huskies will likely be favored in each of their remaining regular season games.

9) San Diego State (3-0), 7.2 percent

The most fun scenario for the Mountain West Conference is for SDSU and Boise State to go undefeated out of the Mountain and West divisions (yes, those are the names of the Mountain West's divisions) before colliding in the MWC championship game. Neither team plays a tough enough OOC schedule to work their way into the College Football Playoff conversation, but they could position themselves as Group of 5 CFP spoilers headed into 2017.

8) Houston (4-0), 7.4 percent

There are never any guarantees in college football – and, don't forget, last year Houston had its undefeated season spoiled by UConn – but it sure seems like the Cougars are set up to coast through mid-November before a pair of tough games against Louisville and Memphis. Louisville is the best team in the country right now, and Houston gets them on a short week after playing Tulane. If they upset the Cardinals, the Cougars then have to travel to Memphis, where the Tigers are so far showing no ill effects of losing Paxton Lynch and Justin Fuente.

7) Clemson (4-0), 8.2 percent

The Tigers have been a bit sluggish on offense to start the season, but their month of October is bookended by the two games most likely to determine their fate. Clemson hosts College GameDay and the Louisville Cardinals on Saturday and then travels to Florida State on Oct. 29. There's a road trip to Boston College and a home date against N.C. State in between, and those teams have been thorns in the Tigers' side in the past, but the 2016 editions don't seem remotely up to the task.

6) Alabama (4-0), 14.4 percent

The Crimson Tide have the toughest remaining schedule of any team on this list, which is why they're not ranked higher. Alabama's toughest three-week stretch of the season comes in mid-October, with back-to-back road trips to Arkansas and Tennessee followed by a home game against Texas A&M. Then 'Bama has a bye before its first trip to post-Les Miles Baton Rouge, and who the heck knows what to expect in that one.

5) Ohio State (3-0), 17 percent

The Buckeyes get to coast through the first two games of their Big Ten schedule with home games against Rutgers and Indiana. Then things pick up with consecutive road trips to Camp Randall and Beaver Stadium. The real test of OSU will be its brutal November, which see the Buckeyes play Nebraska, Michigan State, and Michigan over the course of four weeks.

4) Western Michigan (4-0), 18.6 percent

The Broncos have had the top recruiting class in the MAC three years running, and that's got them set up to row their boat right through their conference in 2016. WMU has already gone on the road and beaten two Big Ten teams, so now that MAC play is about to start, it's just a matter of not losing concentration and taking a week off. One of Western Michigan's toughest tests will come Saturday at Central Michigan, which you might recall upset Oklahoma State two weeks ago.

3) Michigan (4-0), 19.1 percent

Any given Saturday and all that, but it's really hard to see the Wolverines having a chance to lose any more than three of the games remaining on their schedule. Michigan gets Wisconsin at home on Saturday fresh off of the Badgers' 30-6 blowout of Michigan State. On Oct. 29, Jim Harbaugh's squad travels to Michigan State, looking to end break a bad run against the Spartans. And then – do I even have to say it? – UM travels to Ohio Stadium for The Game, which could be a de facto College Football Playoff elimination game and decide the Big Ten East.

2) Louisville (4-0), 26.1 percent

The thing about the ACC Atlantic is it has three great teams but not much else once you get past that trio at the top. And Louisville plays the last of the division's good teams on Saturday when they travel to Clemson, with the pole position in the Atlantic on the line. If the Cardinals get past Clemson, all they'll have to do for the next month and a half is not slip up against some of the weakest competition the ACC has to offer. Then everything will come down to a massive Thursday night game against Houston on Nov. 17.

1) Boise State (3-0), 29 percent

The Broncos really did try to schedule a challenging a tough non-conference schedule this year, but unfortunately the two Pac-12 teams they played haven't done them any favors by losing to an FCS team (Washington State) and Minnesota (Oregon State). Boise State's remaining strength of schedule ranks 97th in the country, which means they have a good shot at running the table but a bad shot at crashing the College Football Playoff.

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