How Oklahoma Can Still Crash the SEC Championship and the CFP

College football is changing forever, and the SEC just dropped the hammer on an era. On Monday, the conference announced that with the College Football Playoff expanding to 24 teams starting next year, the iconic SEC Championship Game in Atlanta is officially coming to an end after this season.

For the Oklahoma Sooners, that news hits a little different.

OU has never played in the SEC title game in Atlanta. And while sitting at 5-4 overall and 3-3 in conference play makes the mountain look straight up, the wildest part is that the door isn't slammed shut yet. There is still a path to get there before the venue closes its doors for good. It’s narrower than a tight window on third-and-long, but it’s a path nonetheless.

If the Sooners want to punch a ticket to Atlanta and secure an automatic bid to the expanded College Football Playoff by winning the SEC title, here is the exact, chaotic sequence of events that has to happen over the next month.

First and foremost, it starts with taking care of business. Oklahoma has to win out. No style points required just yet, but they cannot drop another game. That stretch begins this Saturday at home against No. 19 Ole Miss, rolls into another massive home date with Texas A&M, and finishes up with the regular-season finale on the road against rival Missouri.

Winning out gets OU to 6-3 in SEC play, but getting to Atlanta requires some serious chaos across the rest of the conference. Here is how the dominoes have to fall:

• Georgia wins out to lock up the top spot.

• LSU beats Texas in their head-to-head matchup.

• Texas wins out everywhere else post-LSU.

• Bama, Kentucky, and Tennessee each pick up one more loss down the stretch.

If that exact parlay hits, the math gets wild. It would leave Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, and Tennessee deadlocked in a massive five-way tie for the remaining spots at 6-3 in the SEC. Because of head-to-head tiebreakers and conference matrix tiebreak procedures, the Sooners would survive the pile-up and punch their ticket to Atlanta.

Think about how poetic that would be. After a turbulent fall in Norman—breaking in a new offense under Jason Witten, fighting through a brutal injury bug, and searching for an identity—this team is just one win away from bowl eligibility this weekend against Ole Miss.

Nobody outside the Switzer Center is giving them a prayer of running the table and crashing the SEC Championship. But the opportunity is sitting right there in front of them.

If the Sooners win their final three, let the rest of the SEC sort itself out and see where the chips fall.