Column: It’s never too late to make a playoff run in college football

Anyone suggesting this season is starting to form into something solid has never gambled on a river boat with Les Miles.

You might think November is a too late to mount a from-the-back-of-the-pack championship charge, but it isn’t.

General rule of thumb: A season is never over until Miles and Louisiana State say it’s over.

Or, imagine being a Michigan State fan last September.

The Spartans started with worthless nonconference wins against Western Michigan, South Florida and Youngstown State, followed by a four-point loss at Notre Dame. Michigan State then started knocking down Big Ten Conference foes, and phonies, but did not enter the rankings until appearing at No. 24 on Oct. 27.

The Spartans kept winning, yet were still only No. 10 in the Bowl Championship Series standings of Dec. 1.

The next week, after beating Ohio State for the Big Ten title, Michigan State jumped to No. 4.

This season, that would have put the Spartans into the four-team playoff.

The moral to this story is string of clichés: Don’t give up, keep chopping wood and play one game at a time.

This week’s College Football Playoff ranking was kinder to some schools than it was to others but, as committee chairman Jeff Long said: “It’s still very early.”

What if Auburn had given up last season after an early, 14-point loss at Louisiana State? Auburn crawled back into the rankings at No. 24 on Oct. 12, and was No. 11 in the BCS standings of Oct. 27. The Tigers ended up winning the Southeastern Conference title and came 13 seconds from winning the national title.

Think of the BCS comebacks there might have been had there been a four-team playoff at the end:

• USC ended up No. 4 in 2002 after being No. 14 on Oct. 21.

• Ohio State was No. 4 in 2005 after being No. 15 on Oct. 17.

• Oregon was No. 4 in 2001 after being No. 13 on Oct. 22.

• Michigan was No. 4 in 2003 after being No. 9 on Nov. 17.

• And Stanford climbed to No. 4 in 2010 after overcoming the double-whammy of triskaidekaphobia and ghoul — the Cardinal was No. 13 on Halloween.

From this latest College Football Playoff top 25, six schools control their playoff destinies: Mississippi State, Florida State, Auburn, Oregon, Alabama, who are, in order, the top five, plus, surprisingly, No. 9 Arizona State. The Sun Devils will be in if they win out and finish 12-1.

Arizona State has rebounded remarkably from 62-27 home loss to UCLA on Sept. 25, when they were without injured quarterback Taylor Kelly and were still adjusting to nine new starters on defense.

“… At that time we had a lot of young guys and we were just making a lot of errors,” Coach Todd Graham recalled this week. “We have dramatically improved, probably more than any bunch I’ve ever had.”

Arizona State has a huge game against Notre Dame on Saturday. Also looming is a possible Pac-12 Conference title game showdown against Oregon.

Arizona State has more schedule firepower than any one-loss team outside the top five. But the new format also offers hope to any two-loss team from the Pac-12 South Division that could defeat Oregon in the conference championship game.

That includes Utah, UCLA and Arizona, currently ranked Nos. 17, 18 and 19.

The Pac-12 needs a few things to happen to push a two-loss South champion into the top four: It needs the final four to be champions from the SEC, Pac-12, Big Ten and Big 12. That would require a loss by Atlantic Coast Conference power Florida State, and the best chance for that is probably next week at Miami. It would also necessitate Notre Dame losing a second game to eliminate the Irish from stealing a playoff spot from a conference champion.

This might sound like far-fetched stuff, but we’ve learned over the years to expect the unexpected. Any team pondering a wild end-around should study the “Holy Cow!” playbook of LSU.

The Tigers are a team you can never seem to count out, and they may be at it again.

Who could have imagined a month ago that LSU could overcome two SEC West defeats that temporarily knocked the Tigers out of the rankings? Yet, LSU sits at No. 16 with a chance to knock off No. 5 Alabama on Saturday at Baton Rouge, La. A victory would likely put LSU in, or near, the top 10.

LSU would need a collapse from Mississippi State to win the SEC West, but stranger things have happened. LSU has risen not once, but twice from the ash heap to win national titles.

In 2003, the Tigers got to No. 2 in the BCS standings after being No. 12 on Oct. 20 and No. 7 as late as Nov. 3. And in 2007, LSU became the only two-loss team to win a BCS title. The Tigers jumped from No. 7 to No. 2 on the final weekend to earn a title-game bid.

No surprise that LSU would have made the greatest BCS comeback, too, in a four-team playoff. In 2006, the Tigers finished fourth after being No. 17 in the standings of Oct. 29.

No one should feel comfortable knowing, with two additional playoff spots up for auction, that’s just about where LSU stands now.

chris.dufresne@latimes.com