Sitting at No. 8 in the College Football Playoff ranking, Northwestern controls its own destiny in its bid to reach the national semifinals.

There may not be a more 2020 sentence than that one. You might want to pinch yourself and read that again, but it's true.

The Wildcats were ranked eighth in the first CFP poll that was released on Tuesday night. With three winnable matchups in front of them before a presumed Big Ten championship game against No. 4 Ohio State, the path to a playoff bid is pretty evident: win out, and a playoff bid will be theirs.

Northwestern, No. 11 in the AP poll, earned its lofty ranking with a 5-0 record against what ESPN calls the best strength of record in the nation. According to their statistics, Top 25 teams would have just a 9% chance of replicating NU's undefeated mark against the same schedule.

The Wildcats' five wins have come against four teams with a .500 or better record. Their marquee victory came last Saturday, a 17-7 win over previously No. 10 Wisconsin, which is ranked 16th in the CFP poll.

The seven teams in front of Northwestern are, in order, Alabama (7-0), Notre Dame (8-0), Clemson (7-1), Ohio State (4-0), Texas A&M (5-1), Florida (6-1) and Cincinnati (8-0).

That may seem like a logjam, but the Wildcats' path to a playoff bid is clear. First, they have to win their three remaining games, against Michigan State (1-3), Minnesota (2-3) and Illinois (2-3). The Cats should be favored in all three.

Then, if they take down the big, bad Buckeyes in the Big Ten title game -- a big if, we know -- there's no way an undefeated Big Ten champ with two Top 10 wins would be left out of the playoff. Northwestern will be a heavy underdog in that rematch of the 2018 championship game, but it will have at least a puncher's chance of pulling off the upset.

The Wildcats won't have to worry about style points, their not-TV-friendly brand of low-scoring football, getting help from other teams or even any "they're just Northwestern" bias. If they win out, the Wildcats will be playing in the Rose Bowl or the Sugar Bowl as one of the top four teams in the country.

This can all be heady stuff for a team that went 3-9 in 2019. But the Wildcats will be focused on one thing this week: going 1-0 on Saturday.

2020 has already proven to be a crazy year in almost every respect. Why not in this one, too?