Desmond Howard picked Alabama, Michigan, Florida State, and Texas to make the College Football Playoff at the beginning of the season.

With Week 7 of the college football season upon us and Howard in Seattle ahead of a top-10 showdown between No. 7 Washington and No. 8 Oregon, he was asked if he’d like to update those picks with a West Coast team.

On ESPN’s First Take Friday morning, Howard said he now believes a team from the Pac-12 makes it to the CFP.

“At the beginning of the season, I didn’t. I didn’t pick a Pac-12 team to get to the College Football Playoff. But as the season started to unfold, and you just realize how much talent is in the Pac-12, and how deep the Pac-12 is,” Howard said. “This is the most talented (league). … So I think as we’re starting to watch these teams play, this season unfold, I do believe that the Pac-12 will probably have a team that gets into the College Football Playoff when it’s all said and done.”

First Take host Shannon Sharpe then posed a hypothetical: Washington is undefeated and sitting in the Pac-12 title game, where it meets an Oregon or USC team in the Pac-12 championship game and loses. Does the league still put a team into the CFP?

There’s certainly precedent for teams with a loss and no conference title making the field — it literally just happened with a Big 12 team a year ago — but this is also a conference that has been excluded from the CFP since 2016.

Until the selection committee actually puts pen to paper (so to speak) and shows that it respects the conference, that question will remain.

Howard believes the league still gets in if chaos unfolds late in the year.

“I think they would probably deserve to get a team in,” Howard said.

A win over Oregon would boost Washington’s résumé, Howard said.

“When the College Football Playoff committee starts to look at résumé, start to look at these Ws that you’ve acquired throughout the season, I think that’s what’s going to help bolster their claim to get to the College Football Playoff,” he said. “Don’t forget, a year ago you had a highly-ranked Ohio State at the end of the season. They lost big at home to Michigan, right? But they were able to get into the College Football Playoff through the backdoor even though they had that huge loss at home against their arch-rival.

“To me, with that being the example, I think Washington, based on what you just asked me, will have a strong argument to get into the College Football Playoff even if they do lose at the end of the season.”

That same logic should apply to Oregon as well.

USC might have a more difficult path given how heavily criticized the Trojans have been in recent weeks.

All three of them play each other during the regular season. Do any of them make it through unblemished? Utah, UCLA, Oregon State, and Washington State all already have conference losses on the road, and Utah coach Kyle Whittingham has said several times already he doesn’t believe anyone gets through the league schedule unbeaten.

We’ll see.

ESPN’s Football Power Index gives Oregon a 40% chance to make the CFP ahead of Week 7. Washington has a 22.8% chance.