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Richard Shiro/Associated Press

Every college football team can look back on a previous campaign and point toward a specific game that changed the course of the season.

However, a majority of those contests were losses that essentially ended a program's aspirations. Only a handful of teams exit a respective year able to forget the "what-if" scenarios.

The list of the 2016 season's make-or-break games is ordered using Bleacher Report's most recent preseason top 25.

Each contest could ruin national championship hopes, conference title dreams or—in cases in which neither of those achievements are likely—chances at a meaningful victory in a rivalry matchup.