I'm not saying it's an excuse that they have 5 players ineligible, but some of the reason this just magically came down championship week comes from the fact that they have the goofiest academic schedule I've ever seen.
They are on quarters, and Winter Quarter already started this past Wednesday, so this is their ineligibility from failing Fall. Most schools on quarters (and all on semesters) would still have their players until the season was over since the new term wouldn't kick in until January.
Why is that goofy? It doesn't make sense for the first quarter to end at the same time as other schools' first semester, unless you want the third quarter to run into June. I thought the norm on quarters was for the first quarter to end at Thanksgiving, and then the second quarter runs from December 1 until Spring break, and the third quarter would run from then until mid-May.
Compared to the 2 quarter schedules that were always used around here (the way we did it, and the way Ohio State did it - which was a later shifted fall quarter compared to us and identical winter and spring), it comes off as odd.
I see the advantage to it, as they get out in May, it just creates a lot of random breaks mid-quarter (they have 2 weeks off coming up already for Christmas, they take 3 days for Mardi Gras, they take en extended weekend for Easter, etc.), whereas the way the Ohio schools did it kept it as 10 straight weeks with the breaks all in between quarters.