A lot happened on Friday in the ACC. A lot happened on Saturday in the Big 12 and the American. The SEC picture is clearer for now, Notre Dame’s schedule has crested, and the bubble is a busy place. Let’s see what our model makes of it all.
Moving Out: Mississippi, Utah, Memphis
Our model expected Mississippi to lose. They’re not out because they lost. Mississippi is out because Miami lost and is now using an at-large position. We’ll get to Georgia Tech in a moment, but they’re an automatic bid. Mississippi is our first team out.
Our model did not expect Utah to lose, even on the road against BYU. Big win for the Cougars. The Utes are still in the mix, more as an at-large candidate than a Big 12 contender. They’re our fifth team out, currently favored in each of their remaining games.
Our model really did not expect Memphis to lose, favoring them by more than four touchdowns against UAB. That one’s a stunner. Memphis is still a contender for the fifth automatic bid—someone’s gotta get it, and Memphis is still one of the best mid-majors in the country—but they’re firmly out of this week’s bracket.
Moving In: BYU, Georgia Tech, USF
BYU isn’t the Big 12 favorite, even as the only 7–0 team in the conference. They are, however, the only 7–0 team in the Big 12, and they’re one of only five 7–0 teams nationally. The schedule isn’t kind (they’ve got road games left against Texas Tech, Cincinnati, and Iowa State this weekend), but there’s a lot of hay in the barn.
Georgia Tech is also 7–0, and there’s a clear road to 11–1 ahead. After that, it gets tough. Georgia comes to Atlanta, and if Georgia Tech does make the ACC Championship (66% probability), there’s still a chance they’d have to play Miami or Louisville, each of whom would currently be favored over the Yellow Jackets.
Finally, at long last USF enters the field. They need to win the American, and they might need to win out (our model has them an underdog this weekend at Memphis). But they’re in the driver’s seat, with an average final ranking eleven spots better than James Madison’s.
Moving Up: Oregon, Alabama
Oregon and Alabama are into bye spots, and that means we need to do our weekly explainer of what this bracketology is. The short version: It’s every team’s average season lined up in order. What does that mean in this case? We’re not saying the Big Ten will get three byes. We’re saying the three teams with the best average season all play in the Big Ten. Oregon’s average final ranking is 6th. Alabama’s is 9th. Indiana’s is 4th.
That said, our model does see a 15% chance the Big Ten gets three byes. Ohio State, Indiana, and Oregon finishing with two combined losses is the current chalk scenario.
Moving Down: Miami, Texas Tech
Miami’s playoff case is intact—Louisville is one of the best ACC teams to lose to if you’re going to lose to one of them—but it’s dicier than it was at this time Friday. Texas Tech is also still in a good position—the Red Raiders remain the the Big 12 favorites, though they aren’t favored over the field. Both moved down out of byes and into first round home games.
Probabilities, Average Final Rankings
More from the model:
Probabilities, Average Final Rankings (continued)
To be fair, Ohio State’s not 100.0% playoff-likely. They’re 99.6% playoff-likely, per our model. But Ohio State’s our first playoff lock. They will beat at least three of Penn State, Purdue, UCLA, and Rutgers. That’s all they need to do to make the field.
Should we be calling anyone else a lock? It depends how comfortable you are risking being wrong. Our model sees more than a 50% chance at least one of Indiana, Oregon, and Notre Dame misses the field. There’s a lot of football left, and we’ve yet to see what the committee makes of Notre Dame’s first seven games.
Louisville’s knocking on the door behind Georgia Tech, even with the Virginia loss in the bank. They’re our second team out.
USC is third, having not really moved downward after the Notre Dame loss, covering our model’s spread while seeing Michigan play well. USC’s a team our model expects the committee to like more than the AP Poll has. They do need to hope the narrative doesn’t sway the committee, though.
Missouri comes fourth, with a big ol’ game at Vanderbilt this weekend. The SEC’s likeliest to only get three teams in this year, but those might not be the teams you expect. Even between Alabama and Georgia, one bid is likelier than two. There’s so much football left.
The 25 Best Teams
We’re far enough into the season that Movelor, our model’s power rating system, has a pretty good read on just about everybody. There are fair complaints (Is Oregon really seven points better than a team who beat them in Eugene?), but overall, Movelor tells us we’re wrong more than we can tell Movelor it’s off the mark. Notably, Movelor has done really well historically with the best teams in the country, which is an area where Bayesian systems struggle.
So. What is Movelor seeing?
The 25 Best Teams (continued)
It’s still Ohio State followed by everybody else, with the biggest questions surrounding the nature of the second pack. Is Oregon really measurably better than Alabama, Notre Dame, Georgia, and Indiana? It’s hard to say. Right now, they probably are. It’s hard to lead Rutgers 56–3 after three quarters. I’m not sure any of those other teams can do that. At the end of the season, though? Alabama and Georgia have Oregon beat on depth, and in related news, Oregon has a history of late-season underperformance under Dan Lanning. They no-showed against Washington in the 2023 Pac-12 Championship. Ohio State ran them off the field in last year’s Rose Bowl. Before he lost to Indiana, we called Lanning the best regular season coach in the country. Is he now the second-best?
The other question is whether Texas belongs with Indiana or back with Mississippi, LSU, Miami, and the rest. Watching the Longhorns, it’s easy to say they belong behind at least the guys from Oxford, but Movelor’s not based on nothing, and Texas did just kind of whoop an Oklahoma team who went and kind of whooped South Carolina. The reality is probably that they’re inconsistent, with a high ceiling if they manage to find five offensive linemen who can function alongside each other.
It’s easy to quarrel with Utah’s rating, but they’re another who’s probably inconsistent. They’ve played great football in all but two games. Coincidentally or not, those were their two big games.
Vanderbilt and Oklahoma are both on the rise, but the schedule is an issue for both. That doesn’t impact how good they are, but it does impact whether they’re serious playoff contenders. Each needs another win to really enter that conversation.
What to make of Penn State? Obviously, they’ve fallen, but at the same time, Penn State almost beat an Iowa team who’s quietly having a very good year. Right now, they look more like last year’s USC—a team who missed expectations but was better than their record—than last year’s Florida State. The reality here is that we don’t know, and Movelor can’t know. We should probably update it to allow for more elasticity after a head coach change. For now, we’d say Ohio State and Indiana, their next two opponents, should think of them as similar to Illinois. Not great, but dangerous.
Last, we should address Georgia Tech, since they’re a “top ten” team. They’re 26th on Movelor’s list. They’re absolutely accomplished—it’s hard to win seven straight games against just about anybody—and they might be better than average in close games, with Brent Key not amazing at game management but evidently spectacular at instilling confidence. The fact is that the results we’ve seen from them don’t point towards a team who can reliably compete with teams in that top six, seven, or eight. They’ll get at least one chance to prove us wrong. In the meantime, they just need to keep taking care of business.
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