Texas Tech threw a party at BYU’s expense. Oregon escaped its Big Ten West immersion program. Texas A&M is thriving, Notre Dame looked the part, Indiana survived Penn State’s best, and…oh yeah.
The whole ACC might miss the playoff.
Our model’s latest bracketology:
Moving In: Utah, USF, James Madison
Would Utah really make the playoff ahead of BYU? Sure! The committee showed last week that it’s lower on BYU than on other ranked Big 12 teams. The committee showed last week that as usual, it views close losses on the road differently from other losses.
But our model isn’t saying that Utah will make the playoff. (It’s got them at 42%, with an average final ranking of 13th.) Our model isn’t saying that Utah will be ranked ahead of BYU this week. (We’ll publish our CFP Rankings preview tomorrow.) Our model’s saying that out of Utah, BYU, Oklahoma, Miami, Texas, and USC—those teams expected to finish next behind Notre Dame in the final rankings—Utah has the best average résumé.
As for the two mid-majors…
First, just an acknowledgment that USF’s the new favorite in the American after Memphis went down against Tulane. Besides that:
Moving Out: BYU, Virginia, Memphis
Virginia’s out of this week’s bracket and probably all future brackets after losing to Wake Forest. Louisville also took a bad home loss, theirs to Cal. Duke went on the road against independent UConn and lost their fourth game of the season. Virginia was the one in the bracket, so Virginia’s the one who moves out, but the bigger story is the entire ACC’s absence from this bracket.
The ACC should be fine eventually. In only 14% of our simulations does the entire ACC actually miss the playoff. Even when Duke wins the ACC at 9–4, the ACC gets somebody into this thing 60% of the time. But the ACC is in some real danger of missing the playoff, and more precisely, the ACC champion is in danger of missing the playoff.
The ACC isn’t out of our bracket because James Madison has a better average résumé than everyone in the ACC. They don’t. The ACC is out because out of all nine conference favorites, theirs—SMU right now, at least per our model—has the sixth-best average résumé. There are five automatic bids. So, our model is giving the fifth to JMU rather than SMU. Because JMU is aimed at a finish better than SMU’s.
It’s fair to ask whether the committee would actually rank 12–1 JMU ahead of even 9–4 Duke if push came to shove. The committee is told to rank teams, not conferences, but they know the implications of what they’re doing. There would be a lot of noise if the ACC missed the playoff entirely. A little of it might even have a point. For right now, we’ll give you the following playoff probabilities:
- At least one team from the American: 73%
- James Madison: 42%
- At least one team from the ACC: 86%
JMU’s still in need of help.
(If you follow our model closely and are wondering about the impacts or lack thereof of FPA: JMU has a big negative FPA, but it could get bigger. SMU and Duke have no FPA yet in our model’s eyes because they were so far outside the top 25. Most likely, their FPA will be negative if they ever get close enough to the top 25 for us to know about it. That was the case with three of the five ranked ACC teams last week. What does this mean? Our model might still be overvaluing JMU. It’s probably overvaluing SMU and Duke too, though.)
Moving Up: Texas A&M
Our model doesn’t know about Missouri’s quarterback situation, but it does know Texas A&M put a whooping on the Tigers in Columbia. They’re still only 32% likely to get a bye, but they have the best average finish in the SEC.
Moving Down: Mississippi
No harm by Mississippi in their win over The Citadel, but A&M and Georgia both won big, so it’s the Rebs who slide out of the first round bye for now.
Playoff Probabilities, Average Final Rankings
What matters more…
Playoff Probabilities, Average Final Rankings (continued)
The chalk scenario here is that all of Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A&M, Georgia, Texas Tech, Mississippi, Alabama, Notre Dame, and Oregon make the playoff, with two more automatic bids leaving one remaining spot for an at-large. That’s decently likely—39%, per our model—but it’s likelier that more chaos comes down the pipe.
Similarly, both USF and JMU are likelier to miss the playoff than make it, even though each could be called the favorite in a different way (JMU by probability, USF by average final ranking). Lots left to happen all over the country.
Alabama’s average ranking coming in so low is mostly a reflection of how much risk is left on their schedule plus uncertainty over how much the loser of the SEC Championship will be punished for losing that game.
How Good Is Everybody Right Now?
Movelor’s top 25:
How Good Is Everybody Right Now? (continued)
Something to remember about Texas A&M is that they Aggies have played five of the worst seven teams in the SEC. They’ll play a sixth from that group this weekend. LSU was their only opponent so far from the top half of the league. They beat Notre Dame in South Bend, and they keep handling business, but that’s the question mark, especially with a few hints of concern on the defensive side. We’re not saying they’re bad, but they aren’t as proven as we assume a 9–0 SEC team is before we take a look through the schedule.
Georgia has almost caught Alabama. Keep an eye on those two as depth gets tested more and more. So many world-class athletes, which translates to so much more resilience than rosters like Indiana and so much more upside than rosters like Notre Dame.
We’ve wondered where Penn State would land under its interim, and so far the Nittany Lions still look like a top-20 team. It could still fall apart, but that’s what they’ve been showing. They’ll have a lot of players drafted this April.
BYU is further down than I would have guessed, and that’s with Texas Tech failing to convert some touchdown opportunities. (Movelor is pretty much purely scoring-based. Does a good job, though. Only a fifth of a point less accurate than Las Vegas this week.) That shouldn’t be disappointing for the Cougars—who expected them to only have one loss halfway through November—but it’s telling how close they are to the bottom half of the SEC.
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