This bracketology is our college football model’s best current prediction of where the College Football Playoff field will ultimately land. It is not a reflection of where things currently stand. Here’s a link to an explanation of how it all works. Here’s another link to our model’s homepage, where you can access CFP probabilities, national championship probabilities, single-game spreads, and more.
Cotton Bowl Side
First Round: 9-seed Tennessee at 8-seed Indiana
First Round: 12-seed Boise State at 5-seed Ohio State
Rose Bowl: 1-seed Oregon vs. IU/Tenn winner
Fiesta Bowl: 4-seed BYU vs. OSU/Boise winner
Orange Bowl Side
First Round: 10-seed Alabama at 7-seed Notre Dame
First Round: 11-seed SMU at 6-seed Georgia
Peach Bowl: 2-seed Miami vs. ND/Bama winner
Sugar Bowl: 3-seed Texas vs. UGA/SMU winner
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The movement this week:
- With Clemson’s loss to Louisville and another dominant Miami fourth quarter, the Hurricanes not only take over as ACC favorites, but rise to a higher average final CFP ranking than Texas, making them our bracket’s 2-seeed.
- With Ohio State’s win in State College, the Buckeyes pass Georgia back for the 5-seed.
- Indiana rises into the field, and far, leapfrogging not only Penn State and Clemson (both of whom dropped out) but Tennessee, Alabama, and SMU. What happened here? The sheer dominance of the Hoosiers’ win 1) should impress the committee and 2) portends stronger performance going forward, even if Movelor, our model’s power rating system, has the Hoosiers a 13-point underdog in Columbus as things currently stand.
- SMU also rises into the field on the heels of the dominant win over Pitt. SMU is now narrowly likelier to finish ACC play unbeaten than not.
More details:
- The College Football Playoff rankings will affect all of this. Up to this point, our model has received no indication of what the committee might be thinking. We’ll drop in the rankings tonight, and things will probably move around. I’d especially watch where Notre Dame, SMU, and Penn State land. Speaking of whom…
- Penn State is the first team out, though our model’s probabilities do still have the Nittany Lions likelier than not to make the field. 13 teams are currently over 50% likely. Someone’s gotta go.
- Behind Penn State: Mississippi, Louisville, and Clemson make up the rest of our First Four Out. That’s going by average final ranking, though. Kansas State has a higher playoff probability than both Louisville and Clemson. So does Iowa State. Tulane, LSU, and Texas A&M all have a higher probability than Louisville. “First Four Out” is trickier with football than basketball. Louisville should finish the season in or around the top 20, but they don’t have much of a path to the top 12.
- Our model projects 9.9 of these 12 teams to make the playoff, by far its largest number yet. We’re zeroing in on the real field, but in addition to the Penn State overcrowding, our model expects at least one more surprise.
- The SEC rises back to 3.6 expected teams after dropping to 3.4 last week, with Texas A&M’s loss unsurprising to our model, Mississippi showing strength, and the Big 12 and ACC teams collectively suffering as Clemson, K-State, and Iowa State went down. This isn’t a badge of honor for SEC also-rans as much as an indication that it’s likelier we’ll see four of the league’s five contenders make it, as opposed to only three. This is good news for Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, the SEC teams most on the bubble.
- The Big Ten is up to 3.3 projected teams, having sat at 3.0 a week ago. There’s a very clear path to four bids now that Indiana is two wins away from 11–1.
- Combined, the ACC and Big 12 dropped to 3.0 projected playoff teams after sending 3.7 last week. It was a great week for SMU, Miami, and BYU (who was idle), but Iowa State, Kansas State, and Clemson are on varying degrees of life support (we’d still narrowly expect one of those three to make it, with the simplest route involving BYU losing the conference championship to somebody).
- There are now only five Group of Five teams with better than a 1-in-100 playoff shot. Memphis and Navy lost, and while Western Kentucky won, their path was and is dependent upon chaos elsewhere. In probability order, the five now go Boise State (by a mile), Tulane, Army, Louisiana, and UNLV.
- One last thing to remember here: This is in many ways a lineup of teams’ average finishes. Those average finishes themselves are different from how they rank, compared with one another. With so much SEC action remaining and such a strong chance Indiana loses to Ohio State, Notre Dame and Indiana have average seeds of 8 and 9, not 7 and 8. Currently, though, they’re in the 7th and 8th-best positions. This is a flaw with all bracketologies, but especially with football. It would be more accurate if we said that one of Alabama and Tennessee and Mississippi will probably end up ahead of the Hoosier State pair, and two will most likely end up behind them.
Turning to Week 11:
- It’s an SEC weekend, headlined by Georgia going to Mississippi in a must-win game for the home team and Alabama going to LSU in a must-win game for both parties. Alabama can make the playoff at 9–3, but they’ll need help.
- In the Big 12, BYU’s on the road at Utah for the Holy War, while Iowa State goes to Kansas, Colorado goes to Texas Tech, and Kansas State gets the week off. All three of those four contenders in action are favored by fewer than four points right now. We might see a lot of Big 12 tumult.
- Georgia Tech’s next up for Miami. Indiana and Penn State host Michigan and Washington, respectively. I would guess the math says it’s likeliest one of those three will take an upset loss.
We’ll have another update tonight or tomorrow, baby-permitting, once the College Football Rankings are out. We’ll be publishing our model’s estimate of that Top 25 shortly.
How the picture’s changed, week by week:
