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Disclaimer: This is not exactly how probability works. But it’s kind of how probability works.
Our model’s College Football Playoff probabilities aren’t very outlandish right now. They say Alabama, Ohio State, and Texas are safely in. They say Georgia, Tennessee, and Oregon are all likely in as well. They say Notre Dame and Penn State are more likely to make it than to miss it, and that Miami and Clemson are close to that status themselves. Our model’s projections for Notre Dame and Miami might elicit some public reactions (in different directions), but upon examining accomplishments to date and looking at remaining schedules, I’m not sure those should really be that controversial. Our model is saying pretty normal things. Except…
Except this isn’t exactly what it says.
Our model says one of Alabama, Ohio State, Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Oregon will miss the playoff. It says two of Notre Dame, Penn State, Miami, and Clemson will miss it. It says one of Louisville, BYU, Arizona, Rutgers, and LSU will play in a playoff game. Of the twelve teams our model placed in yesterday’s bracketology, it expects four to drop out by December.
Which four will it be?
We’re going to go through our model’s playoff list in blocks, summing playoff probabilities as we go to provide a benchmark along the way. Within each block, we’ll guess who will make the playoff and who will miss it. If that doesn’t make sense, hopefully it will in a moment. Bear with me.
Block 1: Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, Tennessee, Georgia, Oregon
Total Expected Playoff Teams: 5.3
We could have expanded this block or contracted it by one, but I think this gives us the most interesting group. If you sum these six teams’ current playoff probabilities, you get 5.3 expected playoff teams. More likely than not, one of these six will miss the playoff.
Let’s start with the Big Ten. Ohio State’s remaining games in which it’s currently less than a 90% favorite come against Oregon (A), Penn State (A), and Michigan (H), plus a hypothetical Big Ten Championship opponent. Oregon’s come against Ohio State (H) and Michigan (A), plus that hypothetical Big Ten Championship opponent. On average, each finishes the season 10.9–1.1 in our model’s average simulation. Accordingly, they’re the two likeliest Big Ten Championship participants, followed by Penn State.
In the SEC, the schedules aren’t universally torturous. With Georgia in the rearview, Alabama only plays two more regular season games where their current win probability’s less than 90%: Tennessee (A) and LSU (A). Both those games are on the road, and there’s still the SEC Championship to contend with, but Alabama’s expected to reach that SEC Championship with an 11.3–0.7 record. Texas? With Oklahoma down and Texas A&M not quite up, Texas only has one remaining regular season game as less than a 90% favorite: Georgia (H), where they’d currently be favored by 3.8. They too are looking at 11.3 expected regular season wins. Tennessee? They still have to play both Alabama and Georgia, the former at home and the latter on the road, but those are their only games as less than a 90% favorite. Even in Fayetteville this weekend, the Vols have only a 1-in-14.5 chance to lose. Their average finish isn’t much worse than Ohio State’s or Oregon’s: 10.5–1.5.
Of these four SEC favorites, only Georgia faces more than two regular season games with less than that 90% chance to win. They’ve got Texas (A), Mississippi (A), and Tennessee (H). Everything else is manageable.
Georgia’s only realistic path to the SEC Championship is to beat Texas. But in this case, that might be an advantage. If the Dawgs can finish 10–2 with their only losses coming in Tuscaloosa and Austin, they’ll make the playoff. If the Dawgs finish 9–3, having only lost to those two plus Mississippi or Tennessee? They’ll stand a very strong chance. In simulations in which Georgia finishes the season 9–3, Georgia makes the playoff 87% of the time. That number is better than their current probability, and it includes some simulations where in addition to losing to one of Texas, Mississippi, and Tennessee, UGA goes down against Florida or Georgia Tech. That means Georgia’s playoff probability is probably north of 90% in the scenario where they go 1–3 against Bama, Texas, Lane Kiffin, and the Vols. If they handle their business elsewhere, they only need one big win. If our model’s correct.
As measured by difficult games remaining, Ohio State might have the toughest road of these six favorites. They go to both Eugene and State College and then deal with a likely rematch against one of those two teams in Indianapolis. As we just saw with Georgia, though, difficult schedules aren’t the disadvantage they used to be. As it goes for a quarterback who’s drawn the defense offsides, there’s a good chance some of these games are no-lose propositions. There wasn’t much playoff leverage at stake on Saturday night in Tuscaloosa.
Our pick to miss the playoff from this group, then, is going to be Tennessee. Oklahoma’s projecting to win seven games, and that might be too optimistic. Kentucky is similarly at risk of missing a bowl. Florida is likelier to go 3–9 than 5–7. Arkansas is unlikely to finish with a .500 record.
Tennessee could finish 10–2 without a single ranked win. This would be an absurd situation in a lot of respects, and Tennessee fans would probably rightfully be pissed, but if we’re picking the one most believable path to one of these six missing the field, that’s the one we’d bet on: The Vols losing a bad one or getting passed up for 9–3 Georgia because of schedule strength and a head-to-head result.
Playoff Picks: Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, Georgia, Oregon
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Block 2: Notre Dame, Penn State
Cumulative Expected Playoff Teams: 6.4
Our model doesn’t like Notre Dame’s chances if they go 10–2. Undefeated records from Army and Navy, Texas A&M getting to 4–1, Louisville standing among the ACC co-favorites, and USC looking pretty good just aren’t enough for that strength of schedule in the realm we’re looking at. The NIU loss is really, really bad. Notre Dame does have a chance at 10–2, but it isn’t a good chance.
The thing is: Notre Dame’s pretty likely to go 11–1. They win out in 50.7% of our simulations. Movelor has them as a four-point favorite right now in Los Angeles against USC, and Movelor’s not alone. SP+ also says four points. FPI says one and a half.
As for Penn State: A lot was made preseason about their advantageous schedule, and reasonably so. Penn State is good enough and has done enough already that there’s a 54% chance they finish the regular season 12–0 or 11–1. They do have some tough remaining games—using our 90% favorite threshold to trim the fat, they have tough ones remaining against USC (A), Ohio State (H), and Washington (H), plus a hypothetical Big Ten Championship. The problem is a lot like Tennessee’s: They might not get a ranked win. USC is likeliest to finish 8–4. Illinois is likeliest to finish 8–4. Washington and West Virginia are likeliest to finish 6–6. Notre Dame at least has that Louisville win to hold close to its chest.
Still, Notre Dame has to walk such a tightrope from here, and in a situation this close, Penn State’s marginal advantage of being able to make the Big Ten Championship, even at 10–2 overall, might matter.
Playoff Pick: Penn State
Block 3: James Madison, Miami, Clemson, Kansas State
Cumulative Expected Playoff Teams: 8.3
We need two teams in from this group and two teams out.
We’re going to exclude James Madison. I think our model is overestimating the College Football Playoff committee’s Sun Belt awareness. The Sun Belt is a deep conference, but it doesn’t have much firepower this year, and the committee is full of people whose careers in college football rose at a time when the Sun Belt either didn’t exist or was a MAC-esque punch line. There’s an 89.8% chance at least one of Boise State, UNLV, Tulane, and Memphis finishes 11–2 or better with a conference title. Those schools shouldn’t command any more respect than JMU, nor should their conferences, but I’m afraid they do, and I’m afraid JMU’s lack of opportunities for high-profile wins means they need to run the table. UNC is better right now than all but two AAC teams and three MWC teams. I don’t expect the committee to put that together.
From the other three:
We keep doubting Miami, and I’ll stick to my guns. I think they’ll fall apart, or at least lose enough to miss the twelve-team field. K-State’s already one loss in the hole, but BYU’s average finish lands them within the top 25, and the Wildcats are already through the worst of their schedule. The Tulane win might age well. The Oklahoma State win might age well. The Arizona win is already aging well. If there’s a real altitude issue for Chris Klieman and these guys get upset by Colorado in Boulder, then sure, they’re probably toast. But right now, I believe our model when it calls K-State the Big 12 favorite, just like I believe it when it says Clemson’s the favorite in the ACC.
Playoff Picks: Clemson, Kansas State
Block 4: Mississippi, Louisville, BYU, Boise State, Michigan, Missouri
Cumulative Expected Playoff Teams: 10.0
Again, we’re picking two here.
We’ll take Boise State. They’re a better team than UNLV, they’ll probably get two cracks at UNLV if they do lose the regular season matchup, and the Oregon loss was probably a free play. As for the second…
Louisville gets Miami at home, and we’d pick them in that game, but they have to play both Clemson and Kentucky on the road, and they already have that loss to Notre Dame. We’re in Movelor territory where teams play very few games as 90% favorites, unlike above, where teams play most of their games as 90% favorites. Louisville’s likeliest final record is 9–3, and they have paths to better marks than that. But out of the ACC, that isn’t going to be enough. If we had to guess one Louisville scenario, it’s that they go 7–1 in ACC play but lose to Kentucky, entering the ACC Championship 9–3 and looking for an automatic bid only to get beaten a second time by Clemson.
I think Movelor’s still overrating Michigan, and I don’t fault it for that, but even when they win it’s unlikely to be pretty, which hurts. Should the Wolverines take care of business against all of Washington, Illinois, and Indiana, they could finish 9–3 with losses to Oregon and Ohio State. Their schedule is brutal at the top, and in this case, it might not offer enough meat to make up for the risk.
Mississippi still has to play Georgia, and they’ve got LSU next week on the road (after visiting South Carolina this weekend). They still have to host Oklahoma and travel to Arkansas. Missouri visits College Station this weekend and still has to go to Tuscaloosa and the other Columbia, in addition to hosting Oklahoma. Our model has each of these teams finishing with 9.5 average wins, so you could flip a coin and pick one of them to get through to 10–2. BYU is looking at the same average final record.
None of these teams is particularly likely to make the playoff. I don’t want to pick any of them. That’s the point of this exercise. We need to pick twelve playoff teams, and we’re picking four of those from unlikely portions of the curve. We’re going to go with Michigan from this group. The nice thing about the Big Ten is that it might be able to sneak one of its lesser teams into the top 25, whereas those teams are going to get eaten alive in the SEC. Michigan could get through via appearances and an instinct to balance the SEC and Big Ten.
Playoff Picks: Boise State, Michigan
Block 5: Iowa State, Arizona, UNLV, Liberty, USC, Utah, SMU, Rutgers, LSU, Duke, Tulane
Cumulative Expected Playoff Teams: 11.504
We’re keeping this block as tight as we can as we look for our last two teams. We could go further down the list, into Indiana, Army, Washington State, and Cal, but the longshots only get longer the further we progress.
For the first big longshot, we’re going with LSU. The Tigers already have that loss to USC, and it might not age well. They still have some tough road games, most notably a trip to College Station at the end of October. But they have a lot of upside at home, with all three of Mississippi, Alabama, and Oklahoma coming to Baton Rouge. The likeliest thing is that they go 1–2 against those three and drop one elsewhere as well. But they might not drop one elsewhere, and they might go 2–1, and USC might finish the season in the top 25 or even in the playoff mix themselves. There’s a nightmare LSU scenario for the committee where the Tigers upset Alabama but finish alongside USC at 9–3, but in that case, maybe they both get in. We’ll take LSU as our first longshot.
For the second, we’ll roll with our bias and take Iowa State on the following grounds:
Between Iowa and the totality of ISU’s Big 12 schedule, there’s a good chance three or four wins end up ranked. I don’t like the Cyclones to sweep the Utah/K-State two-week stretch at the end of the year, but can they split that pair? I think they can. Pull that off and go 6–1 against the remainder of the schedule, including a Big 12 Championship opponent, and Iowa State might get in at 11–2. Recency bias could be a challenge, with the three hypothetical toughest games all lumped together at the end of the year, but that could also be a benefit: Iowa State could lose to someone like West Virginia yet go on to finish the year strong, closing with a 2–1 record in three combined games against Utah and K-State. In short: There are paths.
Playoff Picks: Iowa State, LSU
Summing It Up
What do we have now? The following 12-team field. To be clear, this isn’t the likeliest playoff. Iowa State, LSU, Boise State, and Michigan are each very unlikely to make the playoff field. What is likely is that the playoff field will look something like this. Five of the six current favorites will make it. We’ll probably get one of Penn State and Notre Dame. Clemson or Miami will probably bow out. A few teams will arrive on the scene whom we aren’t currently expecting. There is so much season left to play.
1. Alabama (12–1)
2. Ohio State (12–1)
3. Clemson (11–2)
4. Kansas State (11–2)
5. Texas (12–1)
6. Oregon (12–1)
7. Penn State (11–1)
8. Georgia (9–3)
9. LSU (9–3)
10. Michigan (9–3)
11. Iowa State (11–2)
12. Boise State (11–2)
Who, in this scenario, misses the playoff field? Tennessee, Notre Dame, and Miami among the current industry favorites. James Madison, among our model’s current picks. Missouri, among the current high-profile contenders. BYU and Louisville, among the smart sleepers. There is so much season left to play.
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If you’re looking for all of our post-Week 5 and pre-Week 6 material (or at least what’s out so far), here’s the list:
- Our model’s latest CFP probabilities.
- Our model’s latest CFP bracketology.
- Our Week 5 recap, with some theorizing on Kalen DeBoer’s performance at Alabama so far.
- NIT Stu’s Week 5 Vibe Check, with an ode to the ACC Replay Command Center.
- Movelor’s Week 6 picks.
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