College Football Playoff Bracketology: Week 3, 2024

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, through which you can access CFP probabilities, national championship probabilities, single-game spreads, and more.

We still don’t have graphics yet (maybe tomorrow—check Twitter and Instagram), but hopefully this gets the information across. Notes below.

Cotton Bowl Side

First Round: 9-seed Mississippi at 8-seed Penn State
First Round: 12-seed Liberty at 5-seed Georgia

Sugar Bowl: 1-seed Texas vs. PSU/Miss winner
Fiesta Bowl: 4-seed Kansas State vs. Georgia/Liberty winner

Orange Bowl Side

First Round: 10-seed Tennessee at 7-seed Michigan
First Round: 11-seed Oregon at 6-seed Alabama

Rose Bowl: 2-seed Ohio State vs. Michigan/Tennessee winner
Peach Bowl: 3-seed Clemson vs. Alabama/Oregon winner

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The big move this week is Texas jumping Georgia for the top overall seed. The Longhorns have always had the better SEC schedule than the Dawgs—they host Georgia in Austin and don’t face any road tests tougher than Texas A&M—but after yesterday, our model now believes they’re good enough to capitalize on that, labeling them the new SEC favorite. This bumps Georgia down to the 5-seed, setting up a potential semifinal showdown with…Texas. Between the meeting in October and the SEC Championship, that could be a best-of-three series. With two games in Texas compared to one in Georgia (in this hypothetical), the Longhorns would theoretically have home-field advantage. In reality, the SEC Championship (the game in Georgia) will likely decide whether the SEC champion lines up on the Orange Bowl or Cotton Bowl side of the bracket. If Texas is the 1-seed, they’ll be on the Cotton Bowl side. If it’s Georgia, they should be on the Orange Bowl side.

Ohio State’s the new Big Ten favorite, although that’s only new to our model, which was very high on Michigan (as we’ve discussed elsewhere, our model really prioritizes where teams finished last year, which is generally good but sometimes bad). Awaiting them in the Rose Bowl? Well, it’ll depend in part on whether our model’s still too high on the Wolverines. If Michigan’s able to right the ship, we could conceivably see Michigan play Ohio State in Pasadena, which could be a lot of fun.

Clemson flips back ahead of Kansas State on the back of that App State beatdown, but K-State—who beat Tulane yesterday in New Orleans—does remain the Big 12 favorite.

Tennessee moves into our bracket with Notre Dame moving out. The Irish aren’t dead, but they’re a whole lot deader than Tennessee.

Oregon continues to drop despite winning. This can only happen for so long, but the takeaway here is that the Ducks are disappointing their preseason expectations. They should have beaten both Idaho and Boise State by greater margins than they did. Their average final CFP ranking is 14^th, and their playoff probability is now almost exactly 50%.

Liberty takes over the Group of Five spot, and Liberty’s an interesting case. Ranked only 71^st in Division I by our model, the Flames are projected to go 10–2. Still, they’re such a big favorite to win Conference USA (51.7%) that of the Group of Five conference favorites, they’re the likeliest to make the playoff field (18.5%). It’s pretty unlikely, but it’s likelier right now than it is for Memphis or Boise. If Liberty loses even one game, their playoff chance is probably done.

An early look at some big Week 3 games, for bracket purposes:

• Kansas State hosts Arizona on Friday night, trying to establish themselves more strongly as Big 12 favorites. Right now, our model’s higher on K-State than the markets are. The markets favor Utah, who visits Utah State.
• Memphis—the strongest challenger to Liberty for that 12^th seed right now—plays at Florida State on Saturday, trying to get to 3–0 and send the Seminoles to 0–3. Our model has the line around FSU –10.5, but our model might be a little high on FSU. Either way, a win would put the Tigers into the Group of Five driver’s seat.
• Texas State hosts Arizona State on Thursday. The Bobcats are Sun Belt favorites in the markets, and Arizona State’s played well to start the year. Big opportunity for the little guy.
• While K-State plays Arizona, UNLV will be visiting Kansas an hour or two to the east. UNLV’s started the year hot and is picking up hype in the Mountain West. An upset would make it very interesting between them and Boise State in early projections.
• Missouri, one of our first teams out, hosts Boston College in their biggest test so far. Mizzou shouldn’t be tested too significantly—that’d make their playoff chance look a little worse—but this will tell us more than the Tigers’ games against Murray State and Buffalo, impressive though those may have been.

Overall, it’s more of a bubble weekend, and this early in the season, the bubble may or may not end up looking like it looks right now. Still, we’ll learn a lot from another week of college football. We always do.

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Here’s how the model’s projections have changed week over week: