College Football Playoff Rankings, Week 13: Washington vs. Florida State, post-Jordan Travis

There’s going to be a lot of talk about Jordan Travis tonight on the College Football Playoff ranking reveal. The Florida State quarterback is injured, out for the season, and there’s no debate more arbitrary and simultaneously consequential than whether the CFP committee should consider injuries to key players. They say they consider it—that’s well-documented—but the word “deserve” gets a workout in these conversations. Sure, Florida State isn’t as good without their Heisman-contender quarterback, but do they *deserve* the fourth-place ranking? That will be what’s talked about.

The result of this is that although Washington changed its résumé with a road win over a highly-regarded opponent, and although wins like that are likelier than injuries to sway the committee, we’re going to hear about the injury. To be clear, then: Washington would probably jump FSU tonight anyway. Their 11–0 is better than that of FSU.

Our college football model doesn’t consider Jordan Travis’s injury. This isn’t an oversight. There’s not a lot of historic precedent which suggests that the committee cares about these things directly. In some doomsday scenario where the top four doesn’t clearly sort itself out and Tate Rodemaker’s Seminoles survive Florida and Louisville but look weak in the process, perhaps the injury will bite Florida State. This scenario is unlikely, though. More likely, either Florida State will lose one of these next two games or other contenders will go down and clear the area.

In the meantime, we have new CFP rankings tonight. Here’s how our model’s projected top 25 shakes out, with more notes below.

After Washington and FSU, the next change our model predicts is Alabama jumping Texas. This is very unlikely to actually happen this week. It’s a byproduct of how close the two teams’ résumés are. Overall, given where each résumé stands and what the committee’s shown us it thinks of each team, our model expects Alabama to jump Texas, but the committee won’t pick that fight this week, and our model will adjust accordingly. Mississippi, LSU, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Iowa are all in similar boats. Our model is entirely résumé-based (including in how it estimates the effects of things like the eye test), and that generally is how CFP committees treat this process, but it would be helpful to add some horse-race elements to the model’s predictions of how the committee will act. Those elements do exist.

More interestingly, and of much more practical importance, this list has Louisville jumping Missouri. Missouri struggled to escape Florida at home. Louisville got its new second-best win of the season on the road at Miami. It’s possible the committee is intentionally holding Louisville behind Missouri to signal that the Cardinals don’t have any playoff chance, even if they win the ACC, but theirs was a résumé-changing win, whereas Missouri’s was a win that called into question top-ten Tigers assertions. This and FSU vs. Washington are the only questions tonight with any playoff relevance. Louisville is looking for an indication they have a path, and with FSU now perceived (correctly) to be a lesser opponent, they can no longer place as much weight on the hope of a résumé-changing win over the Seminoles. Jordan Travis’s injury obviously affects Florida State more than it affects Louisville, but it might affect Louisville’s playoff chance more than it affects Florida State’s.

Where Oregon State lands after its loss will be interesting and could conceivably have some New Year’s Six effects. Given how much the committee liked the Beavers last week, our model expects them to still outrank two-loss Oklahoma and two-loss Iowa despite having three losses themselves. Losses, though, sometimes convince the committee to pull a team back towards where precedent would suggest they should land. If you took away all the FPA the committee has granted (FPA is Forgiveness/Punishment Adjustment, our model’s measure of how far the committee deviates from precedent with each team), Oregon State would rank 18^th. When we add a very basic horse-race approach to our model, it pushes Oregon State to 15^th.

The Group of Five picture is interest. Tulane, Toledo, Liberty, and SMU are all expected by our model to be ranked this week, with Troy and UNLV close outside and James Madison theoretically also in the mix. (We don’t think this will happen, but we’re unaware of any NCAA rule saying the committee can’t rank James Madison, and with James Madison likely to end up bowl-eligible through a shortage of six-win teams, the Sun Belt and the CFP committee could—as we understand the rules—open up a path for JMU to earn themselves the Group of Five’s New Year’s Six invitation.)

Of what our model sees, Toledo’s ranking is likely the one most out of whack with what the committee will do. Our model has observed and accounted for the committee’s treatment of Liberty for weeks, because Liberty’s had a rankings-adjacent résumé for weeks by traditional standards (the non-traditional piece for Liberty is just how bad Conference USA is). Our model hasn’t seen the committee brush Toledo aside because Toledo hasn’t been close enough to get itself addressed at all. Still, the Rockets are 10–1, their only loss was close and on the road against a power conference team (who might make a bowl), and they’ve generally beaten teams soundly. They’re somewhere in the conversation, no doubt, and with Utah likely to drop out of the top 25, UNC and Kansas also losing, and Tennessee picking up their fourth loss, some of the best options for Power Five teams in this section of the rankings are teams like Texas A&M, who just fired Jimbo Fisher, and NC State, who has three losses and few impressive performances in a bad league. Our best guess is that Toledo won’t be ranked and that Clemson will enter the top 25 in their place. If you’re keeping track at home, we’d say the likeliest top 25 tonight is:

1. Georgia
2. Ohio State
3. Michigan
4. Washington
5. Florida State
6. Oregon
7. Texas
8. Alabama
9. Louisville
10. Missouri
11. Penn State
12. Mississippi
13. Oklahoma
14. LSU
15. Oregon State
16. Iowa
17. Arizona
18. Notre Dame
19. Oklahoma State
20. Kansas State
21. Tulane
22. Tennessee
23. SMU
24. Liberty
25. Clemson

Along the important cut lines, this ranking would signal that 1) Washington has done enough to push themselves ahead of Florida State if both win out (something still harder for Washington to do than FSU), that 2) Louisville has earned their way past Missouri for now, and that 3) the Group of Five NY6 bid will likely go to the AAC champion but that Liberty leads Troy and UNLV. That’s our guess. Regardless of whether that guess is right or wrong, those are the three areas to watch.