There are certain college football teams in whom it is difficult to feel authentic belief, recipients of hesitant hype over the years always answered by nationally broadcast faceplants. I’d imagine Iowa State may be one of those teams for those of you untethered from the school. NC State is one for me.
It was 2017 when NC State first nearly broke through under Dave Doeren. A win at ranked Florida State lifted the Wolfpack to the edge of the AP Top 25. A win against Syracuse at home toppled them over the edge. Two wins and an idle week later, they went to South Bend, Indiana with a 6-1 record good enough to earn them recognition as the 14th-best team in the nation. They lost by three touchdowns. They finished the season 9-4. Florida State finished the season 7-6.
The script has repeated itself in the years since. The Wolfpack went to Clemson in 2018 ranked 16th. They lost by 34. They entered the Top 25 after a 4-1 start in 2020, then lost by nearly four touchdowns in Chapel Hill. They were crushed in the 2018 Gator Bowl. They lost the 2020 Gator Bowl close. Their Holiday Bowl appearance was canceled by Covid.
The thing about NC State, and about teams like them, is that they aren’t on the verge of some championship when the reality hits. The thing about NC State, and teams like them, is that they’re merely on the verge of clearly deserving attention. And so it is again that they go to Clemson tomorrow as a “top ten” team.
Movelor, our college football model’s rating system, has its flaws, but with an historic average error of 13.1 points on the final scoring margin, I personally trust it more than the AP Poll. The AP Poll has NC State 10th. Movelor has NC State 25th. Movelor does, though, only have Clemson 12th in the country, and its 8.6-point projected margin for the game is comparable to the 6.5-point spread betting markets currently offer on the game (I do trust betting markets more than Movelor). In short, while we disagree on how good NC State is, our disagreement on how good Clemson is leads us to a similar impression of tomorrow’s game: Clemson’s a clear favorite, but NC State should keep it close.
The Big Ones
Of the nine teams our model forecasts as 10.0% likely or likelier to be selected for the College Football Playoff, two play teams sitting at 1.0% likely or likelier. Of the remaining eleven next in line—the eleven teams between 1.0% and 10.0% who don’t play one of those likeliest teams from the last sentence—four play games against each other. That leaves us with four big games this weekend.
One is NC State at Clemson. Our model, despite only having Doeren’s team ranked 25th in the country, views them as the 10th-likeliest team to make the playoff, a phenomenon rooted in the thorough mediocrity of the ACC. Win, and NC State becomes the Atlantic Division’s effective leader. Lose, their playoff chances will drop near zero and Clemson’s will increase substantially, the Tigers having beaten one of their challenging opponents.
Another is Oklahoma State at Baylor. A rematch of last year’s Big 12 Championship, this game comes with the conference on the playoff ropes, Oklahoma and Iowa State’s losses leaving the league with just one legitimate contender. That contender, the Pokes, is not widely recognized as one of the nation’s best teams. Movelor likes them. Other ratings systems we respect (FPI, SP+) do not. The Big 12 would like Oklahoma State to win, but it’s worth noting that Baylor’s only loss—a double-overtime road defeat to respected BYU—is unlikely to disqualify. Baylor’s issue isn’t that it has a bad loss. It’s that it has a loss at all, and that this early in the season, nearly everyone is expected to lose at least once more. Still, with Clemson merely medium and Utah saddled with a loss itself, the Bears come in two spots below NC State in the playoff likelihood pecking order. So, large playoff stakes in Waco. With an Oklahoma State win, the Cowboys’ playoff chances may rise as high as the top five. With a Baylor win, the Big 12 will likely lack a single team over 10.0% (but may still retain four at 1.0% or higher, matching their current number).
Our third is Mississippi’s visit from Kentucky. Lane Kiffin and Mark Stoops each lack a clear playoff path, sharing respective divisions with Alabama and Georgia, but the 11-1 route from an SEC team always looks enticing, and it’s especially so in a year with our mediocre ACC and our already-lost-once Utah and our mostly-defeated Big 12. This is a game to become the first team on the wait list.
Finally, UCLA hosts Washington! Ranked 34th and 46th in the country by Movelor (yikes), the pair is undefeated and neither has to go to Salt Lake City, making this a game we might completely fail to notice were the situation different but looms large given what the situation is. Elimination game. Friday night. Washington’s trying to prove they really are bouncing back. UCLA’s trying to convince everyone they aren’t a terrible football team.
The Good Ones
Behind those four come a pair of Movelor Top 25 matchups. In each, the home team has played itself out of the playoff picture, but they’re still a good team, and they’re hosting a possibly great team. Alabama plays at Arkansas. Iowa hosts Michigan.
For the Tide, a favorite against the field to make the playoff, it’s their first road test since the terror in Austin. Considering how Texas looks right now, belief in the Hogs may be warranted by way of doubt in the Bama offense on the road.
For the Wolverines, the fourth-likeliest playoff team but only half as likely as the third-likeliest to make the cut, this trip to Iowa is an opportunity to bounce back from a tight one against still-unknown Maryland and reassert themselves as a threat to the Buckeyes. Iowa’s struggled on the season, and this may be the last we see of them in the Movelor Top 25 for a few years (God willing), but they’re probably a threat. I don’t like when my favorite team plays at Kinnick. I’d imagine Big Ten powers feel similarly.
The Meaningful Ones
We may be disrespecting Purdue and Oregon State, but with each on the road and neither probably really that good and each only playing a team who’s a playoff contender (neither Minnesota nor Utah is a favorite), they find themselves in this terrain. Minnesota and Utah are trying to keep clear playoff cases alive. They play competent teams.
Also trying to keep clear playoff cases alive are Georgia, Ohio State, and Penn State, the first two of whom are loudly favored to finish in the rankings’ top four. Georgia’s at Mizzou. Ohio State hosts Rutgers. Penn State hosts Northwestern. There’s little more to say than all of that.
The Interesting Ones
Further down the list, games that pop in each conference:
Big 12
Oklahoma and Iowa State each remain north of 1.0% in playoff probability. TCU and Kansas each remain south of 1.0%, but are also undefeated. The Sooners go to Fort Worth. The Cyclones go to Lawrence. How does each team rebound? Are TCU and KU legitimate Big 12 threats? Every combination of outcomes could be spun as positive or negative for the Big 12, but really, the league wants OU and ISU to win. It’s easy to see the Horned Frogs and Jayhawks making progress. It’s hard to see either legitimately threatening a 13-0 campaign. The Big 12’s best playoff chance lies in Oklahoma State. Behind the Pokes, it’s these guys and Baylor. Only after covering those bases do you get to one-bad-loss Kansas State and undefeated TCU (you get to one-loss Texas Tech and two-loss Texas before you sniff Kansas, and to be clear, all of these last five are a maximum of 1-in-300 likely to make the field).
Further down the league, K-State hosts Texas Tech in a matchup of contender hopefuls. As in, they hope to be contenders. Kansas State does have a 1-in-10 shot of winning the league, so they’re already there if you ignore the playoff piece. Texas Tech’s is down at 1-in-25, so they’ve got work to do.
ACC
Florida State remains undefeated, and now hosts still-hyped Wake Forest coming off an emotional loss to Clemson. How good are the Seminoles, really? Well, Las Vegas has them as a 6.5-point favorite, which combines with last week’s Clemson/Wake line and accompanying result to imply they’re about a touchdown worse than the Tigers and only a field goal worse than NC State. Movelor views the situation similarly. Movelor and the market are rather aligned on the top of the ACC.
Remember the Coastal Division? I never do. Or at least, I never remember who plays in it. UNC hosts Virginia Tech, trying to remain a threat to Pitt on that half of the conference. They’re only a nine-point favorite, which speaks to how disappointing this program is under Mack Brown (because Virginia Tech got really disappointing under Justin Fuente before they let him go).
Even lower, I’m ashamed to admit this but I’m honed in on Virginia playing Duke. Duke’s 3-1, the markets liked them against Kansas, the markets like Kansas against Iowa State, and Virginia hasn’t been good (at all) but they have a weird little shot at winning the Coastal, getting all three of Pitt, Miami, and UNC at home.
SEC
Texas A&M goes to Mississippi State. Movelor still likes the Aggies as a Top 25 team. Vegas favors the Bulldogs to beat them. Elsewhere, LSU’s a pretty big (eight points) road favorite in Auburn. Brian Kelly’s team has that loss to Florida State, and it’s way down the SEC West pecking order, but it’s a competent group and Auburn, despite all the drama and how low the second-by-second win probability got against Mizzou, has only lost once, keeping Bryan Harsin momentarily employed. Are they the worst 3-1 team in the country? No. But they’re close enough to make this interesting.
Big Ten
Wisconsin being only a seven-point favorite against Illinois raises some eyebrows. The Badgers have a bad loss by virtue of the opponent and another bad loss by virtue of the margin, but for years now they’ve looked great when they look good and they’ve looked awful when they look bad, and the end result is that Movelor has them a 12-point favorite here even with Movelor accepting Illinois as a top-50 team now at 3-1 (Bret Bielema is one dumb loss against Indiana away from being 4-0).
Not to go full betting interest on this, but Maryland being an eight-point favorite against Michigan State also raises some eyebrows. Are the Terrapins good? The game’s in College Park, and Michigan State’s laid eggs these last two weeks, but Washington is allegedly good and Movelor’s got Minnesota ranked 6th and my impression of Maryland hanging with Michigan was that it was disappointing from Michigan, but maybe I’m wrong.
Pac-12
(vacant)
Group of Five
(Did you know no one in the MAC is above .500?)
The Obligatory Ones
Undefeated teams, teams with a 1.0% playoff shot or better, who they all play:
- Oregon vs. Stanford
- USC vs. Arizona State
- Pitt vs. Georgia Tech
- Coastal Carolina vs. Georgia Southern
- James Madison vs. Texas State
- Syracuse vs. Wagner
**
27 games of note, by my count. Four big ones. Two more good ones. Five that are meaningful. Six that are obligatory. Ten that are interesting. We enter the weekend with three teams more than 70% playoff-likely, nine more than 10% playoff-likely, and 22 more than 1% playoff-likely. The 10% and 1% counts both have to decrease at some point.
