Update, 11/29: We aren’t editing anything below, but a few notes…
- Notre Dame enters today down to an 89% playoff probability in our simulations.
- Texas Tech and BYU are indeed guaranteed to meet in the Big 12 Championship.
- Texas A&M is out of the SEC Championship. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as explained below.
- Texas did lose to Florida, you know. But with Alabama the more immediate threat, Florida beating Florida State would probably be preferable for us. That isn’t listed below, and is probably too marginal to matter, but I guess you never know.
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We got a request for a blogpost detailing Notre Dame’s rooting interests this weekend. Here’s what we can give you, with help from our model, our conference championship tiebreaker scenarios, and Joe Stunardi’s chaos probability guide.
We’ll go through the games one by one, adding probabilities where we have them and explanations where necessary. As a baseline, Notre Dame enters the weekend 92% likely to make the playoff, per our simulations.
Friday, 12:00 PM EST: Mississippi State over Mississippi
Impact: Large
Likelihood: Medium
Our model does not account for whether Lane Kiffin leaves Ole Miss after the Egg Bowl and makes the school promote an interim coach for the postseason. That scenario can’t hurt us, but it’s not something to hope on. What our model does say is that Notre Dame’s 91% playoff-likely if the Rebels win and 96% playoff-likely if they lose.
Friday, 12:00 PM EST: Kansas over Utah
Impact: Small
Likelihood: Medium
Utah isn’t going to jump us so long as we beat Stanford, but there are two tiny, tiny, tiny angles where the Big 12 could be a 3-bid league. One involves Utah winning the Big 12 Championship.
Friday, 3:30 PM EST: Georgia over Georgia Tech
Impact: Small
Likelihood: High
This doesn’t change things very much for us, but it wouldn’t hurt to see Georgia Tech eliminated.
Friday, 7:30 PM EST: No Interest in Texas A&M vs. Texas
Impact: Subjective
Likelihood: Medium
There are fringe benefits either way here.
If Texas A&M wins, our loss looks that little bit better and we don’t have to worry about Texas making an argument to jump us based on their win over a common opponent.
If Texas wins, Alabama is likelier to lose the SEC Championship should they make it. Alabama’s our likeliest bubble competition if we do have bubble competition. We’d rather they play Georgia than Texas A&M.
For what it’s worth, our model very narrowly indicates we should root for Texas here. 92.26% vs. 92.16%.
Friday, 9:00 PM EST: Arizona over Arizona State
Impact: Small
Likelihood: Medium
If Arizona wins, Texas Tech and BYU are guaranteed to meet in the Big 12 Championship. Ideally, one or both would lose before that happens, but the best the Big 12 could do in that scenario would probably be to get two bids. This eliminates the chance that all three of Texas Tech, BYU, and Arizona State all make it, and it lessens the chance that Texas Tech, BYU, and Utah all make it. (If Utah’s already lost, that chance is gone anyway.)
Saturday, 12:00 PM EST: Ohio State over Michigan
Impact: Medium
Likelihood: Medium
Michigan might jump us if they beat Ohio State. Yes, we beat USC who beat them, but they’d also have the most impressive win in the country. Ohio State over Michigan does move the needle in our simulations, pushing Notre Dame up to 93% independently of other results.
Saturday, 12:00 PM EST: West Virginia over Texas Tech
Impact: Large
Likelihood: Low
This is unlikely, but if it happens, we jump to a 96% playoff probability. Texas Tech can survive a loss in the Big 12 Championship, but it probably can’t survive this loss unless it gets a lot of help. We really want the Big 12 to be a one-bid league.
Saturday, 12:00 PM EST: Pitt over Miami
Impact: Large
Likelihood: Medium
This pushes us to 94%, and it eliminates the most annoying scenario, which is that we have to continue to spend these next few weeks hearing about Miami beating us head-to-head, as though there’s anything else on their résumé which favors them over Notre Dame. (Yes, we should have won that game and we should have beaten Texas A&M. No, Miami isn’t better than us, and they definitely don’t have a better résumé than ours.)
Saturday, 1:00 PM EST: UCF over BYU
Impact: Large
Likelihood: Low
The magnitude of the impact here depends on what else has happened in the Big 12. Nothing short of losses by all three of Texas Tech, BYU, and Utah can guarantee us a one-bid Big 12, but losses by Texas Tech and BYU individually would at least help the cause.
Saturday, 3:30 PM EST: Washington over Oregon
Impact: Large
Likelihood: Medium
Like a poker player on a flush draw, we have a lot of outs. But as the weekend goes on, those can dwindle. If we get to this point and Mississippi, Michigan, Texas Tech, Miami, and BYU have all won, we’ll be down to 88%. Oregon winning would push us down to 86%. There’s no guarantee we jump the Ducks if they lose and we win, but we’d probably jump the Ducks.
Saturday, 3:30 PM EST: LSU over Oklahoma
Impact: Large
Likelihood: Medium
If Oklahoma and Oregon both win in this window, and everything else has gone wrong, we’ll be down to 83%. Thankfully, that’s still pretty good, and we’ll have probably hit at least one good scenario by then, and we can still improve that number ourselves by beating Stanford. But it’s concerning.
Saturday, 3:30 PM EST: Tennessee over Vanderbilt
Impact: Small
Likelihood: Medium
There’s a weird angle where Vanderbilt could jump us, but we probably don’t have to worry about that.
Saturday, 3:30 PM EST: Wake Forest over Duke (if Miami beat Pitt)
Impact: Medium or Nothing
Likelihood: Medium
If Miami beat Pitt, we’ll be cheering for Miami to make and then win the ACC Championship. If Miami finishes the regular season 10–2, we want them to get an automatic bid and get off the playoff bubble, eliminating the potential for a two-bid ACC. That doesn’t require Duke to lose, but it would be a whole lot likelier if Duke lost.
Saturday, 7:00 PM EST: Virginia Tech over Virginia (if Miami beat Pitt)
Impact: Medium or Nothing
Likelihood: Medium
If Miami beat Pitt, Virginia Tech over Virginia will help the Hurricanes make the ACC Championship regardless of what happens in that Wake/Duke game.
Saturday, 7:30 PM EST: Auburn over Alabama
Impact: Large
Likelihood: Medium
If Mississippi, Michigan, Texas Tech, Miami, BYU, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Alabama all win, we enter the Stanford game down at an 81% playoff probability. Still not in panic territory, but uneasy.
Saturday, 7:30 PM EST: USC over UCLA
Impact: Small
Likelihood: High
This isn’t going to meaningfully move the needle, but it can’t hurt. Hopefully by this point, multiple teams have gone down and we don’t have to worry about it.
Saturday, 7:30 PM EST: NC State over UNC (if Miami beat Pitt)
Impact: Medium or Nothing
Likelihood: Medium
If Miami beats Pitt, there are four ways they can make the ACC Championship:
- Virginia Tech, SMU, and Wake Forest win.
- Virginia, Cal, Wake Forest, and NC State win.
- Virginia Tech, Cal, and Wake Forest win.
- Virginia Tech, Cal, Duke, and NC State win.
Saturday, 8:00 PM EST: Cal over SMU (if Miami beat Pitt)
Impact: Medium or Nothing
Likelihood: Medium
We’re drawing the line between low, medium, and high likelihoods at about a 14-point spread. Medium, then, basically means, “This can realistically happen.” Anyway, reference the scenarios above in the event Miami has beaten Pitt.
Saturday, 10:30 PM EST: Notre Dame over Stanford
Impact: Large
Likelihood: High
This is, of course, the biggest deal, and the only game that can move our probability more than a handful of percentage points on its own.
Scenarios where a win can lock us into the playoff, at least according to our model:
- Five or more teams in the CFP Rankings’ top twelve have lost.
- Four or more teams in the CFP Rankings’ top twelve have lost, and none are Ohio State, Indiana, or Georgia.
- Three or more of Mississippi, Alabama, BYU, Oklahoma, Miami, Oregon, and Texas Tech have lost.
- Two or more of Mississippi, Alabama, BYU, Oklahoma, and Oregon have lost and Miami’s in the ACC Championship? This only gets us to 99.8%, but we’d probably get locked in on Tuesday when our model learned for sure what the committee thought of everything.
Go Irish. We might update this after today’s games, but no promises. John Salomone’s getting married tomorrow. Everybody congratulate John, please. A good Dawg and a good friend.
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