With two Saturdays remaining before conference championship weekend, the College Football Playoff is fully in focus. Four teams—Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A&M, and Georgia—are almost 100% locks. Three more—Texas Tech, Mississippi, and Oregon—fully control their fate. Three—Oklahoma, Notre Dame, and Alabama—are probably in if they win out, provided there aren’t any bid thieves. The last two spots will go to automatic bids.
Neat and tidy.
Will it stay that way?
There was a time when college football was known for its chaos, nights like that one in November 2012 when Oregon and Kansas State, first and second in the BCS Standings, went down. That tendency for mayhem has waned lately, partly because we entered a juggernaut age and partly because the expanded playoff added margin for error. Most likely, the playoff field will change between now and the selection show. Most likely, those ten teams we listed above will not occupy the first ten spots in the field come December 7th. But at the same time, it’s possible they will, and it’s easy to see the path to them doing so. It doesn’t require any upsets. It doesn’t even require that many narrow favorites to win.
For this weekend, we’ve broken the games down into four chaos-inducing categories:
- Should-be formalities – games where our model favors someone by five or more touchdowns.
- Spot-clearers – games where a team currently in playoff position could lose.
- Bubble-clearers – games where a team somewhere in the at-large mix could lose.
- The ACC – games where Duke or Miami could get back into the conference race, opening potential pathways for another at-large or a second mid-major.
As always, you can find all our model’s big-picture probabilities here.
Should-Be Formalities
Rutgers at Ohio State (OSU by 36.2)
Samford at Texas A&M (TAMU by 61.7)
Charlotte at Georgia (UGA by 55.4)
Syracuse at Notre Dame (ND by 34.7)
Eastern Illinois at Alabama (Bama by 62.7)
In 4% of our model’s simulations, at least one of these five favorites loses tomorrow. That’s not a great probability, and it doesn’t necessarily open a playoff spot (if Ohio State loses, Ohio State will remain the Big Ten favorite, at least in the eyes of our model). But it’s also not 0%, and while only Notre Dame would be definitively eliminated with a loss, defeat would send the other four teams onto some combination of the at-large and automatic-bid bubble.
Spot-Clearers
Missouri at Oklahoma (OU by 5.1)
USC at Oregon (Oregon by 11.5)
There’s a 49% chance at least one of Oklahoma and Oregon loses, and an 8% chance they both go down. Oklahoma wouldn’t be fully eliminated with a loss, but they wouldn’t be at the top of the bubble. Oregon would be in a better position, but they’d probably leave the top ten, especially once all those head-to-head mechanics shuffled the 9–2 teams around.
Would USC move into the field? Maybe. Per our model, USC’s only about a 50/50 playoff team even if they win out. The committee hasn’t respected Oregon, and neither the committee nor the broader narrative has respected USC all year. The Trojans are fighting an uphill battle. There’s a temptation by some on the bubble to cheer for Oregon here, mostly under the logic that the winner of this game will make the playoff. That’s not what our model sees. In scenarios where the Ducks win tomorrow, Oregon and USC combine for an average of 0.88 playoff spots. In scenarios where the Trojans win, they combine for an average of 0.69 spots. That’s not as big of a gain as bubble teams could get from Oklahoma going down, but 19 percentage points of playoff probability—even spread across Miami, Utah, BYU, and Texas—isn’t nothing.
Bubble-Clearers
USC at Oregon (Oregon by 11.5)
Kansas State at Utah (Utah by 20.5)
Miami at Virginia Tech (Miami by 21.6)
Arkansas at Texas (Texas by 11.9)
Kentucky at Vanderbilt (Vandy by 10.7)
BYU at Cincinnati (BYU by 5.2)
Michigan at Maryland (Michigan by 9.7)
Some prizes here are bigger than others. Michigan’s only at a 1% playoff probability as we write this, stuck at the bottom of the list of believable playoff teams. Miami’s at 45%. Taking the whole group as one, though:
There’s a 25% chance all six of these teams who aren’t USC win. Those 75% of remaining simulations break out into a 40% chance that exactly one loses and a 35% chance that multiple get upset. In short: Of the seven at-large bubble teams plus Oregon, at least one will lose. There’s a 75% chance two or more lose. There’s a 35% chance three or more lose.
How impactful will those losses be? If we limit the sample to Miami, Utah, and BYU—currently far ahead of Texas, the next-likeliest at-large—we get a 53% chance all three win, a 47% chance one gets upset, and a 7% chance two or all three go down. That’s not bad.
To recap:
- Either Oregon or USC will lose.
- There’s a 50/50 shot that at least one of Miami, Utah, and BYU loses.
- There’s a 75% chance that at least one of Miami, Utah, BYU, Texas, Vanderbilt, and Michigan loses.
Losses here wouldn’t solve everybody’s problems—BYU would still be in the hunt for an automatic bid—but just like with USC beating Oregon, they’d help. And coupled with the chance of Oklahoma losing, plus the ACC situation below, some sort of chaos will probably happen. Our model shows only a 16% chance that all seven of Oklahoma, Utah, Miami, BYU, Texas, Vanderbilt, and Michigan win. The average number of losses to expect from that group is about one and a half.
The ACC
Pitt at Georgia Tech (GT by 3.9)
Louisville at SMU (SMU by 8.0)
Duke at North Carolina (Duke by 6.3)
Miami at Virginia Tech (Miami by 21.6)
One of the best things that can happen for at-large bubble teams is Miami making the ACC Championship. If Miami makes the ACC Championship, they’ll be able to play their way in or out. One more team out of the at-large bubble, and no concerns that Miami’s head-to-head win over Notre Dame could somehow cost Alabama or Utah a playoff bid.
Miami making the ACC Championship isn’t likely, but it isn’t impossible. There’s a 4% chance Louisville, Pitt, and UNC all win tomorrow, something which would probably make Miami control its fate. (Conference strength of schedule would come into play here, so I’m not positive it’s guaranteed.) That isn’t very good, but like we said above, it’s at least not 0%.
A more likely scenario is one where Louisville and Pitt both win. This happens in 11% of our simulations, and while it doesn’t put Miami in control of its fate, it does get Miami closer, and it opens the door to Duke. Would Duke winning the ACC help at-large candidates? Not really. But it’d help James Madison, and it’d probably help North Texas, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt teams like Texas and Utah. Also, if Louisville and Pitt both win, Duke could still lose next week and put Miami into the ACC Championship. There are a few paths, then, for the Hurricanes to get out of the at-large mix. Miami playing for an auto-bid would be good for all at-large contenders, Miami included.
James Madison vs. The American
Washington State at James Madison (JMU by 13.4)
North Texas at Rice (UNT by 16.9)
Tulane at Temple (Tulane by 8.2)
East Carolina at UTSA (ECU by 2.8)
The committee has established that Tulane gets the fifth automatic bid if Tulane wins out. There’s maybe a sliver of hope that a dominant win by James Madison over a former Power 5 team could change that, but only maybe, and only a sliver. We’re not anti-American here. We’d be perfectly happy with North Texas being ranked 24th and James Madison being unranked. Tulane over North Texas bothers us just as much as Tulane over JMU.
We’re looking at two paths, then. There’s the path to justice (a deserving fifth automatic qualifier) and the path to JMU. JMU really needs either Tulane or North Texas to lose this week or next week. Preferably Tulane, if JMU gets to choose. If Tulane goes down but UNT doesn’t, it’s back to JMU vs. UNT, as it should be. If UNT goes down but Tulane doesn’t, it’s unlikelier that Tulane will lose the AAC Championship (playing in New Orleans, Tulane would be favored over ECU and Navy, but not over UNT).
However.
If East Carolina also loses, the probability of Tulane losing the AAC Championship goes up again. If ECU loses to UTSA, USF becomes a plausible opponent for Tulane in the conference championship, since Navy will be an underdog on the road against Memphis next week. USF is still probably the best team on paper among all mid-majors not named JMU.
Got all that?
Preferences:
- Tulane just wants to win.
- North Texas wants to win and wants JMU to lose.
- James Madison wants Tulane to lose. If they don’t, JMU really wants East Carolina to lose. If they do, JMU also wants North Texas to lose. Tulane vs. ECU or Navy in the AAC Championship is the worst-case for JMU. Tulane vs. UNT at least gives JMU a chance, since we don’t yet know whether the committee has JMU or UNT on top. It’s probably UNT, but we don’t know that for sure.
- East Carolina would like to win and would like everybody else to lose.
Other FBS Mid-Majordom
San Jose State at San Diego State (SDSU by 13.8)
Colorado State at Boise State (Boise by 21.9)
Utah State at Fresno State (Fresno by 4.1)
Hawaii at UNLV (UNLV by 3.8)
New Mexico at Air Force (AFA by 3.5)
Southern Miss at South Alabama (USM by 2.3)
Georgia State at Troy (Troy by 20.0)
Ball State at Toledo (Toledo by 27.5)
Jacksonville State at FIU (FIU by 0.1)
Missouri State at Kennesaw State (Missouri State by 1.6)
Those first five are happening in the Mountain West, where SDSU’s 5–1 but all of Boise, Fresno, UNLV, and New Mexico are 4–2. Hawaii and UNLV play tonight.
Southern Miss and Troy lead the Sun Belt West at 5–1 and 4–2 respectively. They play next week, which means that so long as Troy beats Georgia State, that game next week will be the Sun Belt West’s de facto championship.
In the MAC, five teams have one or two conference losses but Ball State’s clinging to a shot at 3–3. Toledo’s trying to keep pace with the two-loss contingent.
Last, in Conference USA, Jacksonville State (6–0) is trying to keep control, while Kennesaw State and Missouri State (5–1 each) try to keep pace with Western Kentucky (6–1, playing a nonconference game this weekend). Missouri State isn’t currently eligible for the Conference USA Championship, but they did do the thing where they petitioned the NCAA for a bowl bid, so if the NCAA relents, there’s a chance Conference USA does too? I haven’t seen any statements otherwise, but I also haven’t actively looked for them.
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