It turns out, Alabama was fine.
For weeks leading up to yesterday, the Crimson Tide looked like they were in trouble. One-possession wins—the last in four overtimes—over LSU, Arkansas, and Auburn and offensive struggles at times opened the door to skepticism surrounding Nick Saban’s team.
There’s no more room for skepticism.
After falling behind 10-0 to Georgia early in the second quarter, Alabama rattled off 17 unanswered points, finished the half ahead 24-17 and never looked back. Early in the fourth quarter, it got up to a three-touchdown game, and it ended with the Tide ahead by 17. Dominance, against a previously dominant team.
Elsewhere, Michigan steamrolled Iowa, Cincinnati dealt neatly with Houston, and Baylor took down Oklahoma State by inches—in the literal sense. With that all sorted out, it appears we have our playoff field.
For a good part of the middle of the season, we cited how the 28 playoff teams to date have come from the following buckets:
- Undefeated Power Five/Notre Dame team (11 out of 11 possible teams)
- One-loss Power Five conference champion (14 out of 15 possible teams)
- One-loss Power Five not conference champion (3 out of 11* possible teams) [*2014 Baylor and 2014 TCU included in this bucket and not as conference champions because committee deemed them not conference champions]
It was a useful reminder of what passes for normal, and a good means of focusing the lens on contenders. It’s useful to look at again now, inserting what we believe will be the committee’s decisions today. Post-2021, the 32 playoff teams have come from the following buckets:
- Undefeated Power Five/Notre Dame team (11 out of 11 possible teams)
- One-loss Power Five conference champion (16 out of 17 possible teams)
- One-loss Power Five not conference champion (4 out of 13* possible teams) [*2014 Baylor and 2014 TCU included in this bucket and not as conference champions because committee deemed them not conference champions]
- Undefeated Group of Five conference champion (1 out of 7 possible teams)
If all goes as expected within the committee room, Notre Dame, treated as a Power Five team, will not make the playoff. Cincinnati will become our first Group of Five team to appears the semifinals. Michigan and Alabama will make the cut as one-loss Power Five champions. Georgia will become our fourth playoff team to not have gone undefeated in the regular season or won a Power Five title.
But while the final four look rather certain, there’s still uncertainty to be had. To get to that, let’s look at where our model projects the final rankings to land, with Utah and Pitt winning the Pac-12 and ACC, with Utah State upsetting San Diego State in the Mountain West Championship, with Louisiana-Lafayette winning the Sun Belt, and with UTSA winning Conference USA (credit to NIU for winning the MAC but that doesn’t affect the rankings in any direct sense):
| Expected Ranking | LW Ranking | Team | Est. Ranking Score | FPA | Expected Ranking w/o FPA |
| 1 | 2 | Michigan | 100.0 | 1.6 | 1 |
| 2 | 3 | Alabama | 99.9 | 2.5 | 2 |
| 3 | 1 | Georgia | 96.8 | 0.0 | 3 |
| 4 | 4 | Cincinnati | 95.4 | 1.5 | 4 |
| 5 | 6 | Notre Dame | 89.9 | -1.9 | 5 |
| 6 | 7 | Ohio State | 89.4 | -0.3 | 6 |
| 7 | 9 | Baylor | 87.2 | 0.6 | 7 |
| 8 | 5 | Oklahoma State | 86.6 | 1.5 | 8 |
| 9 | 8 | Mississippi | 85.1 | 3.9 | 14 |
| 10 | 15 | Pittsburgh | 84.2 | -0.7 | 9 |
| 11 | 11 | Michigan State | 83.4 | -0.4 | 10 |
| 12 | 12 | Brigham Young | 83.1 | 0.7 | 11 |
| 13 | 17 | Utah | 81.7 | 0.4 | 13 |
| 14 | 14 | Oklahoma | 79.9 | -1.8 | 12 |
| 15 | 18 | NC State | 78.5 | 2.2 | 22 |
| 16 | 20 | Clemson | 78.3 | -2.2 | 15 |
| 17 | 10 | Oregon | 77.6 | 3.7 | 24 |
| 18 | 22 | Arkansas | 77.3 | 6.4 | 28 |
| 19 | 25 | Texas A&M | 76.3 | 5.4 | 27 |
| 20 | 13 | Iowa | 76.1 | -0.9 | 19 |
| 21 | 24 | Louisiana-Lafayette | 76.0 | -3.7 | 16 |
| 22 | 23 | Kentucky | 75.2 | 1.5 | 25 |
| 23 | 16 | Wake Forest | 75.1 | -1.6 | 20 |
| 24 | NR | Wisconsin | 74.5 | -4.2 | 17 |
| 25 | NR | Purdue | 73.8 | -2.7 | 21 |
| NR | NR | UTSA | 72.9 | -4.5 | 18 |
| NR | 21 | Houston | 72.3 | -1.8 | 23 |
(Explanation on how the model works and what FPA is here.)
As the table shows, it is close for that first overall spot. The model has Michigan ahead, many predictions have Alabama ahead. For fourth, it’s close as well, with Georgia within a normal FPA margin of Cincinnati, and with little indication for us of how the committee views Georgia relative to precedent because they’ve so clearly been the top-ranked team all year.
There’s a thought that the committee won’t want an SEC Championship rematch in the semifinals, and I’m not sure they would, but I’m also not sure they’d let this be the sole reason for juggling the rankings. Still, my personal guess would be that Alabama jumps Michigan, on the basis that because the committee has viewed every other SEC team more highly than our model expects this year, it probably views Georgia more highly than our model expects, meaning the Alabama win was more impressive to the committee than it was to our model, in turn pushing Alabama that tiny bit up over the Wolverines. It’s just a guess, but that’s where my thoughts lie on the matter.
Beyond the final four and their order, I’d say there are three questions with meaning only the committee can answer. First: How far will Oklahoma State drop? Second: Will Michigan State stay ahead of BYU? Third: How will the committee line up the Fiesta and Peach Bowls?
These are all about the Fiesta and Peach Bowls, ultimately, because the Sugar Bowl and the Rose Bowl are set, and because the committee doesn’t directly control bowl matchups outside the New Year’s Six. (I’m under the impression the committee decides the Fiesta and Peach Bowl matchups, but I’m not seeing that written down explicitly anywhere, so take it for what it’s worth. That said, they definitely control which teams are in those games, even if they aren’t picking the exact matchups.) If Oklahoma State stays ahead of at least one of Michigan State and BYU, they’re going to a NY6 bowl. Whichever of Michigan State and BYU is ahead of the other is going to a NY6 bowl. The two of those three that make the cut will join Pitt and Notre Dame in the Fiesta and Peach Bowls, but we don’t know which will play which and where the game will be played.
Our model’s guess on this is rather conventional: Oklahoma State will remain ahead of Michigan State, Michigan State will remain ahead of BYU. BYU’s résumé improved with Baylor and Utah winning, but Michigan State’s improved with Michigan dominating Iowa, and with the committee spending most of its energy on the top four, I doubt they’re going to split any hairs between the Spartans and the Cougars, which likely means BYU is out.
For the matchups themselves, our model doesn’t have a guess, but I’ll note that in the five previous seasons in which the Peach and Fiesta Bowls were non-playoff bowls, the matchups have always consisted of the higher-ranked options in one and the lower-ranked options in the other, with the lone exception, aside from avoiding an intra-conference matchup, coming when the committee matched up UCF with Auburn in the 2017-18 Peach Bowl and sent Penn State and Washington to the Fiesta Bowl despite Auburn being ranked the highest of the four and UCF being ranked the lowest. My guess on this is that it was geographic, and this year, there’s no real geographic tie: Notre Dame, Pitt, and Michigan State are all regionally separate from Georgia and Arizona. Oklahoma State is only loosely tied to those places, and you could argue it’s loosely regionally tied to both. My personal guess is that Notre Dame and Oklahoma State will play in the Fiesta Bowl while Michigan State and Pitt play in the Peach Bowl, given Oklahoma State and Notre Dame appear likely to be the two highest-ranked of the four and the Cowboys are the only ones not in the Eastern Time Zone, making Arizona make the most sense for them. It wouldn’t be surprising at all, though, to see pretty much any matchup involving the four, especially if the committee’s interested in matching up Notre Dame with a historic or recent rival of theirs.
Where does this leave us? We’re guessing, here:
- Orange Bowl: #1 Alabama vs. #4 Cincinnati
- Cotton Bowl: #2 Michigan vs. #3 Georgia
- Peach Bowl: #10 Pittsburgh vs. #11 Michigan State
- Fiesta Bowl: #5 Notre Dame vs. #8 Oklahoma State
- Rose Bowl: #6 Ohio State vs. #13 Utah
- Sugar Bowl: #7 Baylor vs. #9 Mississippi
We’ll soon know. Selection show at Noon Eastern Time today.
