As has been the case all season, it’s still too early to peel the curtain away from our college football model. The model relies on precedent. Whatever this is, it’s a situation to which precedent doesn’t neatly apply. We can consult it—and we do, from time to time—and we may reach the point after this week where we feel comfortable unveiling its numbers without caveats. But we also might not.
In the meantime, I did some gaming out of 144 scenarios for what could happen over these next two weeks, and how I guess each would impact the playoff field. Getting it down to 144 scenarios required simplifying the next two weeks to six independent events—four of which have two outcomes, two of which have three—and then making eight assumptions before adding one workaround. The takeaway from that? A lot of things are possible.
Broadly, there appear to be three places a team can land: IN, OUT, and IN THE MIX. This last one refers to teams like Texas A&M, who can put themselves in a position to be considered for a playoff bid, should chaos unfold, but who can’t definitively earn a spot through their own actions.
As we begin, we have to address Assumption #1, which is that no relevant games will be canceled due to the coronavirus. This might be statistically improbable. It’s certainly not close to 100% that all will be played. Applying this would help teams with strong playoff cases already—Alabama, Clemson, Notre Dame. It would hurt teams who have a lot yet to gain—we’ll get to those. We’ll come back to this.
1. Alabama
Alabama is, for our purposes, IN, barring back-to-back losses to Arkansas and Florida. For the sake of simplicity, we made two assumptions regarding the Tide. Assumption #2 is that Alabama will beat Arkansas. Assumption #3 is that there is no margin by which Florida could beat Alabama that would knock Alabama out of the top four. These are rather major assumptions, but the likelihood of their relevance is small enough that they’re convenient places to trim hundreds of scenarios from this exercise. Applying them hurts Alabama, but marginally.
2. Notre Dame
Notre Dame can land either IN or IN THE MIX. Independent Event #1 is the ACC Championship, which we see having three possible outcomes: A) Notre Dame wins; B) Clemson wins a reasonably close game; C) Clemson wins a blowout. With regard to what constitutes a close game, compared to a blowout, we make Assumption #4, which is that if Clemson beats Notre Dame by more than two scores, Notre Dame will drop to IN THE MIX, but if Clemson beats Notre Dame by fewer than two scores, Notre Dame will stay IN. There’s another assumption that dovetails from this, but we’ll get to it when we get to Ohio State.
Referencing Bill Connelly’s SP+, we believe Notre Dame to be 35% likely to beat Clemson, Clemson 45% likely to win a close game; and Clemson 20% likely to blow out Notre Dame. Meaning Notre Dame is 80% likely to be IN, and 20% likely to be IN THE MIX.
3. Clemson
Clemson can, like Notre Dame, land either IN or IN THE MIX. If Clemson wins the ACC Championship, they’re IN. If they lose, they’re IN THE MIX.
4. Ohio State
Ohio State brings us to Independent Event #2, the Big Ten Championship, which has two possible outcomes: A) Ohio State wins (89% likely); B) Northwestern wins (11% likely). A loss, we believe, would put Ohio State OUT. A win, we believe, would put Ohio State IN with one exception, which is Assumption #5. This fifth assumption states that if Ohio State wins, Florida beats Alabama, and Clemson wins a close one, the committee will take Florida, Clemson, Alabama, and Notre Dame, on the basis of Notre Dame having the better victory than Ohio State and a larger overall body of work. This assumption could well be wrong. Applying it helps Ohio State and hurts Notre Dame. It is an issue in 10% of outcomes.
5. Texas A&M
Here we make Assumption #6, which is that Texas A&M will beat Tennessee next weekend. Applying it marginally helps the other IN THE MIX teams, because our belief is that the Aggies will be IN THE MIX, but not IN in any scenario.
6. Florida
Here’s Independent Event #3: The SEC Championship. If Florida wins (24% likely), they’re IN. If they lose (76% likely), they’re OUT. To treat this in this manner, we need to make Assumption #7, which is that Florida will beat LSU this weekend. If they lose, it’s possible beating Alabama would still be enough, but it’s hard to say, so we’ve removed that possibility for the sake of simplicity. Applying it hurts Florida and helps the IN THE MIX teams.
7. Iowa State
11. Oklahoma
We’re going to jump out of order in the rankings here, for Independent Event #4: The Big 12 Championship. If Iowa State wins (36% likely), they’re IN THE MIX. If they lose (64% likely), they’re OUT. If Oklahoma wins, they’re IN THE MIX. If they lose, they’re OUT.We’ll get to what happens with the IN THE MIX teams, and what the justification would be for each, so if you have questions, we may yet answer them.
8. Cincinnati
Independent Event #5: The AAC Championship. If Cincinnati wins (84% likely), they’re IN THE MIX. If they lose (16% likely), they’re OUT.
9. Georgia
10. Miami
12. Indiana
14. Northwestern
16. Iowa
17. UNC
18. BYU
19. Louisiana-Lafayette
20. Texas
22. Oklahoma State
23. NC State
24. Tulsa
25. Missouri
NR. Buffalo
NR. San José State
We list all these teams because we’re including Colorado (we’ll get to them). They’re the currently ranked teams, plus the two remaining unranked undefeateds. We believe all of them are OUT, because while they may currently outrank teams that could be IN THE MIX, they don’t have anything they can do that would significantly change their résumé, or change it enough (@Northwestern) to make it believable that the committee would choose them over another IN THE MIX résumé.
13. Coastal Carolina
Coastal Carolina is probably 50% likely to beat both Troy this weekend and Louisiana-Lafayette next weekend. We didn’t incorporate this into our scenarios directly, but we did on the back end, with The Workaround, which halves Coastal’s playoff chances and distributes the removed portion proportionally across other IN THE MIX teams.
15. USC
21. Colorado
Finally, Independent Event #6: Will the Pac-12 have an undefeated champion? We made Assumption #8 with this, saying that if Colorado and USC both win this weekend, there’s a 75% chance the Pac-12 will put them in the championship game against one another. Since we made this yesterday, before the Washington/Oregon game was canceled, it might be a little low. Similarly, the probability of Colorado or USC losing to the Pac-12 North champion, if that’s the game, is slightly lower now too, as Washington has clinched the North, affording a marginally easier game to the South victor. So, adjusting Assumption #8 to account for all of this helps both USC and Colorado’s chances.
There are three outcomes to this event: A) Colorado finishes an undefeated champion (6% likely, as calculated yesterday); B) USC finishes an undefeated champion (54% likely); C) Neither finishes an undefeated champion (40% likely). If one finishes an undefeated champion, they’ll be IN THE MIX. The other, or both in the case in which neither finishes an undefeated champion, will be OUT.
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What does this all mean? Basically, there will be anywhere between two and four teams IN. If there are two or three, the remaining slot or slots will be filled with IN THE MIX teams. Here’s the justification for each potential team:
One-Loss Notre Dame: Has only one loss, it came to Clemson, who they beat.
Two-Loss Clemson: Has only two losses, one came without Trevor Lawrence and some defensive starters, both came to Notre Dame who’s in the playoff.
Texas A&M: Has only one loss, it came to Alabama, who’s in the playoff.
Big 12 Champion: Power Five conference champion, two losses but played a full schedule and (in Oklahoma’s case) avenged one of the losses or (in Iowa State’s case) lost both to ranked teams. Also, the losses were a long time ago.
Cincinnati: Undefeated conference champion.
Coastal Carolina: Undefeated conference champion, three ranked wins.
Undefeated Pac-12 Champion: Undefeated Power Five conference champion.
Opinions will differ as to how these teams would be parsed, were it to matter. Our model has its thoughts, but those thoughts aren’t as reliable as they’d be in other years. For our purposes, I distributed the final spots evenly across teams eligible for them in each of the 144 scenarios, then performed The Workaround. Here was the result, rounded to the nearest percent:
Alabama: 100% likely to make the playoff
Notre Dame: 84%
Ohio State: 79%
Clemson: 71%
Florida: 24%
Texas A&M: 11%
Cincinnati: 9%
Oklahoma: 7%
USC: 5%
Coastal Carolina: 5%
Iowa State: 4%
Colorado: 1%
Looking back at the assumptions…
Alabama: Assumption #1 helps, 2 and 3 hurt, true probability lower.
Notre Dame: 1 helps, 2 and 3 help, 5 hurts, 6 and 7 help, 8 hurts, true probability lower.
Ohio State: 2 and 3 help, 5 helps, 7 helps, true probability likely higher.
Clemson: 1 helps, 2 and 3 help, 6 and 7 help, 8 hurts, true probability higher.
Florida: 1 hurts, 7 hurts, true probability lower.
Texas A&M: 1 hurts, 2 and 3 mighthelp, 6 hurts, 8 hurts, true probability lower.
Cincinnati: 1 hurts, 2 and 3 help, 6 and 7 help, 8 hurts, true probability indeterminately different.
Oklahoma: 1 hurts, 2 and 3 help, 6 and 7 help, 8 hurts, true probability indeterminately different.
USC: 1 hurts, 2 and 3 help, 6 and 7 help, 8 helps, true probability indeterminately different.
Coastal Carolina: 1 hurts, 2 and 3 help, 6 and 7 help, 8 hurts, true probability indeterminately different.
Iowa State: 1 hurts, 2 and 3 help, 6 and 7 help, 8 hurts, true probability indeterminately different.
Colorado: 1 hurts, 2 and 3 help, 6 and 7 help, 8 helps, true probability indeterminately different.
Overall, then, these seem to be the true playoff probabilities, or at least their ranges:
Alabama: 99%ish
Notre Dame: 75-85%
Ohio State: 75-90%
Clemson: 70-75%
Florida: 20-24%
Texas A&M: 8-11%
Cincinnati: 5-15%
Oklahoma: 3-9%
USC: 3-8%
Coastal Carolina: 3-8%
Iowa State: 2-7%
Colorado: 1%ish
Others: 1%ish
***
Finally, the games that matter, and the games that might:
The Games that Matter
Utah @ Colorado (Saturday, 12:00 PM EST, FOX)
USC @ UCLA (Saturday, 7:30 PM EST, ABC)
The Pac-12 games of interest. Colorado’s an underdog. USC’s a favorite. USC would like to blow the doors off the Bruins, mostly (?) because of the playoff implications.
The Games that Might
Alabama @ Arkansas (Saturday, 12:00 PM EST, ESPN)
LSU @ Florida (Saturday, 7:00 PM EST, ESPN)
SEC division champions trying to keep it simple. Don’t-mess-up games.
Coastal Carolina @ Troy (Saturday, 3:00 PM EST, ESPN+)
San Diego State @ BYU (Saturday, 10:00 PM EST, ESPN2)
Coastal tries to not mess up themselves, and tries to gain a few more style points—for whatever they’re worth (their bigger opportunity is next weekend against ULL, where they’ll want a clean blowout amidst a lot of ugly chaos). Meanwhile, the Chants would like BYU to remain ranked, which will likely require beating San Diego State and its very good (we mean it) defense.
Akron @ Buffalo (Saturday, 2:30 PM EST, CBSSN)
Nevada @ San José State (Saturday, 10:00 PM EST, CBSSN)
Undefeated, unranked Group of Five teams in action.
Georgia @ Missouri (Saturday, 12:00 PM EST, SECN)
Illinois @ Northwestern (Saturday, 12:00 PM EST, ESPN2)
UNC @ Miami (Saturday, 3:30 PM EST, ABC)
Maybe. Mayyyyybe.
***
Overall, what to say? There’s a reasonable chance (roughly 50%) we get to the IN THE MIX teams. There’s a reasonable chance (roughly 10%) we have quite the Ohio State/Notre Dame debate. Maybe things will clear up, as they often do. Maybe they won’t. Maybe there’ll be a common-sense option. Maybe there won’t be. Maybe we’ll learn something this weekend. More likely than not, we won’t.
