There was effectively just one impactful question entering this week’s rankings, and the answer is that Utah is still ranked ahead of Oklahoma. Wisconsin landing at eighth could turn out to be significant too. It bolstered their still-faint playoff hopes while wiping out the glimmers of chances for Alabama and Florida. But overall, the Utah/Oklahoma debate is the story, because the most likely individual scenario (roughly 21% probable, involving Clemson, Utah, Oklahoma, and LSU all winning) results in the fourth spot coming down to those two teams.
Here’s what we learned from the rankings, and what it all means, through the eyes of our model:
Utah Has the Narrow Edge
Our model doesn’t know how wide the gap is between Oklahoma and Utah. When it adds in FPA each week (Forgiveness-Punishment Adjustment, a measure of how differently a team is being ranked from how precedent from past committees would suggest), it does so to the smallest degree possible while still calibrating to the latest rankings. Which means Utah is only a hair above Oklahoma in our model’s eyes.
Even so, Utah comes in slightly more likely than Oklahoma to make the playoff (22.7% compared to 22.3%) despite Oklahoma having a better chance to win this weekend (65.7% for Oklahoma, 58.4% for Utah) against a higher-ranked opponent. What’s happening here is interesting: Oklahoma, having already shown they can beat Baylor, doesn’t have much to prove this weekend. Their game in Waco was their toughest of the year, and they won it. Utah, contrarily, has a best win (in our model’s eyes) that’s merely a road victory over Washington, followed by a road victory over BYU. Both teams are only 7-5. They have no victories yet over a current top 25 team, so beating Oregon, even at a neutral site, changes their résumé more than beating Baylor again changes Oklahoma’s.
Of course, the committee might not see it this way. They might take the view that Oklahoma’s victory over Baylor, a better team than Oregon, is worth enough to pass Utah even with Utah’s own gains. We don’t know what the committee will do if this scenario comes to fruition, and it will depend in part on how each team plays in their respective games. Utah’s lucky that USC was able to finish in the top 25. Oklahoma’s unlucky that Kansas State blew that one against West Virginia. The margin’s razor-thin between these two, and likely to stay that way.
Of course, there’s a 39% chance Georgia beats LSU and Clemson beats Virginia: almost twice as likely as the chance LSU, Oklahoma, Utah, and Clemson all win. In that scenario, the Oklahoma/Utah debate will probably be irrelevant.
Wisconsin’s Chance
Wisconsin’s jump from 3.8% playoff likely to 5.0% might not look like much, but it’s substantial: a 32% increase in their hopes, driven by the rankings. So far, the committee seems to be turning a kind eye on the loss to Illinois.
Of course, a lot has to go right for Wisconsin to turn that 5.0% into a playoff berth, beginning with an upset of Ohio State, which our model’s aggregation of ratings indicates is only 17% likely: the same as rolling a six on one roll of a single di. From there, more help is needed, since Ohio State is, according to our model, locked in. Three of the four of Georgia, Clemson, Utah, and Oklahoma would need to lose, and in the event Oklahoma was one of the four, Wisconsin would need to jump Baylor, something that’s possible—Wisconsin’s victories over Michigan and Minnesota are more impressive than Baylor’s over Oklahoma State, even if Baylor’s lone loss, to Oklahoma, is better than Wisconsin’s pair to Ohio State and Illinois—but not likely. We’ll have exact numbers on each reasonably plausible playoff scenario come Friday (we probably won’t go through all 32, but we’ll definitely cover a lot of them). Until then, know Wisconsin is alive. Seven other teams are just more alive.
