It’s a weekend without a clear must-watch game, but college football is here once more, and things will happen. Here’s what’s going down, with some notes from our model:
Games to Keep an Eye On
Michigan State @ Ohio State (Ohio State wins in 88.3% of simulations)
Our model’s inputs say Michigan State’s the 19th-best team in the country. They also say Ohio State would beat them by more than two touchdowns on a neutral field. There should be much bigger games coming up for the Buckeyes.
Oklahoma @ Kansas (Oklahoma wins in 97.3% of simulations)
Georgia @ Tennessee (Georgia wins in 94.3% of simulations)
Oklahoma and Georgia are neck-and-neck for the title of fourth-most likely to crack the field. Each gets a road game against a team at the bottom of their conference’s barrel. Road games can be tricky, but they’re each heavily favored for a reason.
Purdue @ Penn State (Penn State wins in 93.1% of simulations)
Utah State @ LSU (LSU wins in 91.9% of simulations)
Kent State @ Wisconsin (Wisconsin wins in 99.1% of simulations)
Among the next wave of contenders, LSU has the toughest draw this week, playing a Utah State the ratings have as the sixth-best Group of Five team out there, within three points of Memphis, Cincinnati, Boise State, and SMU for second on that list (UCF remains in first, even with their faint playoff hopes obliterated). That still leaves it as a 21-point spread, but the difficulty of getting there could surprise some folks.
Bowling Green @ Notre Dame (Notre Dame wins in 99.9% of simulations)
Notre Dame isn’t in a good spot entering this weekend as far as making the playoffs go. Whether they’re in a good spot as a program, with a solid shot at a New Year’s Six bowl, is another matter. Needless to say, losing to a team worse than over a third of even the FCS would put them in a bad spot from all perspectives.
Cal @ Oregon (Oregon wins in 86.0% of simulations)
Oregon, who’s been the Pac-12’s best hope for a while now, gets a home date against a middle-of-the-Pac-12 squad. A loss would really drive home the dagger in the chest of the league’s playoff chances.
Tulsa @ SMU (SMU wins in 80.4% of simulations)
Boise State @ UNLV (Boise State wins in 90.3% of simulations)
The Sun Belt’s two one-in-a-few-thousand playoff hopefuls, Appalachian State and Louisiana-Lafayette, are off this week as they prepare for their matchup Wednesday, so only two of the Group of Five’s complete and utter longshots (but we’re saying there’s a chance) play. They’re trending in opposite directions: Since the season began, Boise State has slipped in the ratings while SMU has skyrocketed. Winning by large margins would go a long way in keeping both legitimate.
The Second-Biggest Game
Iowa @ Michigan (Michigan wins in 58.2% of simulations)
The aggregate ratings our model employs have the Wolverines and Hawkeyes at 16th and 17th, respectively, in the country. Neither is among the Big Ten’s top tier, which is just Ohio State at this point, or among the second tier, where Wisconsin and Penn State reside. Both would like to close that gap.
Michigan can keep their faint Big Ten championship hopes alive at 1.0% with a win, as well as their playoff hopes, which would rise to 1.4%. With a loss, both drop to zero. Iowa, in turn, can raise their profile tomorrow, especially with regard to the playoff, where a win would push them to 4.8%. That number would likely give them some separation from Oregon, with whom they’re currently virtually tied, and Florida—should Florida lose to Auburn (keep reading for more on that one). A loss wouldn’t sink their ship, but it’d make the odds less than a third as favorable at 1.4%. Looking at just the Big Ten, their conference championship chances hinge more on defeating Wisconsin than anything else: they’d be 8.4% with a win this week and 6.9% with a loss—not all that wide a spread.
The Biggest Game
Auburn @ Florida (Auburn wins in 50.3% of simulations)
While the ratings we use don’t agree with the AP on this being a top-ten matchup, they do have it a top-thirteen matchup, making it far and away the biggest game of the week. Each team is looking to remain undefeated, and each has at least two games remaining that project to be more difficult than this one, making the contest consequential to the playoff picture.
Florida’s in a tough spot in this one: with Auburn’s remaining schedule so difficult (a road game against LSU, home dates with Georgia and Alabama), a loss by the Tigers could easily turn them from 10-2 to 9-3 when all’s said and done, or from 9-3 to 8-4. SEC teams with two, three, or four losses are usually in tightly packed places in the rankings, meaning a win by the Gators would weaken their strength of schedule noticeably. Still, obviously, they want to win, and it appears likely to be a Top 25 victory regardless. A win would push them closer to Notre Dame’s spot on the fringes of playoff-land, at 3.6%. A loss would drop their chances only to 1.8% from the 2.7% where they currently stand. They’ve got upside, and as with Iowa, their conference title hopes are more dependent on one intra-division game—the one with Georgia—than anything they do against the SEC West.
Auburn, on the other hand, gets a huge boost by winning this game. Their SEC title hopes rise to 7.4% with a win and drop to 4.2% with a loss, while their playoff hopes, which are currently the eighth-best in the country, would likely rise into the top six with a win, jumping to 27.8%. If the Tigers do lose, they’ll still be alive in the playoff hunt thanks to those three remaining massive opportunities, but their chances would sit only at 12.1%.
