Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 8

As always, explanation here, rankings below, thoughts after.

Rank	Team	FPI Rank	CHAMP Prob	POFF Prob	Change
1	Ohio State	4	17.338%	51.830%	4.1%
2	Clemson	8	14.366%	51.504%	17.2%
3	Baylor	1	20.154%	45.901%	-12.5%
4	Iowa	29	3.351%	43.962%	0.1%
5	Texas Christian	3	11.732%	34.038%	-3.8%
6	Michigan State	22	3.088%	27.632%	2.6%
7	Louisiana State	7	7.155%	25.080%	5.7%
8	Notre Dame	9	5.065%	19.007%	-0.1%
9	Alabama	6	3.740%	12.410%	0.8%
10	Oklahoma State	19	1.671%	12.408%	3.3%
11	Stanford	11	2.706%	12.027%	1.3%
12	Florida	13	2.136%	11.715%	-0.6%
13	Oklahoma	2	4.187%	11.463%	4.2%
14	Utah	21	1.212%	10.022%	-10.9%
15	North Carolina	24	0.534%	5.527%	0.7%
16	Florida State	17	0.622%	4.417%	-13.7%
17	Duke	36	0.183%	4.300%	3.0%
18	Houston	38	0.097%	2.326%	0.9%
19	Toledo	47	0.073%	2.242%	-0.5%
20	Wisconsin	28	0.172%	2.218%	0.9%
21	Brigham Young	48	0.059%	1.876%	0.7%
22	Memphis	34	0.079%	1.730%	0.4%
23	Pittsburgh	41	0.039%	1.106%	0.5%
24	Michigan	15	0.141%	0.954%	-0.1%
25	Mississippi	10	0.201%	0.840%	0.2%
26	Texas A&M	16	0.115%	0.779%	-3.7%
27	Temple	49	0.021%	0.725%	0.3%
28	Georgia	14	0.088%	0.581%	0.0%
29	UCLA	18	0.059%	0.431%	0.2%
30	Mississippi State	20	0.049%	0.373%	0.2%
31	Northwestern	57	0.005%	0.258%	0.2%
32	California	25	0.012%	0.133%	-1.0%
33	North Carolina State	32	0.005%	0.092%	0.0%
34	Penn State	53	0.002%	0.082%	0.0%
35	Washington State	61	0.000%	0.013%	0.0%

1. You may notice a new column in this week's rankings: championship probability.  This is a pretty simple calculation, where I multiply the playoff odds by the odds of winning two playoff games.  I determine the odds of winning a playoff game by calculating the spread of each team versus the average playoff team, and then doing the same for the final (the team in the final is generally expected to be a little bit stronger, because better teams are more likely to win in the semis).  This results in some interesting things such as the wide gap between Baylor and Iowa, where they both have roughly the same odds of making the playoff, but then a much difference chance of success once they actually get there.  By my model the Big 12 has a better than 1 in 3 chance of ending its decade-long title drought.

1b. I added the championship probability calculations largely because I wanted to start tracking something cool: The odds of having a "new" champion.  As there are many such teams near the top of the rankings, I thought this might be an interesting thing to track.  Since 1936 (the year the AP poll began), there have been 30 champions crowned by one of the major polls.*  This suggests a rich diversity in the sports' history of champions.  While that may be true, the recent past hasn't been as welcoming to new champions, with 1996 Florida being the most recent first-time winner.  There have been close calls (1999 VT, 2010 and 2015 Oregon, 2011 Oklahoma State), but this year might represent the new blood's best chance yet.  Utah's loss and Baylor losing their QB hurt the odds a bit, but we're still looking at a 30.5% chance of a new champion being crowned in January, with Baylor, Iowa, and Stanford leading the way.

*If you add in the discontinued FWAA poll, you would add three more champions to the list: Ole Miss, Arkansas, and Iowa.  Most people don't recognize that poll as "official," so I'll just use the standard 30 teams for this exercise. 

2. The action of week 8 eliminated another six teams from playoff contention.  Pour one out for Kentucky, Miami (FL), Illinois, Arizona, Texas Tech, and your pre-season SEC champ Auburn.  USC remains the only FPI top-ten team (5th) eliminated from these rankings.

3. If you add up individual team probabilities, then it appears as though the Big Ten is the most likely conference to sneak two teams into the playoff.  That said, I don't necessarily think that is the case.  What I think the model is currently getting at is that it's so sure that the Big Ten champion will make it while being really unsure of other conferences, that it's overstating the odds*.  It will probably come down to how favorably the committee treats a decent but underwhelming Michigan State team.  In other news, the Pac-12 is down to its last legs, as it probably needs Stanford to win out to have a realistic shot.  In a year with fewer unbeaten teams in other conferences the odds wouldn't be so dire, but as the likelihood of finishing the year with 2-4 unbeatens rises, the Pac-12 is more and more likely to get shut out.

*I may try to build something into next year's model that accounts for this in-conference clustering.  Or I may not.  There's nothing saying that the committee will inherently be adverse to selecting multiple teams from the same conference.  We'll see.

Conference	Exp Playoff Teams
Big 10	1.269
Big 12	1.038
ACC	0.669
SEC	0.518
Pac 12	0.226
Independent	0.209
American	0.048
MAC	0.022

4. Clemson is the big upward mover of the week, having viciously deposed of Al Golden.  Baylor's first human outing sinks them about as much as first-time losers Utah and FSU.  The bye-week effect knocks TCU down a bit and keeps Iowa, ND, and Florida roughly even with the previous week.  A bunch more prominent teams have byes this week (Baylor, Ohio State, LSU, Bama, MSU), but since the other top teams don't exactly play difficult opponents, I'm guessing there won't be a lot of shuffling next week.  Notre Dame continues to lead the pack of one-loss teams, and will probably continue to do so, as Temple and Pitt both present decent challenges while still being beatable.  Wisconsin is the king of the two-loss teams with a silly November schedule that should get them to 10-2.  Houston takes the lead of the four "group of five" teams, although that race could still easily go any direction.


Week 9 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
NC State	Clemson	26.11%	0.045
Florida	Georgia	53.95%	0.030
Temple	Notre Dame	20.95%	0.022
TCU	West Virginia	81.37%	0.021
Texas Tech	Oklahoma State	39.42%	0.016
Iowa	Maryland	89.40%	0.016
Pittsburgh	North Carolina	41.44%	0.015
Washington State	Stanford	17.26%	0.010
Duke	Miami (FL)	68.04%	0.007
Auburn	Ole Miss	29.72%	0.002

As promised in the season preview, this is your week to catch up on the non-football things you've been putting off.  Sure, if you turn on your TV at 3:30, you'll probably be entertained for a solid 8 or 9 hours.  But the odds of the season being turned on its head this week are quite low.  Clemson is the only top team with a serious threat, and I think FPI is underrating the Tigers, so it's not even as big of a threat as my model thinks it is.  Oklahoma State could face a major look-ahead threat a week before facing TCU, but I don't think they're much a playoff threat anyway, so that doesn't move the needle much.  I honestly might be most excited for the Sneaky Good Bowl (Pitt-UNC), which is as good of a summary of the weekend as anything.

Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 7

As always, explanation here, rankings below, thoughts after.

Rank	Team	FPI Rank	POFF Prob	Change
1	Baylor	1	58.373%	-5.6%
2	Ohio State	5	47.747%	2.7%
3	Iowa	29	43.905%	19.5%
4	Texas Christian	2	37.812%	-6.9%
5	Clemson	11	34.348%	-7.6%
6	Michigan State	22	25.081%	13.6%
7	Utah	17	20.891%	6.8%
8	Louisiana State	7	19.391%	7.9%
9	Notre Dame	8	19.130%	7.0%
10	Florida State	15	18.154%	5.9%
11	Florida	12	12.328%	-14.5%
12	Alabama	3	11.571%	3.1%
13	Stanford	10	10.701%	3.2%
14	Oklahoma State	20	9.081%	-3.2%
15	Oklahoma	4	7.301%	4.4%
16	North Carolina	23	4.835%	1.1%
17	Texas A&M	14	4.483%	-14.6%
18	Toledo	42	2.786%	-1.1%
19	Houston	52	1.455%	0.5%
20	Memphis	43	1.366%	1.2%
21	Wisconsin	30	1.331%	0.1%
22	Duke	44	1.277%	-0.8%
23	Brigham Young	50	1.215%	0.0%
24	California	24	1.142%	0.0%
25	Michigan	18	1.077%	-9.9%
26	Pittsburgh	45	0.646%	0.5%
27	Mississippi	9	0.635%	-8.1%
28	Georgia	16	0.627%	-0.2%
29	Temple	48	0.443%	-0.4%
30	UCLA	19	0.231%	-1.7%
31	Mississippi State	21	0.174%	0.1%
32	Texas Tech	31	0.103%	-0.1%
33	North Carolina State	36	0.074%	0.0%
34	Penn State	54	0.072%	-0.2%
35	Miami (FL)	32	0.071%	0.0%
36	Northwestern	60	0.066%	-1.7%
37	Illinois	56	0.035%	0.0%
38	Arizona	46	0.025%	0.0%
39	Auburn	35	0.011%	0.0%
40	Kentucky	57	0.006%	-0.1%
41	Washington State	64	0.000%	0.0%

1. Things are getting serious, with no fewer than nine teams leaving the rankings this week.  Say goodbye to Kansas State, West Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Syracuse, USC, Minnesota, Arizona State, and Washington.  USC is the biggest name on this list, not just because of their history, but also because of their high rank in FPI (6th).  Due to their three losses any playoff hopes are gone, but they can still be a pretty big spoiler for others, with the Utes coming to town this weekend.

2. In my preseason preview, I picked two Big Ten teams to make the playoff.  Lo and behold:

Conference	Exp Playoff Teams
Big 10	1.193
Big 12	1.127
ACC	0.594
SEC	0.492
Pac 12	0.330
Independent	0.203
American	0.033
MAC	0.028

It is still unlikely that the Big Ten places two in the field, partially because of Iowa (more on this below), and partially because they still have a lot of their big matchups remaining.  That said, we have to start considering the fact that craziness elsewhere might lead to an all-Big Ten game at some point in the playoff.  The SEC takes a big hit (down from .75 last week) due to both conference in-fighting (they were the only conference to lose an undefeated team in Week 7, and they lost two), and an untimely loss to Memphis.  The SEC will stop beating itself up so regularly after next weekend, but a bunch of losses on the book, combined with a couple tough remaining non-conference tilts, might doom the conference.

3. As predicted last week, Oklahoma State took a small hit in the rankings due to their bye week.  Their FPI didn't change (21st to 20th), but everyone else around them avoiding a loss had the cumulative effect of dropping the Cowboys' five spots.  Regardless, the three Big 12 teams ranked above them all come to Stillwater in November, so the path to the playoff still runs through Mike Gundy.  Which is only the second weirdest thing about this season...

4. 2007 Kansas Watch: We live in a tumultuous time.  Things are changing faster than ever, and while most of this change is for the good, the very process of change can lead to temporary unrest.  This means that while there are more opportunities for our children than ever before, there remains a great deal of fear and uncertainty.  We often do not want to share this turmoil with our children, as interrupting their carefree lives can seem unnecessarily burdensome.  That said, children will often surprise you with their wisdom and their ability to persevere.  In light of that, it's probably time you sat down with them and had the talk: The talk about the undefeated Iowa Hawkeyes.

In all seriousness, there are a few very logical and non-dangerous reasons that Iowa vaults into the top three of the playoff odds this week.  First, a few of the teams around them (Florida and Texas A&M) suffered their first losses of the season, which opened up some room for the Hawkeyes.  Second, they passed what was legitimately one of their toughest remaining road tests.  Finally, the blowout nature of that win over Northwestern finally forced FPI to give Iowa a little credit, as they climbed from 41st to 29th (which bumps their likelihood of winning future games ever so slightly).  Sure, I know Iowa doesn't actually have near-even odds of reaching the playoff at this point, but they do probably have about a 10% chance of winning out, and I severely doubt the committee would leave out an undefeated Power 5 conference champ.  All I know is that I'm incredibly interested to see what the committee does with Iowa when they release their first poll in two weeks.

5. 2014 Florida State Watch: While the Kansas Watch is more of a warning at this point, the Florida State watch can probably be put on hold.  Ohio State, Florida State, TCU, and Iowa all had their moments of imperfection on Saturday, but every one of them ended up putting away their opponents somewhat comfortably.  One game does not erase these teams' shakiness in other parts of the season.  That said, their decisive wins, combined with the general feeling that no one is all that great this year leads me to believe that we probably won't see an exact replica of 2014 FSU this year.

6. "Fun" behind-the-scenes note: With almost all of the undefeated teams winning (we still have 14 left, which is really high for this time of year), the raw playoff odds now sum to a season-high 3.6 expected playoff teams, which means I had to do very little adjusting for the final results.  The playoff odds part of the model expects there to be roughly 2 undefeated at the end of the season, but the season simulations are usually at odds with this, generally expecting a little less than 1.  As more and more teams dodge potential losses, the latter is starting to give way to the former.


Week 8 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
USC	Utah	70.84%	0.049
Miami (FL)	Clemson	34.95%	0.040
Georgia Tech	Florida State	43.78%	0.026
Alabama	Tennessee	70.34%	0.017
Ole Miss	Texas A&M	64.57%	0.017
Rutgers	Ohio State	8.55%	0.014
LSU	Western Kentucky	84.73%	0.010
Michigan State	Indiana	89.29%	0.009
Stanford	Washington	83.28%	0.009
Oklahoma	Texas Tech	83.12%	0.007

Week 8 does not feature as amazing of a slate as did the previous week.  Still, the top five games are a pretty rich collection of fun matchups.  Alabama tries to continue its uphill climb toward the playoff against an underrated Tennessee team (13th in FPI).  Ole Miss-A&M are both coming of a loss, making their matchup effectively an elimination game.  Clemson and Florida State appear to be a bit above the rest of their league, but a couple of tricky road games could spell doom.  And the upstart Utes face their toughest remaining test against a Trojan team that is far better than their 3-3 record.  Because most of these games feature home teams with some scars, I'm hoping that Gameday goes to LSU-Western Kentucky, mostly because that would be awesome.