Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 6

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

Rank	Team	FPI Rank	POFF Prob	Change
1	Baylor	1	63.968%	9.3%
2	Ohio State	9	45.011%	-8.3%
3	Texas Christian	2	44.688%	6.6%
4	Clemson	10	41.927%	14.3%
5	Florida	13	26.779%	7.5%
6	Iowa	41	24.369%	5.3%
7	Texas A&M	6	19.070%	-1.4%
8	Utah	20	14.139%	1.7%
9	Oklahoma State	21	12.296%	8.5%
10	Florida State	19	12.262%	1.9%
11	Notre Dame	8	12.145%	1.6%
12	Louisiana State	7	11.524%	0.0%
13	Michigan State	29	11.433%	-2.5%
14	Michigan	15	10.968%	4.9%
15	Mississippi	4	8.772%	0.3%
16	Alabama	3	8.427%	1.0%
17	Stanford	14	7.512%	-2.9%
18	Toledo	46	3.908%	0.2%
19	North Carolina	27	3.744%	-0.9%
20	Oklahoma	11	2.929%	-25.0%
21	Duke	40	2.068%	0.8%
22	UCLA	18	1.938%	0.5%
23	Northwestern	45	1.798%	-5.5%
24	Brigham Young	50	1.202%	0.2%
25	Wisconsin	30	1.186%	0.6%
26	California	25	1.111%	-0.5%
27	Houston	57	1.001%	0.0%
28	Temple	43	0.872%	0.3%
29	Georgia	12	0.845%	-4.2%
30	Southern California	5	0.734%	-11.2%
31	Penn State	48	0.286%	0.2%
32	Texas Tech	28	0.179%	0.1%
33	Pittsburgh	47	0.170%	0.0%
34	Memphis	54	0.129%	0.0%
35	North Carolina State	36	0.107%	-0.9%
36	Arizona State	34	0.096%	0.0%
37	Kentucky	55	0.093%	0.0%
38	Mississippi State	26	0.076%	0.0%
39	Washington	38	0.061%	0.1%
40	West Virginia	22	0.054%	-1.5%
41	Kansas State	31	0.041%	-0.2%
42	Miami (FL)	39	0.030%	-0.1%
43	Arizona	44	0.021%	0.0%
44	Illinois	56	0.014%	-0.1%
45	Indiana	70	0.009%	-0.1%
46	Missouri	53	0.004%	0.0%
47	Auburn	35	0.002%	0.0%
48	Syracuse	77	0.001%	0.0%
49	Minnesota	62	0.001%	0.0%
50	Washington State	67	0.001%	0.0%

1. This was an interesting week for the elimination line, for many reasons.  First of all, already-eliminated teams like Texas and Tennessee scored huge wins that changed the shape of the playoff race.  Secondly, two teams (Boston College and Rutgers) eliminated themselves through the most ridiculous of means.  Thirdly, now that we're down to just 50 teams and just 6-7 games remaining for each, every single team on the list managed at least 1 simulation (in 10000) where they stayed above the playoff cut (yes, even Syracuse has a chance to win out, I guess).  We bid adieu to a motley mix of disappointments and teams we already knew were bad: Boston College, Colorado, Oregon, Oregon State, Rutgers, Iowa State, and Navy.  Keep your chin up Midshipmen; you're still undefeated all-time in conference play.

2. Most of the risers and fallers make sense this week. Oklahoma and USC suffered embarrassing losses, and drop accordingly.  Ohio State and Michigan State continue to look unimpressive and slowly trickle down the list.  Other top teams won, and thus climbed to varying degrees.  And then there are Texas A&M and  Stanford, which both dropped slightly despite very little happening to them.  What seems to have caused this is that the teams around them all cleared a hurdle and improved their situations while the Aggies and Cardinal were on a bye week.  Now that we're at the midpoint of the season, I think we'll see this phenomena happen more often, unless there is a week where so many top teams lose as to offset such a fall.  Oklahoma State is the prime candidate for week 7, although the plethora of top matchups (and thus, top teams losing) may prevent the Cowboys from falling.  We shall see.

3. In a week where relatively few top teams lost, nothing much happened to the conference rankings.  The biggest change is the ACC stealing the remainder of the Pac-12's thunder, with USC falling and Clemson and Florida State each passing one of their biggest remaining tests.  The Big Ten and SEC each have several big matchups next weekend, so expect to see some movement as a result.

Conference	Exp Playoff Teams
Big 12	1.242
Big 10	0.951
SEC	0.756
ACC	0.603
Pac 12	0.256
Independent	0.133
MAC	0.039
American	0.020

4. 2007 Kansas Watch: Iowa survives probably its third our fourth-toughest remaining game by beating a surprisingly decent Illinois team, and is now halfway home without a loss.  As a result, they are now sixth in the playoff odds in spite of being ranked 41st in FPI.  They are out Kansas-ing Kansas and it's a thing of beauty.  FPI still has the Hawkeyes as very slight underdogs in their road games against Northwestern and Nebraska, but let's not kid ourselves, Iowa is going undefeated and Kirk Ferentz is the ubermensch.

5. 2014 Florida State Watch: A funny thing happened this weekend.  No, it wasn't Ohio State's performance against Maryland, although watching the Buckeyes struggle to beat a terrible team with a lame duck coach was a little hilarious.  Rather, it seemed that virtually every undefeated team was trying to be this year's team that squeaks out a bunch of close wins en route to an inflated ranking in the committee's poll.  Ohio State is still the leader in the clubhouse for this honor, as they have the obvious parallel with 2014 FSU, being the defending champion.  But we saw TCU require a last-minute touchdown to put away Kansas State two weeks after needing the same against Texas Tech.  And we saw Michigan State barely beat a Big Ten bottom-dweller for the second straight week.  And Oklahoma State won its third straight one-score game to start 3-0 in conference play.  And Florida State itself won its third straight one-score game in conference as well.  Hell, we could probably put Iowa in this bucket as well, as they needed a crazy-long field goal to beat Pitt and unbelievable red-zone incompetence by the Badgers to beat Wisconsin.  At some point, most of these teams will lose a game or two.  But one of them won't and it will be the most ridiculous thing to happen in college football in all of twelve months.

6. Now that the season is in full swing, it's a little harder to go under the radar in the playoff rankings. Still, there is precisely one team doing just that: Your North Carolina Tar Heels, who have sneaked into the top 20.  The Heels started the season with an ugly loss to a South Carolina team that is not good, but have pretty much rolled since them.  Their most notable positive result is a late comeback at a reeling Georgia Tech team, so they don't have much going in the "big win" department.  That said, their schedule sets up well, as they avoid all the Atlantic power players, and get co-divisional favorite Duke at home. 

7. I like FPI as the basis for my rankings, but there are a few oddities with it.  The most notable is Baylor.  While they may very well be the best team in the nation, it seems extreme that they are currently five points clear of everyone else in the ratings.  I don't think any of these oddities are necessarily indicative of any issues with FPI, but they probably are indicative of the problem with using just one rating system for my playoff projections.  Any system, no matter how good, will have outliers.  To combat this, I've been collecting the Sagarin and S&P+ rating all season with the goal of creating a hybrid rating that will hopefully smooth out some of the outliers.  If I get antsy, I may just start using it this season.  We shall see.


Week 7 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
LSU	Florida	62.35%	0.070
Texas A&M	Alabama	51.23%	0.053
Northwestern	Iowa	53.62%	0.048
Michigan	Michigan State	73.25%	0.043
Notre Dame	USC	51.23%	0.033
Baylor	West Virginia	88.82%	0.024
Ohio State	Penn State	86.64%	0.021
Stanford	UCLA	63.19%	0.020
Utah	Arizona State	72.54%	0.014
Clemson	Boston College	92.36%	0.011

If you haven't already, this is probably the weekend to start watching college football in 2015.  Not only are there a ton of meaningful games, but most of them appear to be well-matched battles.  Three of the top five games are virtual coin flips per FPI, and the other two are the lone pairing of unbeatens and the Gameday game.*  Additionally, the Pac 12 has a couple of games that threaten to eliminate what few opportunities they have left at the playoff, while the faint chance of members of our top four losing at home propel the other three games onto this list.  Should be a great weekend from start to finish.

*But sure, ESPN has an SEC bias.  Right.