| Rank | Team | FPI Rank | CHAMP Prob | POFF Prob | Change |
| 1 | Clemson | 7 | 16.010% | 56.443% | 4.9% |
| 2 | Ohio State | 4 | 15.708% | 48.673% | -3.2% |
| 3 | Iowa | 29 | 2.941% | 42.497% | -1.5% |
| 4 | Baylor | 1 | 17.708% | 40.498% | -5.4% |
| 5 | Texas Christian | 2 | 15.107% | 38.951% | 4.9% |
| 6 | Michigan State | 19 | 2.967% | 25.931% | -1.7% |
| 7 | Louisiana State | 8 | 6.137% | 22.383% | -2.7% |
| 8 | Notre Dame | 9 | 5.266% | 21.867% | 2.9% |
| 9 | Florida | 12 | 3.819% | 19.192% | 7.5% |
| 10 | Oklahoma State | 14 | 2.128% | 15.222% | 2.8% |
| 11 | Alabama | 6 | 3.290% | 11.343% | -1.1% |
| 12 | Stanford | 13 | 2.036% | 11.092% | -0.9% |
| 13 | Oklahoma | 3 | 3.975% | 10.534% | -0.9% |
| 14 | Utah | 20 | 0.904% | 8.845% | -1.2% |
| 15 | North Carolina | 23 | 0.747% | 7.803% | 2.3% |
| 16 | Florida State | 15 | 0.576% | 4.182% | -0.2% |
| 17 | Houston | 33 | 0.155% | 3.052% | 0.7% |
| 18 | Wisconsin | 24 | 0.217% | 2.382% | 0.2% |
| 19 | Toledo | 43 | 0.061% | 1.936% | -0.3% |
| 20 | Brigham Young | 46 | 0.044% | 1.511% | -0.4% |
| 21 | Memphis | 36 | 0.064% | 1.408% | -0.3% |
| 22 | Mississippi | 10 | 0.260% | 1.094% | 0.3% |
| 23 | Michigan | 18 | 0.105% | 0.851% | -0.1% |
| 24 | Texas A&M | 17 | 0.093% | 0.740% | 0.0% |
| 25 | Duke | 39 | 0.014% | 0.409% | -3.9% |
| 26 | Mississippi State | 16 | 0.039% | 0.307% | -0.1% |
| 27 | UCLA | 22 | 0.029% | 0.300% | -0.1% |
| 28 | Northwestern | 57 | 0.004% | 0.230% | 0.0% |
| 29 | Penn State | 41 | 0.006% | 0.197% | 0.1% |
| 30 | Pittsburgh | 44 | 0.004% | 0.127% | -1.0% |
1. The list is culled to just thirty, with Washington State, NC State, Temple, Georgia, and California leaving us this week. USC remains the best eliminated team by FPI (5th), although the tough-luck Volunteers are right on their tail, as their dominating win moved them up to 11th. Tennessee has no more opportunities left to affect the playoff race, but they'll probably finish 8-4 and destroy someone in a bowl, so there's that.
2. For the longest time, this season has felt like a top division of 12-15 teams versus everyone else. Sure, there's been a couple of weird upsets (remember Texas over Oklahoma? That actually happened!), but by and large the top group of teams have been nearly invincible. This comes into focus more than ever this week with 13 teams at greater than 2% odds to win the title, while no other teams have more than 1% odds. We're to the point in the season where we can draw a realistic line between contenders and non-contenders right between Iowa and Utah, just like we thought at the beginning of the season.
3. The odds of a new champion being crowned sit at 27.3%, down a little bit due to previous champions securing big-ish wins in Week 9. We'll learn a lot about just how feasible a first-time champ is on Thursday when Baylor begins life after Seth Russell.
4. The Pac 12 managed to avoid complete armageddon with Stanford holding off Wazzu late, but they still basically need someone to win out to have a chance at the playoff. This isn't super likely, as Utah will be underdogs against UCLA and barely favored against Washington, while Stanford still has the Irish to deal with, but we'll see. The other conferences basically held serve during The Great Bye Week of 2015.
| Conference | Exp Playoff Teams |
| Big 10 | 1.208 |
| Big 12 | 1.052 |
| ACC | 0.690 |
| SEC | 0.551 |
| Independent | 0.234 |
| Pac 12 | 0.202 |
| American | 0.045 |
| MAC | 0.019 |
5. Independent of the playoff implications, Week 9 was just a gorgeously tragic reminder that if you root for any non-traditional power, you are doomed. The endings of Duke-Miami, Wazzu-Stanford, Temple-ND, and Minnesota-Michigan all reinforced the have/have-not dichotomy that occasionally makes college football unbearable. Sure, there are some ascendant teams this year, and other teams had big days (Purdue, Iowa State), but the resounding theme of the evening was that caring equals pain.
October in Review
Some years cull the herd of contenders in October. Last year was one such year, as there were just two undefeated teams entering November. 2014 was actually so October-centric that none of the final top six teams lost after the calendar hit November. This year is almost the polar opposite, as virtually every contenders' pivotal month is the last one. That said, there were still some pretty wild swings in October. First, the good:
| Team | Beginning | End | Change |
| Clemson | 11.89% | 56.44% | 44.56% |
| Iowa | 8.39% | 42.50% | 34.11% |
| Florida | 2.38% | 19.19% | 16.81% |
| Texas Christian | 26.32% | 38.95% | 12.63% |
| Oklahoma State | 3.12% | 15.22% | 12.10% |
| Michigan State | 16.00% | 25.93% | 9.93% |
| Alabama | 2.97% | 11.34% | 8.37% |
| North Carolina | 0.84% | 7.80% | 6.96% |
| Stanford | 4.26% | 11.09% | 6.84% |
| Louisiana State | 17.91% | 22.38% | 4.47% |
The biggest gainers of October largely did so by winning big games and not losing the ones they should win (duh). Most notably, Clemson went from interesting curiosity to maybe the best team in the nation. The one exception to this is Florida, whose dominating wins over Ole Miss and Georgia more than made up for the close loss to LSU.
| Team | Beginning | End | Change |
| Mississippi | 37.58% | 1.09% | -36.49% |
| Georgia | 25.47% | 0.00% | -25.47% |
| UCLA | 15.41% | 0.30% | -15.11% |
| Texas A&M | 10.15% | 0.74% | -9.41% |
| Notre Dame | 30.98% | 21.87% | -9.11% |
| Southern California | 8.07% | 0.00% | -8.07% |
| Florida State | 12.11% | 4.18% | -7.93% |
| North Carolina State | 7.86% | 0.00% | -7.86% |
| West Virginia | 7.79% | 0.00% | -7.79% |
| Oklahoma | 16.17% | 10.53% | -5.63% |
The SEC and Pac 12 were the two best power conferences in 2014, and now face the longest odds of fielding a playoff team in 2015. This table is probably the best explanation of this, as 5 of the top 6 fallers come from those two leagues. Before seeing this, I had thought West Virginia's O-fer was the most devastating October of the year, but oh, poor sweet Georgia.
Week 10 Preview
| Home | Away | Home Win Prob | Playoff Teams Lost |
| Oklahoma State | TCU | 33.34% | 0.077 |
| Alabama | LSU | 59.50% | 0.067 |
| Clemson | Florida State | 72.78% | 0.066 |
| Indiana | Iowa | 21.15% | 0.030 |
| Nebraska | Michigan State | 33.60% | 0.029 |
| Pittsburgh | Notre Dame | 23.22% | 0.026 |
| Washington | Utah | 48.84% | 0.022 |
| Kansas State | Baylor | 10.18% | 0.014 |
| North Carolina | Duke | 73.01% | 0.014 |
| Ohio State | Minnesota | 94.95% | 0.008 |
Yeah, there's the good stuff. After a couple of (relatively) lackluster weeks, everyone comes out to play for the first week of November. The combination of prime matchups plus a lack of bye weeks (almost no one of importance has one left) makes every week in November of massive implications. Week 10 gives us three matchups within the top 16 of the playoff odds, plus a bunch of road tests for contenders. Those top three games actually all fall within the top five games of the year in terms of playoff importance thus far (ND-Clemson and LSU-Florida being the others), which means this week is effectively bigger than everything that's come before it. Can't wait.
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