Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 5

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

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	POFF Prob	Change
1	Ohio State	1	78.76%	14.1%
2	Clemson	5	66.31%	20.2%
3	Alabama	2	63.11%	-0.1%
4	Michigan	3	56.76%	13.4%
5	Washington	6	25.08%	15.5%
6	Texas A&M	7	24.95%	-0.2%
7	Tennessee	13	22.42%	3.6%
8	Louisville	4	9.13%	-29.4%
9	Western Michigan	29	8.06%	5.1%
10	Miami (FL)	14	7.47%	1.3%
11	Boise State	27	4.78%	-0.6%
12	Florida State	10	4.63%	-16.7%
13	Baylor	23	4.42%	-0.9%
14	Nebraska	24	3.22%	0.0%
15	West Virginia	32	2.98%	0.3%
16	Houston	12	2.49%	0.4%
17	Wisconsin	16	2.36%	-2.8%
18	Ole Miss	9	2.09%	0.0%
19	LSU	8	1.55%	0.7%
20	North Carolina	19	1.49%	0.9%
21	Stanford	17	1.45%	-12.7%
22	Maryland	48	1.08%	0.4%
23	Colorado	28	0.99%	-0.1%
24	Air Force	58	0.81%	0.4%
25	Florida	18	0.62%	-0.2%
26	Virginia Tech	22	0.51%	0.1%
27	Oklahoma	11	0.48%	0.2%
28	Texas Tech	40	0.37%	0.0%
29	Auburn	15	0.33%	0.1%
30	Utah	43	0.31%	-1.9%
31	Arkansas	36	0.29%	-1.5%
32	North Carolina State	38	0.16%	0.0%
33	UCLA	20	0.07%	0.0%
34	Mississippi State	42	0.06%	0.1%
35	Washington State	35	0.06%	0.0%
36	Pitt	31	0.05%	0.0%
37	Georgia Tech	51	0.04%	-0.5%
38	Georgia	47	0.04%	-0.7%
39	Oklahoma State	26	0.03%	0.0%
40	Indiana	63	0.03%	0.0%
41	California	49	0.03%	0.0%
42	Penn State	50	0.03%	0.0%
43	TCU	21	0.02%	-0.4%
44	Arizona State	53	0.02%	-2.1%
45	Kansas State	34	0.01%	-0.5%
46	Wake Forest	65	0.01%	-0.3%
47	Iowa	33	0.01%	-0.3%
48	Texas	41	0.01%	-0.2%
49	Minnesota	57	0.00%	-0.1%
50	Michigan State	54	0.00%	-1.0%
51	Purdue	100	0.00%	0.0%
52	Boston College	68	0.00%	0.0%

1. I drove 5 1/2 hours today, so let's do some one-sentence quick hits.  Ohio State keeps moving up in part because they keep outperforming even what the best computer predictions put forward, and in part because their SOS keeps looking better.  Behind them, everything appears to have separated into tiers, with Washington and the other SEC teams falling just a bit behind the top four.  Beyond those top groups, we have good ole' Western Michigan.  PJ Fleck's squad is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the MAC, so my system thinks they have nearly a 50% chance of running the table, which is all it really cares about.  Unfortunately for them, the committee will likely care about an uninspiring SOS.  I am hoping this season gives me enough data to incorporate SOS for Group of Five teams.  Finally, UNC is doing exactly what they did last year: Losing their first game and then creeping up these rankings.  Their win over the Seminoles will bring them a bit more attention than last year's non-descript slate, but still, it really seems like Larry Fedora has started to the turn the corner.

2.  This was a pretty bloody week for major conference teams, with a bunch of mediocre two-loss teams turning into mediocrer three-loss teams.  Wave goodbye to Missouri, Oregon, South Carolina, Arizona, Rutgers, Oregon State, Vanderbilt, Duke, Illinois, Syracuse, Kansas, Kentucky, San Diego State, Toledo, Memphis, and Navy.  Luckily for many of these teams, basketball season starts in a little under six weeks.  Unluckily for Rutgers, that will also happen to them.

3.  From a conference-wide perspective, Louisville's loss hurts the ACC more than a Clemson loss would have, as a 1-loss Louisville is a less likely playoff participant than a 1-loss Clemson (because of the SOS issue I mentioned last week).  Add in the Florida State's loss, and we see the ACC's chances of a second bid tumble.  Good news though: the Big Ten fills the void left by the ACC's drop, so hey an Ohio State-Michigan rematch is now a distinct possibility.  The SEC also has a chance of getting two playoff teams in the mix, but with the strong cross-division match-ups (Likely East champ Tennessee plays the two undefeated teams from the West, Bama and A&M), the second is more likely to come from a hot two-loss team like Ole Miss or LSU.  In other news, the Pac 12 holds mostly steady with Washington absorbing Stanford's losses.

Conference	Exp Playoff Teams
B10	1.423
SEC	1.155
ACC	0.898
P12	0.280
B12	0.083
MAC	0.081
MWC	0.056
AMER	0.025

4.  Here's a crazy thought: Instead of showing one of the conference races every week, why not show all of them?  This is a weird, top-heavy year, but there are still a few very close races:

Conference	Favorite	Perc		Runner-Up	Perc
ACCA	Clemson	65.4%		Louisville	33.6%
ACCC	North Carolina	37.8%		Miami (FL)	32.3%
AMEE	South Florida	77.3%		Temple	14.3%
AMEW	Houston	84.3%		Memphis	12.3%
B10E	Ohio State	61.6%		Michigan	37.8%
B10W	Nebraska	50.0%		Wisconsin	32.3%
CUSAE	Middle Tennessee	47.5%		Western Kentucky	34.8%
CUSAW	Southern Miss	80.8%		Louisiana Tech	18.6%
MACE	Ohio	63.5%		Akron	26.7%
MACW	Western Michigan	72.0%		Toledo	25.2%
MWCE	San Diego State	83.9%		UNLV	11.1%
MWCM	Boise State	75.4%		Air Force	22.7%
P12N	Washington	78.7%		Stanford	15.5%
P12S	Colorado	48.8%		UCLA	34.2%
SECE	Tennessee	63.3%		Florida	33.0%
SECW	Alabama	63.5%		Texas A&M	23.1%

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Week 6 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
Texas A&M	Tennessee	68.2%	0.077
Miami (FL)	Florida State	50.6%	0.036
Arkansas	Alabama	13.6%	0.030
Oregon	Washington	23.2%	0.019
Boston College	Clemson	8.8%	0.019
Florida	LSU	44.3%	0.009
Ohio State	Indiana	97.7%	0.006
Rutgers	Michigan	2.8%	0.005
North Carolina	Virginia Tech	59.5%	0.005
USC	Colorado	60.1%	0.003

Week 6 is not the deepest week of the year.  In addition to some of the cakewalks shown above, a number of very good teams (including Louisville and Baylor) have the week off.  That said, the top three games are still pretty damn impactful, and there's still enough intrigue lower down the list to pique my interest.  Sure, a game like USC-Colorado is unlikely to impact the title race, but a near-coin flip between an upstart Buffalo team and the traditional division power is pretty tantalizing in and of itself.