| Rank | Team | Agg Rank | POFF Prob | Change |
| 1 | Alabama | 2 | 88.48% | 10.5% |
| 2 | Clemson | 5 | 83.86% | 6.0% |
| 3 | Michigan | 1 | 78.87% | 14.0% |
| 4 | Washington | 6 | 38.20% | 0.3% |
| 5 | Ohio State | 4 | 29.95% | -38.6% |
| 6 | Louisville | 3 | 15.11% | 3.2% |
| 7 | Texas A&M | 9 | 14.65% | -12.9% |
| 8 | West Virginia | 18 | 11.78% | 7.6% |
| 9 | Western Michigan | 22 | 11.22% | 1.5% |
| 10 | Boise State | 25 | 7.40% | 2.5% |
| 11 | Baylor | 15 | 5.89% | 2.5% |
| 12 | Florida State | 10 | 5.01% | -0.2% |
| 13 | LSU | 8 | 2.93% | 1.8% |
| 14 | Tennessee | 20 | 2.25% | 0.8% |
| 15 | Nebraska | 23 | 0.98% | -0.2% |
| 16 | Auburn | 7 | 0.88% | 0.4% |
| 17 | Wisconsin | 12 | 0.66% | 0.2% |
| 18 | Colorado | 16 | 0.46% | 0.3% |
| 19 | Florida | 13 | 0.40% | 0.1% |
| 20 | Penn State | 28 | 0.35% | 0.3% |
| 21 | Oklahoma | 11 | 0.30% | -0.1% |
| 22 | North Carolina | 24 | 0.12% | 0.1% |
| 23 | Utah | 37 | 0.10% | 0.1% |
| 24 | Washington State | 26 | 0.07% | 0.0% |
| 25 | Oklahoma State | 27 | 0.04% | 0.0% |
| 26 | Virginia Tech | 19 | 0.02% | 0.0% |
| 27 | Pitt | 33 | 0.01% | 0.0% |
| 28 | Wake Forest | 60 | 0.00% | 0.0% |
| 29 | Maryland | 62 | 0.00% | 0.0% |
| 30 | Minnesota | 54 | 0.00% | 0.0% |
1. Week 8 saw Ohio State and Texas A&M basically lose half a playoff team from their probabilities. The majority of the spoils from this went to the top three teams, which all saw slight upward movement in their favor. As a result, the odds for Alabama, Clemson, and Michigan may seen quite high, but I think I can account for this fairly logically. First of all, there are just nine other power conference teams with fewer than two losses. This creates a relatively small pool of true competitors, and many of those teams (Utah) are probably more pretender than contender. Second, all three of the top teams are legitimately good which means they're not likely to collapse (all three teams have better than a 80% chance of finishing with one loss or fewer). Finally, Alabama and Clemson boast two of the top strength of schedules in the nation. If either were to trip up and finish with one loss, my algorithm (based on the NCAA's definition of SOS) says they would both have better than a 90% chance of being selected for the playoff, based on what happened to similar teams in the past (for reference 2008 Florida - one of the best teams of the millennium - is the nearest comparison in terms of SOS for one-loss teams). There is certainly still a chance for chaos, but we still need an awful lot of it to avoid the seemingly inevitable.
2. While a few teams avoided elimination in notable ways, we still wave goodbye to seven teams this week. Arkansas, Miami (FL), North Carolina State, Stanford, TCU, Arizona State, and Iowa all took their third loss this week. None of these teams were in the top 20 of the aggregate rankings (Miami is 21st...so close), so none were realistic contenders at this point anyway.
3. Ohio State's loss (in concert with real improvement from West Virginia) means we no longer have a conference with strong odds of placing two teams in the playoff. This doesn't mean it still can't happen, but the Pac 12 and Big 12 are looking stronger than they were, which makes it more likely one of them sneaks a team in.
| Conference | Exp Playoff Teams |
| B10 | 1.108 |
| SEC | 1.096 |
| ACC | 1.041 |
| P12 | 0.388 |
| B12 | 0.180 |
| MAC | 0.112 |
| MWC | 0.074 |
4. I made two changes to the conference title odds this week. One, upon popular request, I added the Big 12 and Sun Belt to the list. I had previously only been calculating the division winners for conferences with title games (so I could in turn simulate those). But, it still matters who wins the other conferences, so I wanted to include them here.
The second change concerns tie-breakers. You may have noticed that (for example) Louisville had maintained a greater than 20% chance of winning the ACC Atlantic, in spite of having an effective 1.5 game deficit to Clemson. This was because I had simply randomized the divisional winner in the case of ties. Since there are now several examples where head-to-head tie-breakers are playing important roles in determining division champs, I did the work to make my code able to pick the winner. This new functionality also shows up a couple of other places, most notably in swinging the ACC Coastal odds towards Virginia Tech and the West division of the American towards Navy.
| Conference | Favorite | Perc | Runner-Up | Perc | |
| ACCA | Clemson | 91.3% | Louisville | 8.5% | |
| ACCC | Virginia Tech | 57.9% | North Carolina | 38.0% | |
| AMEE | Temple | 71.9% | South Florida | 24.6% | |
| AMEW | Navy | 66.7% | Houston | 13.7% | |
| B10E | Michigan | 70.0% | Ohio State | 25.1% | |
| B10W | Wisconsin | 45.5% | Nebraska | 43.0% | |
| B12 | Oklahoma | 47.5% | West Virginia | 28.6% | |
| CUSAE | Western Kentucky | 71.1% | Middle Tennessee | 22.7% | |
| CUSAW | Louisiana Tech | 60.4% | Southern Miss | 33.0% | |
| MACE | Akron | 50.3% | Ohio | 46.6% | |
| MACW | Western Michigan | 79.3% | Toledo | 20.7% | |
| MWCW | San Diego State | 96.0% | Hawaii | 3.7% | |
| MWCM | Boise State | 93.8% | Wyoming | 5.5% | |
| P12N | Washington | 77.8% | Washington State | 22.0% | |
| P12S | Colorado | 73.3% | Utah | 17.2% | |
| SECE | Tennessee | 51.7% | Florida | 46.1% | |
| SECW | Alabama | 79.0% | LSU | 9.0% | |
| SUN | Troy | 51.3% | Appalachian State | 38.8% |
Week 9 Preview
| Home | Away | Home Win Prob | Playoff Teams Lost |
| Florida State | Clemson | 38.3% | 0.142 |
| Utah | Washington | 18.5% | 0.026 |
| Oklahoma State | West Virginia | 48.6% | 0.022 |
| Wisconsin | Nebraska | 70.8% | 0.010 |
| Texas | Baylor | 36.3% | 0.009 |
| Ohio State | Northwestern | 94.4% | 0.009 |
| Michigan State | Michigan | 3.2% | 0.008 |
| Ole Miss | Auburn | 40.5% | 0.004 |
| South Carolina | Tennessee | 16.5% | 0.004 |
| Wyoming | Boise State | 14.9% | 0.004 |
Week 9 is similar to the past couple of weeks in that there is one big game with a couple of nice runners-up. That said, the big difference is that this top ten has eight home underdogs, many of which have a real chance of pulling the upset. In addition to this top ten, there are a number of other matchups featuring home underdogs (Oregon State-Wazzu, Virginia-Louisville, Pitt-VT), so get ready for ESPN to call it "Home Underdog Week Presented by Home Depot" or something.
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