Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 3

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

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	POFF Prob	Change
1	Alabama	1	77.74%	-2.1%
2	Clemson	4	54.84%	14.3%
3	Oklahoma	3	36.51%	-6.7%
4	Wisconsin	8	35.65%	11.3%
5	Ohio State	2	31.07%	-8.6%
6	Washington	9	23.02%	5.2%
7	Penn State	5	21.11%	-4.8%
8	USC	11	19.33%	-5.8%
9	Mississippi State	10	19.21%	16.6%
10	Florida State	6	18.98%	0.6%
11	Michigan	14	11.86%	1.4%
12	Oklahoma State	7	11.14%	6.6%
13	Georgia	19	9.09%	-1.0%
14	Oregon	18	4.32%	1.2%
15	Notre Dame	16	3.76%	1.1%
16	LSU	17	2.77%	-18.4%
17	Auburn	12	2.49%	-3.5%
18	Houston	34	2.16%	1.2%
19	TCU	15	2.13%	-0.4%
20	Miami (FL)	23	2.04%	-0.3%
21	Virginia Tech	20	1.71%	1.0%
22	San Diego State	52	1.38%	1.3%
23	Washington State	26	1.27%	0.3%
24	Louisville	21	0.89%	-1.6%
25	Memphis	54	0.62%	0.1%
26	Florida	24	0.56%	0.4%
27	Duke	30	0.45%	0.0%
28	Minnesota	39	0.45%	0.3%
29	Toledo	59	0.41%	0.0%
30	Tennessee	27	0.41%	-0.5%
31	Wake Forest	32	0.32%	0.3%
32	Stanford	13	0.30%	-7.0%
33	South Florida	51	0.27%	0.2%
34	Iowa	37	0.26%	-0.1%
35	Vanderbilt	42	0.24%	0.2%
36	Kentucky	53	0.20%	0.2%
37	Central Florida	56	0.18%	0.1%
38	Maryland	48	0.12%	-0.1%
39	Colorado	43	0.12%	-0.1%
40	Georgia Tech	29	0.11%	0.0%
41	Michigan State	47	0.10%	-0.1%
42	Utah	40	0.08%	0.0%
43	UCLA	28	0.08%	-1.1%
44	South Carolina	38	0.03%	-1.3%
45	Texas Tech	36	0.03%	0.0%
46	North Carolina State	31	0.02%	0.0%
47	Indiana	55	0.02%	0.0%
48	Kansas State	25	0.02%	-0.4%
49	Navy	66	0.02%	0.0%
50	UTSA	79	0.02%	0.0%
51	California	60	0.02%	0.0%
52	Northwestern	41	0.01%	0.0%
53	Texas A&M	33	0.01%	0.0%
54	Arizona	44	0.01%	0.0%
55	Arkansas	46	0.01%	0.0%
56	Texas	22	0.00%	0.0%
57	Purdue	62	0.00%	0.0%
58	Eastern Michigan	95	0.00%	0.0%
59	North Carolina	35	0.00%	0.0%
60	West Virginia	50	0.00%	0.0%
61	Illinois	89	0.00%	0.0%
62	Syracuse	64	0.00%	0.0%
63	Iowa State	58	0.00%	0.0%
64	Virginia	73	0.00%	0.0%
65	Nebraska	57	0.00%	0.0%
66	Pitt	63	0.00%	0.0%
67	Missouri	77	0.00%	0.0%
68	Arizona State	65	0.00%	0.0%
69	Boston College	87	0.00%	0.0%
70	Kansas	110	0.00%	0.0%
71	Rutgers	82	0.00%	0.0%

1.  Mississippi State upsets LSU behind their dual-threat QB to jump into the top ten.  Sounds an awful lot like 2014 to me.  Further down the list, we have our first two group of five teams above 1%: San Diego State and Houston.  Both teams have difficult enough schedules to slide into the playoff should utter chaos happen.  And Wake Forest is actually good, giving the ACC Atlantic five teams in the top 32 of the computer ratings.  Clemson is still the heavy favorite there, but there should still be a lot of fun games on the way to their coronation.

2.  Now that we're through week three, we can eliminate some power conference teams!  Sorry Oregon State and Baylor (not actually sorry).  We also say good night to Air Force, Army, SMU, Old Dominion, Central Michigan, and UConn.  We have yet to lose a team that ranked higher than 35th in my pre-season playoff odds, so if you were good to start with, you've probably still got a shot.

3.  The SEC remains the most likely to send two teams, but there's enough balance across the land, that it's still pretty unlikely.  In other news, the American creeps above 3% with it's five remaining eligible teams, which is pretty amazing when you remember all of the coaching turnover from the past two years.

Conference	Exp Playoff Teams
SEC	1.128
B10	1.007
ACC	0.794
B12	0.498
P12	0.485
IND	0.038
AMER	0.032
MAC	0.004
CUSA	0.000
MWC	0.000

4.  The conference title grid is getting a little weird.  Many divisions don't have a front-runner at all, including both sides of the terrible CUSA.  Florida's Hail Mary gives them the leg up in the SEC East for now, but Georgia is one statement win from taking over.  The American East looks more and more like it will come down to USF-UCF the night after Thanksgiving.  And Appy State remains the Sun Belt favorite even though they almost lost to Texas State.

Conference	Favorite	Perc		Runner-Up	Perc
ACCA	Clemson	64.6%		Florida State	29.8%
ACCC	Virginia Tech	35.5%		Miami (FL)	30.1%
AMEE	South Florida	54.9%		Central Florida	37.0%
AMEW	Houston	49.6%		Memphis	27.9%
B10E	Ohio State	66.9%		Penn State	26.4%
B10W	Wisconsin	89.2%		Minnesota	4.3%
B12	Oklahoma	86.0%		Oklahoma State	64.5%
CUSAE	Middle Tennessee	28.5%		Western Kentucky	21.7%
CUSAW	UTSA	33.5%		Southern Miss	30.0%
MACE	Ohio	49.9%		Miami (OH)	30.0%
MACW	Toledo	56.7%		Western Michigan	18.7%
MWCW	San Diego State	83.2%		Fresno State	7.9%
MWCM	Boise State	47.0%		Colorado State	37.9%
P12N	Washington	64.1%		Oregon	16.9%
P12S	USC	86.3%		UCLA	5.4%
SECE	Florida	40.5%		Georgia	37.0%
SECW	Alabama	67.0%		Mississippi State	18.4%
SUN	Appalachian State	47.5%		Troy	29.8%

Week 4 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
Georgia	Mississippi State	46.0%	0.046
Vanderbilt	Alabama	9.4%	0.025
Oklahoma State	TCU	71.0%	0.016
Colorado	Washington	18.1%	0.014
Florida State	North Carolina State	86.1%	0.013
Iowa	Penn State	17.5%	0.013
California	USC	17.3%	0.011
Houston	Texas Tech	58.6%	0.009
Purdue	Michigan	18.7%	0.007
Baylor	Oklahoma	5.3%	0.007

Welcome to home underdog weekend.  Weeks like this can actually be the most exciting kind because there are so many opportunities for top teams to get tripped up.  Furthermore, it's still early in the season, so we don't really know if the road favorites are actually good.  We also get a nice distribution of games across the midday and night time-slots, so there's a little more balance than the last two weeks.  Should be fun.

In the pre-season, the battle of the Bulldogs was rated as the 13th most important game of the weekend.  Now it's easily the most important, as the winner will likely become the SEC's best candidate for a second playoff berth.  In other news, roll two dice.  Did you roll an 11 or 12?  Well if you did, Vandy just beat Bama.  So that's fun.