Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 7

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

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	POFF Prob	Change
1	Alabama	1	88.99%	5.5%
2	Penn State	3	51.64%	17.0%
3	Georgia	6	51.35%	0.2%
4	Ohio State	2	39.04%	9.8%
5	Miami (FL)	14	38.91%	16.8%
6	Wisconsin	9	27.36%	-0.8%
7	Clemson	5	23.50%	-36.1%
8	TCU	12	17.93%	10.8%
9	Notre Dame	10	17.71%	2.7%
10	Central Florida	17	14.59%	8.7%
11	Washington	4	9.84%	-24.4%
12	USC	16	6.30%	2.1%
13	Oklahoma	7	4.19%	0.6%
14	North Carolina State	20	1.99%	1.3%
15	Oklahoma State	8	1.89%	1.4%
16	Stanford	13	0.96%	0.8%
17	Michigan	18	0.84%	0.4%
18	Michigan State	30	0.70%	0.5%
19	Washington State	25	0.69%	-11.4%
20	Auburn	11	0.49%	-4.5%
21	Virginia Tech	19	0.47%	0.2%
22	Mississippi State	21	0.24%	0.2%
23	Texas A&M	34	0.13%	0.1%
24	Wake Forest	31	0.07%	0.0%
25	Georgia Tech	23	0.05%	-0.1%
26	South Carolina	40	0.04%	0.0%
27	Kentucky	62	0.03%	0.0%
28	Iowa	28	0.02%	0.0%
29	LSU	24	0.02%	0.0%
30	South Florida	32	0.02%	0.0%
31	Virginia	52	0.01%	0.0%
32	Utah	37	0.01%	0.0%
33	Texas Tech	26	0.00%	-0.1%
34	Iowa State	33	0.00%	0.0%
35	Arizona	39	0.00%	0.0%
36	West Virginia	38	0.00%	0.0%

1.  The weekend of upsets gives us our biggest shake-up of the season thus far.  Clemson is still in good shape because of a strong SOS and the computer's faith in their team strength (they're still a favorite in all remaining games), but their margin of error is almost completely shot.  Washington still has a chance as well because they're actually ranked higher than Clemson in the computer ratings.  Poor Wazzu and Auburn are basically done though, largely because both teams have less than 5% chance of winning out. 

On the other side of the ledger, Miami is the main benefactor of the chaos, as they passed one of their most difficult remaining tests to become a Legitimate Contender.  Penn State takes an unprecedented bye-week leap basically because someone had to move up.  And Central Florida looks to be extremely good, and has an SOS that compares favorably to the only non-power teams to make the BCS top four (2009 and 2010 TCU).  They probably don't actually have a 15% chance of making the playoff, but it's probably closer to that number than you think.

2.  Our meatiest slate of eliminations happened this past weekend, because of course it did.  We say goodbye to Louisville, Indiana, Oregon, Florida, Tennessee, Duke, Texas, Kansas State, UCLA, Minnesota, Maryland, Purdue, San Diego State, and Navy.  None of these teams were higher than 17th in the preseason playoff odds, but this group represents a lot of the teams that had a puncher's chance if things broke right.  Instead the playoff will once again be loaded with blue-bloods.  And we will still watch.

3.  If Alabama and Georgia both emerge from the season with one or fewer losses, they probably both get in.  If one or both don't, then the SEC will be limited to one team at most, as there are no other serious contenders.  This makes for the clearest conference-level playoff picture possible.  In other items, the Big 12 and Pac 12 aren't dead, but they need a team to go unbeaten the rest of the way to have a shot.  Given the depth of both conferences and the difficult remaining slates for most contenders, it seems like long odds.  But there are enough potential contenders in each league such that the total odds of a team from one of those conferences making the playoff is basically a coin flip.

Conference	Exp Playoff Teams
SEC	1.413
B10	1.196
ACC	0.650
B12	0.240
P12	0.178
IND	0.177
AMER	0.146

4.  The theme of the conference title odds is that many big divisions will come down to one game.  Clemson-NC State is your game of the year in the ACC Atlantic, just like I sort of predicted.  Ohio State-Penn State will probably decide the Big Ten East.  Washington-Stanford is huge like we originally expected.  And Arizona (!) is now the main threat to USC.  Fun times.

Conference	Favorite	Perc		Runner-Up	Perc
ACCA	Clemson	51.0%		North Carolina State	45.7%
ACCC	Miami (FL)	84.0%		Virginia Tech	11.4%
AMEE	Central Florida	71.6%		South Florida	28.4%
AMEW	Memphis	40.5%		Houston	30.3%
B10E	Ohio State	70.4%		Penn State	27.3%
B10W	Wisconsin	98.9%		Iowa	0.7%
B12	TCU	78.2%		Oklahoma	51.7%
CUSAE	Florida Atlantic	48.3%		Marshall	32.9%
CUSAW	North Texas	64.5%		Southern Miss	14.5%
MACE	Ohio	52.5%		Akron	23.2%
MACW	Toledo	48.7%		Western Michigan	30.1%
MWCW	San Diego State	65.7%		Fresno State	33.7%
MWCM	Colorado State	51.7%		Boise State	41.8%
P12N	Washington	50.4%		Stanford	44.0%
P12S	USC	79.7%		Arizona	10.4%
SECE	Georgia	92.5%		Florida	3.2%
SECW	Alabama	88.6%		Auburn	8.7%
SUN	Appalachian State	67.3%		Arkansas State	18.9%

Week 8 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
Notre Dame	USC	69.2%	0.049
Navy	Central Florida	23.8%	0.035
Penn State	Michigan	82.1%	0.034
Miami (FL)	Syracuse	87.1%	0.017
Alabama	Tennessee	97.8%	0.007
Wisconsin	Maryland	94.3%	0.005
Kansas State	Oklahoma	20.8%	0.004
Texas	Oklahoma State	31.2%	0.003
Michigan State	Indiana	65.4%	0.001
Washington State	Colorado	77.4%	0.001

So Week 8 is...not deep.  The top three games are exciting and the Oklahoma schools both get big road tests, but beyond that there isn't much here.  Part of the issue is that we're down to just 10 or so realistic playoff contenders, so any "playoff excitement" metric (which this most certainly is) is going to suffer.  That said, just wait for the next three weeks.  You (probably) won't be disappointed.