| Rank | Team | Agg Rank | POFF Prob | Change |
| 1 | Alabama | 1 | 69.22% | -16.5% |
| 2 | Georgia | 4 | 63.81% | 13.8% |
| 3 | Penn State | 3 | 52.92% | -7.4% |
| 4 | Ohio State | 2 | 46.07% | 16.7% |
| 5 | Notre Dame | 5 | 43.88% | 13.5% |
| 6 | Clemson | 6 | 35.38% | 9.9% |
| 7 | Central Florida | 15 | 28.61% | 1.9% |
| 8 | Wisconsin | 11 | 21.40% | -3.0% |
| 9 | Miami (FL) | 17 | 19.61% | -9.2% |
| 10 | Washington | 7 | 7.23% | -3.8% |
| 11 | Oklahoma | 9 | 3.49% | 0.7% |
| 12 | TCU | 12 | 3.09% | -14.5% |
| 13 | Oklahoma State | 10 | 1.67% | -0.1% |
| 14 | Virginia Tech | 13 | 1.66% | 0.5% |
| 15 | USC | 18 | 0.64% | 0.3% |
| 16 | Mississippi State | 14 | 0.51% | 0.3% |
| 17 | Auburn | 8 | 0.34% | -0.1% |
| 18 | North Carolina State | 20 | 0.18% | -1.6% |
| 19 | Stanford | 16 | 0.11% | -0.2% |
| 20 | Michigan | 22 | 0.08% | 0.0% |
| 21 | Iowa State | 21 | 0.03% | 0.0% |
| 22 | Washington State | 25 | 0.02% | -0.7% |
| 23 | Michigan State | 32 | 0.02% | -0.6% |
| 24 | South Carolina | 38 | 0.01% | 0.0% |
| 25 | LSU | 24 | 0.01% | 0.0% |
| 26 | Arizona | 26 | 0.00% | 0.0% |
| 27 | Kentucky | 68 | 0.00% | 0.0% |
1. So, a couple of weird things happened. First, our biggest dropper of the week was...idle Alabama? Aside from having the most to lose, there are some pretty logical reasons why Alabama moved down so much. First, their wins in the bank don't look quite as good as they did: All three of their non-conference opponents lost (Florida State, Fresno State, and Colorado State), while their two cross-divisional opponents lost (Tennessee and Vandy). This helped to move their predicted SOS from .594 (elite) to .568 (merely pretty good). An 11-1 or 12-1 Alabama was previously viewed as a near-lock for the Playoff, but now there's a little less room for error. Additionally, their odds of winning out dropped from 44% to 35%, partially because future opponents Mississippi State and Georgia looked quite good this week. The Tide is still in better shape than anyone, but they'll probably have to sweat the last five weeks out more than we previously thought.
2. The other noticeable oddity is Penn State barely dropping after their loss to the Buckeyes. Much the Bama weirdness, it's pretty easy to justify this. First of all, Penn State's odds of finishing 11-1 or better barely decreased. Last week this figure was 81% and now it's all the way down to 73%. The main reason for this is that they are now very unlikely to have to play Wisconsin in the Big Ten title game. This means their toughest remaining test is a road game against Michigan State in which they will be favored by double digits. Second, Penn State's non-conference opponents (Akron and Pitt) and cross-division opponents (Nebraska, Northwestern, and Iowa) went 5-0 this week, meaning that losing the opportunity to play the Badgers doesn't really hurt their SOS enough to matter. An 11-1 Penn State will have an eerily similar case to last year's 11-1 Ohio State - so much so that they're probably getting it. Never let it be said that the college football gods don't have a sense of humor.
3. Week 9 eliminated five teams from the rankings: Texas A&M, Virginia, West Virginia, South Florida, and Georgia Tech. We have still lost only one of the pre-season top 16 (#3 Florida State), which should make the final five weeks pretty damn exciting.
4. The Pac 12 and Big 12 are basically done (from a playoff standpoint), so it appears that either the Big Ten or SEC is going to get two teams in, or ND is going to make the playoff. Or maybe both those things happen.
| Conference | Exp Playoff Teams |
| SEC | 1.339 |
| B10 | 1.205 |
| ACC | 0.568 |
| IND | 0.439 |
| AMER | 0.286 |
| B12 | 0.083 |
| P12 | 0.080 |
5. Conference title races didn't change too much with the events of Week 9. Ohio State is now your clear favorite in the East and the Big 12 is up for grabs, but everything else is pretty much as it was. Northwestern holds on to its faint conference title bid, but they would have to win out while Wisconsin would have to go 1-3 at best. You can always dream, I guess.
| Conference | Favorite | Perc | Runner-Up | Perc | |
| ACCA | Clemson | 70.6% | North Carolina State | 29.3% | |
| ACCC | Miami (FL) | 69.4% | Virginia Tech | 29.8% | |
| AMEE | Central Florida | 81.5% | South Florida | 18.5% | |
| AMEW | Memphis | 81.0% | SMU | 11.3% | |
| B10E | Ohio State | 96.7% | Penn State | 2.5% | |
| B10W | Wisconsin | 99.4% | Northwestern | 0.5% | |
| B12 | Oklahoma State | 56.9% | Oklahoma | 56.7% | |
| CUSAE | Florida Atlantic | 79.4% | Marshall | 16.4% | |
| CUSAW | North Texas | 75.7% | Louisiana Tech | 8.5% | |
| MACE | Ohio | 53.3% | Akron | 36.1% | |
| MACW | Toledo | 63.4% | Northern Illinois | 26.2% | |
| MWCW | Fresno State | 77.9% | San Diego State | 21.5% | |
| MWCM | Boise State | 63.0% | Colorado State | 29.0% | |
| P12N | Washington | 62.0% | Stanford | 33.8% | |
| P12S | USC | 73.9% | Arizona | 23.8% | |
| SECE | Georgia | 97.1% | South Carolina | 2.3% | |
| SECW | Alabama | 82.3% | Auburn | 12.9% | |
| SUN | Appalachian State | 48.1% | Arkansas State | 41.7% |
Week 10 Preview
| Home | Away | Home Win Prob | Playoff Teams Lost |
| SMU | Central Florida | 21.6% | 0.062 |
| North Carolina State | Clemson | 27.2% | 0.049 |
| Michigan State | Penn State | 15.0% | 0.040 |
| Miami (FL) | Virginia Tech | 48.4% | 0.038 |
| Iowa | Ohio State | 11.8% | 0.027 |
| Notre Dame | Wake Forest | 88.4% | 0.025 |
| Georgia | South Carolina | 91.9% | 0.017 |
| Alabama | LSU | 93.0% | 0.016 |
| Oklahoma State | Oklahoma | 55.4% | 0.013 |
| Indiana | Wisconsin | 18.2% | 0.013 |
There is no game with anything close to the importance of Ohio State-Penn State this weekend (just look at the #1 game...lol). That said, this is probably the deepest week I have ever seen since starting this exercise two years ago. Every game in the top ten has a reasonably important impact on the playoff and a few of the games just off the top ten (Auburn-A&M, Wazzu-Stanford, Arizona-USC) promise to be great. If you're going to spend a full Saturday in front of the TV, this is probably it.
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