Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 13

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

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	POFF Prob	Change
1	Alabama	1	80.07%	-7.4%
2	Wisconsin	7	72.73%	12.6%
3	Clemson	4	72.47%	16.9%
4	Georgia	5	62.23%	18.9%
5	Miami (FL)	13	30.20%	-43.2%
6	Auburn	6	27.52%	22.6%
7	Oklahoma	9	24.43%	10.2%
8	Ohio State	2	11.80%	4.6%
9	Penn State	3	9.83%	4.2%
10	Central Florida	15	3.20%	-15.1%
11	USC	17	2.66%	0.1%
12	Washington	8	1.61%	1.1%
13	TCU	11	1.26%	0.8%

1.  So Alabama is still first.  That may seem odd, but it makes sense when you remember that they don't have to play any more games, and thus are guaranteed to finish with just one loss.  Many of the teams below the Tide will leap them should they win next Saturday.  Wisconsin would jump to #1 with a win.  Clemson and Georgia would both pass Bama with wins.  Miami would just barely pass them.  In short, Alabama could be as low as fourth in my final model, but that still means my model tends to think they will make the Playoff.

2.  You may notice that I adjusted Central Florida again.  The committee's consistently poor treatment of Group of Five teams leads me to believe that it will be nearly impossible for one to make the playoff.  This led me to theorize that I should treat UCF like a two-loss power conference team.  This means that their SOS, while quite strong for a non-power schedule, is now treated as roughly equal to teams such as USC and TCU.  The resulting playoff odds feel much more in line with reality.  I will re-visit this in the offseason to determine how to proceed moving forward.

3.  We say goodbye to Washington State and Notre Dame, as they both finish their seasons 9-3.  The Irish's strong SOS (currently projected at .618, which is good for second in the nation, behind only Maryland) would've made for a fun case study for my model.

4.  In case you didn't notice in the first chart, it's now pretty likely that the SEC gets two teams in.  If Oklahoma wins, it'll be a much closer case.  If the Sooners lose, get ready for people to be unnecessarily angry.

Conference	Exp Playoff Teams
SEC	1.698
ACC	1.027
B10	0.944
B12	0.257
P12	0.043
AMER	0.032

Week 14 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
Auburn	Georgia	53.1%	0.293
Clemson	Miami (FL)	71.3%	0.212
Ohio State	Wisconsin	61.4%	0.194
Oklahoma	TCU	63.9%	0.056
USC	Stanford	48.1%	0.015
Central Florida	Memphis	70.0%	0.010

I've been doing this for three years now, and the top three games on this list are the 1st, 2nd, and 4th most consequential games during that span.  So yeah, this is probably the best Championship weekend of the playoff era.  Three virtual play-in games, plus a really fun matchup in the Big 12 should make for a riveting day.

Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 12

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

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	POFF Prob	Change
1	Alabama	1	87.46%	-0.8%
2	Miami (FL)	12	73.44%	-2.4%
3	Wisconsin	7	60.15%	11.8%
4	Clemson	3	55.57%	-3.5%
5	Georgia	5	43.30%	0.0%
6	Notre Dame	10	25.91%	-3.2%
7	Central Florida	14	18.29%	-1.7%
8	Oklahoma	9	14.25%	0.5%
9	Ohio State	2	7.23%	-0.2%
10	Penn State	4	5.62%	-0.7%
11	Auburn	6	4.94%	0.4%
12	USC	18	2.60%	0.0%
13	Washington	8	0.55%	0.0%
14	TCU	11	0.47%	0.1%
15	Washington State	23	0.21%	0.0%

1.  The least consequential weekend of the year barely changed anything.  Wisconsin takes a small bite out of everyone else's odds after passing their biggest test thus far.  ND and UCF are still a bit too high, but they both fell just a bit.  Ohio State sits on the periphery still, which means they'll probably win the title.

2.  Just two teams leave us after the quietest weekend of the year: Michigan and Oklahoma State.  The Cowboys are the best team to leave the playoff chase, but they're still just 12th in the aggregate rankings.

3.  The conference-level stats remain familiar.  Both the SEC and ACC still have a decent chance of getting two teams in.  The Pac 12 is still dead.

Conference	Exp Playoff Teams
SEC	1.357
ACC	1.290
B10	0.730
IND	0.259
AMER	0.183
B12	0.147
P12	0.034

4.  Four conference title matchups are completely decided, and all but one have at least one participant.  The MAC is the only conference where the final week will decide all.  And the Sun Belt is completely bananas.

Conference	Favorite	Perc		Runner-Up	Perc
ACCA	Clemson	100.0%
ACCC	Miami (FL)	100.0%
AMEE	Central Florida	79.3%		South Florida	20.7%
AMEW	Memphis	100.0%
B10E	Ohio State	100.0%
B10W	Wisconsin	100.0%
B12	Oklahoma	100.0%		TCU	97.0%
CUSAE	Florida Atlantic	100.0%
CUSAW	North Texas	100.0%
MACE	Akron	91.2%		Ohio	8.8%
MACW	Toledo	77.0%		Northern Illinois	19.6%
MWCW	Fresno State	100.0%
MWCM	Boise State	100.0%
P12N	Stanford	82.7%		Washington State	17.3%
P12S	USC	100.0%
SECE	Georgia	100.0%
SECW	Alabama	62.2%		Auburn	37.8%
SUN	Appalachian State	38.5%		Arkansas State	27.6%

Week 13 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
Auburn	Alabama	37.9%	0.141
Stanford	Notre Dame	42.3%	0.110
Georgia Tech	Georgia	21.7%	0.047
South Carolina	Clemson	15.8%	0.044
Pitt	Miami (FL)	16.1%	0.039
Central Florida	South Florida	78.7%	0.039
Minnesota	Wisconsin	10.6%	0.021
Michigan	Ohio State	21.0%	0.015
Oklahoma	West Virginia	87.8%	0.009
Maryland	Penn State	6.2%	0.003
Washington	Washington State	82.6%	0.003
TCU	Baylor	95.2%	0.000

Thanksgiving weekend will be one of the best of the year, thanks in large part to another formidable slate of home underdogs.  The Iron Bowl is the obvious highlight, but the true beauty of the weekend is that these 12 games take place in six different timeslots, so there's pretty much always something halfway decent on.  Enjoy.