Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 3

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

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	POFF Prob	Change
1	Alabama	1	79.19%	7.3%
2	Clemson	4	60.30%	4.0%
3	Ohio State	2	42.54%	-14.2%
4	Georgia	3	36.04%	-4.1%
5	Oklahoma	5	34.94%	-13.1%
6	Penn State	6	33.38%	11.4%
7	Washington	7	21.47%	9.8%
8	Oklahoma State	9	17.80%	14.0%
9	Mississippi State	8	15.38%	1.4%
10	Notre Dame	18	15.09%	-4.4%
11	Stanford	17	9.57%	-4.6%
12	LSU	16	4.56%	2.7%
13	Boston College	23	4.46%	0.8%
14	Virginia Tech	21	4.35%	0.1%
15	Duke	25	3.13%	0.4%
16	Miami (FL)	14	2.66%	1.9%
17	West Virginia	20	2.26%	0.8%
18	Michigan	10	2.06%	-1.1%
19	Iowa	22	1.94%	0.0%
20	North Carolina State	37	1.74%	0.8%
21	Washington State	31	1.39%	0.9%
22	Auburn	11	1.24%	-6.2%
23	Texas A&M	12	0.80%	0.3%
24	Oregon	34	0.49%	-0.9%
25	Michigan State	15	0.47%	0.0%
26	Missouri	30	0.38%	-0.4%
27	Syracuse	45	0.35%	0.3%
28	South Carolina	32	0.30%	0.2%
29	TCU	24	0.27%	-0.4%
30	Utah	33	0.22%	-1.0%
31	California	50	0.20%	0.0%
32	Wisconsin	13	0.19%	-5.5%
33	Indiana	46	0.16%	0.1%
34	Kentucky	39	0.15%	0.0%
35	Minnesota	41	0.11%	0.0%
36	Central Florida	36	0.10%	0.1%
37	Florida	28	0.08%	0.0%
38	Texas	27	0.05%	0.0%
39	Vanderbilt	42	0.04%	-0.1%
40	North Texas	59	0.04%	0.0%
41	Colorado	54	0.03%	0.0%
42	Wake Forest	52	0.03%	-0.1%
43	South Florida	53	0.02%	0.0%
44	Arizona State	40	0.01%	-0.3%
45	Texas Tech	38	0.01%	0.0%
46	Marshall	72	0.01%	0.0%
47	USC	35	0.01%	-0.3%
48	Cincinnati	62	0.01%	0.0%
49	Virginia	56	0.01%	0.0%
50	Buffalo	83	0.00%	0.0%
51	Iowa State	48	0.00%	0.0%
52	Louisville	68	0.00%	0.0%
53	Kansas State	66	0.00%	0.0%
54	Louisiana Tech	76	0.00%	0.0%
55	Akron	99	0.00%	0.0%
56	Maryland	67	0.00%	-0.1%
57	Baylor	57	0.00%	0.0%
58	Illinois	88	0.00%	0.0%
59	Pitt	71	0.00%	0.0%
60	Tennessee	60	0.00%	0.0%
61	Kansas	75	0.00%	0.0%
62	Georgia Tech	47	0.00%	0.0%
63	Florida State	61	0.00%	0.0%
64	Northwestern	55	0.00%	0.0%
65	Arkansas	79	0.00%	0.0%
66	Nebraska	64	0.00%	0.0%
67	Rutgers	107	0.00%	0.0%
68	Oregon State	91	0.00%	0.0%
69	North Carolina	73	0.00%	0.0%
70	Arizona	70	0.00%	0.0%

1. Week Three gave us some shake-ups, but the changes at the top mostly depended on how impressively you won.  Ohio State and Oklahoma looked slightly less dominant than in past weeks, so they take a small hit.  And Alabama appears to have achieved its final form, which means it has roughly the highest odds a team can have in September.  The biggest mover of the week though is Oklahoma State, a team that answered a lot of questions in its comfortable win over the Murder Smurfs.

In less important news, my model acknowledges that while there probably has to be a second contender from the ACC, it has no idea who that team may be, and has thus lumped four teams together from 13 to 16.  Miami is probably the second-best team in the conference, but they have a loss.  Virginia Tech has the Labor Day win over FSU, but is that really impressive?  And BC and Duke are good teams now I guess.

Also, West Virginia and NC State both moved into the top 20 after calling off their game because of Florence, which means Marla Daniels was right.

2.  Congrats to UCLA and Purdue on both starting 0-3 and thus not having to earn the dishonor of being the first power conference team eliminated on your own.  Also eliminated is Boise State, Toledo, Houston, Eastern Michigan, Georgia Southern, Ohio, Louisiana-Monroe, Hawaii, and Louisiana-Lafayette.

3.  Conference odds still look exactly the same, except for the absence of the Mountain West and the Sun Belt, who are fresh out of undefeated teams.

Conference	Exp Playoff Teams
SEC	1.382
B10	0.808
ACC	0.770
B12	0.553
P12	0.334
IND	0.151
AMER	0.001
CUSA	0.000
MAC	0.000

4.  The conference title grid changed a lot from last week largely because of over and under-performance in non-conference play.  For example, the Big Ten West is basically a coin-flip now, because the Badgers look to have taken a step down from last year.  And USC's misfortune means the Pac-12 South is completely wide-open, with four teams with at least a 15% of claiming a spot in the title game.

Conference	Favorite	Perc		Runner-Up	Perc
ACCA	Clemson	80.1%		Boston College	11.4%
ACCC	Miami (FL)	41.9%		Virginia Tech	37.6%
AMEE	Central Florida	49.8%		South Florida	27.4%
AMEW	Memphis	60.2%		Houston	29.0%
B10E	Ohio State	56.5%		Penn State	28.0%
B10W	Wisconsin	47.8%		Iowa	39.6%
B12	Oklahoma	82.8%		Oklahoma State	61.2%
CUSAE	Marshall	47.2%		Florida International	28.8%
CUSAW	North Texas	64.4%		Louisiana Tech	19.7%
MACE	Buffalo	58.9%		Akron	18.9%
MACW	Toledo	48.4%		Western Michigan	20.2%
MWCW	Fresno State	79.2%		San Diego State	15.5%
MWCM	Boise State	74.6%		Utah State	23.3%
P12N	Washington	72.0%		Stanford	17.1%
P12S	USC	36.9%		Utah	22.3%
SECE	Georgia	90.4%		Missouri	3.8%
SECW	Alabama	86.4%		Mississippi State	8.6%
SUNE	Appalachian State	79.9%		Troy	9.6%
SUNW	Arkansas State	72.7%		Louisiana-Monroe	15.5%

Week 4 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
Alabama	Texas A&M	90.8%	0.028
Georgia Tech	Clemson	12.9%	0.026
Missouri	Georgia	16.1%	0.020
Wake Forest	Notre Dame	27.3%	0.014
Oregon	Stanford	40.1%	0.014
Washington	Arizona State	88.8%	0.012
Kentucky	Mississippi State	19.2%	0.010
Oklahoma State	Texas Tech	84.4%	0.009
Illinois	Penn State	3.8%	0.004
Iowa	Wisconsin	47.2%	0.004

Week 4 isn't the sexiest week, but we finally have some depth thanks to conference play starting in earnest.  For example, the last game on this list is massively important because it will almost certainly play a large part in deciding the Big Ten West.  And other games on the bottom half of the list feature top-ten quality teams facing mild tests that will at least give us more of an idea of who is actually a contender.