Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 3

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

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	CFP Prob	Change
1	Clemson	2	74.90%	-9.0%
2	Alabama	1	59.97%	-5.8%
3	Ohio State	5	50.61%	14.5%
4	Oklahoma	6	39.35%	9.7%
5	LSU	4	31.41%	-11.7%
6	Georgia	3	28.97%	19.3%
7	Notre Dame	7	26.75%	2.0%
8	Wisconsin	9	23.24%	-1.7%
9	Penn State	12	13.84%	-4.5%
10	Oregon	10	11.84%	5.2%
11	Auburn	8	10.76%	4.7%
12	Florida	11	7.55%	1.2%
13	Utah	23	3.14%	-4.9%
14	Washington	16	2.50%	1.7%
15	Michigan	15	2.47%	-1.3%
16	Oklahoma State	21	2.34%	1.2%
17	Virginia	27	1.59%	0.6%
18	Washington State	24	1.55%	-2.5%
19	Iowa	25	1.33%	-1.6%
20	Wake Forest	43	1.15%	0.7%
21	Kansas State	29	0.65%	0.4%
22	Texas	19	0.60%	0.1%
23	Arizona State	35	0.59%	0.6%
24	Michigan State	17	0.40%	-7.3%
25	TCU	31	0.39%	0.4%
26	Baylor	28	0.36%	-1.7%
27	Central Florida	14	0.33%	-0.1%
28	Boise State	32	0.32%	0.0%
29	Minnesota	45	0.20%	-0.5%
30	Texas A&M	13	0.20%	-0.6%
31	Kentucky	33	0.14%	-0.2%
32	Mississippi State	20	0.13%	-1.5%
33	California	51	0.08%	0.0%
34	Maryland	34	0.05%	-1.8%
35	Miami (FL)	22	0.05%	0.0%
36	North Carolina	41	0.05%	-0.6%
37	USC	30	0.05%	-2.7%
38	Memphis	36	0.03%	0.0%
39	Iowa State	39	0.02%	-0.1%
40	Air Force	55	0.01%	0.0%
41	North Carolina State	52	0.01%	-1.8%
42	Pitt	44	0.01%	0.0%
43	Duke	50	0.01%	0.0%
44	Nebraska	38	0.01%	0.0%
45	Texas Tech	42	0.00%	-0.2%
46	Louisville	56	0.00%	0.0%
47	Appalachian State	59	0.00%	0.0%
48	San Diego State	71	0.00%	0.0%
49	Temple	62	0.00%	0.0%
50	Indiana	63	0.00%	-0.1%
51	Florida State	37	0.00%	0.0%
52	Syracuse	72	0.00%	0.0%
53	Virginia Tech	69	0.00%	0.0%
54	West Virginia	60	0.00%	0.0%
55	SMU	58	0.00%	0.0%
56	Wyoming	83	0.00%	0.0%
57	Arizona	48	0.00%	0.0%
58	Boston College	84	0.00%	-0.1%
59	Colorado	67	0.00%	0.0%
60	Ole Miss	46	0.00%	0.0%
61	Northwestern	64	0.00%	0.0%
62	Illinois	86	0.00%	0.0%
63	Arkansas	78	0.00%	0.0%
64	Rutgers	101	0.00%	0.0%
65	Kansas	98	0.00%	0.0%
66	South Carolina	26	0.00%	0.0%
67	Stanford	47	0.00%	0.0%
68	Purdue	68	0.00%	0.0%
69	Georgia Tech	94	0.00%	0.0%
70	Vanderbilt	75	0.00%	0.0%
71	Tennessee	49	0.00%	0.0%
72	Oregon State	82	0.00%	0.0%
73	UAB	113	0.00%	0.0%
74	Navy	81	0.00%	0.0%

1. Despite the lack of big time losses atop the rankings in week 2, a few things changed a bit.  Clemson dropped a bit, which is naturally going to happen anytime all the other good teams avoid the upset bug.  But worry not if you're a Tiger fan...my 10,000 simulations returned just shy of 15,000 undefeated power conference seasons and Clemson owned more than 6,000 of them.  In other news, Jeff Sagarin appears to have fixed the problem from last week, so Georgia is restored to their previous standing in advance of the big game.  Finally, Central Florida destroyed Stanford and reaches roughly as high as a Group of Five team could realistically be at this point, and Boise State's relatively stronger SOS keeps them right behind the Knights.

2.  This was a light week for eliminations.  We wave goodbye to Georgia State, Troy, New Mexico, Hawaii, and our first power conference team, UCLA.  Chip Kelly clearly has a long leash, but also he's realllly going to need it.

3.  Florida State is currently rated 37th in the aggregate computer rankings, which infers that they are the second best team in the ACC Coastal.  So yeah, Clemson is going to win that division.  Texas and Oklahoma State both have about a one in three chance of making the Big 12 title game, so this week's matchup will be revealing.  Blogacz favorite Eastern Michigan is riding high off their third straight victory over a Big Ten team and the Eagles now have a 12% chance of making the MAC title game.  And the surprisingly good Mountain West is now a bit of a tossup in both divisions.

Conference	Favorite	Perc		Runner-Up	Perc
ACCA	Clemson	97.9%		Wake Forest	0.8%
ACCC	Virginia	50.7%		Miami (FL)	29.3%
AMEE	Central Florida	85.7%		Cincinnati	8.4%
AMEW	Memphis	50.9%		SMU	18.9%
B10E	Ohio State	66.4%		Penn State	18.5%
B10W	Wisconsin	77.0%		Iowa	13.3%
B12	Oklahoma	86.1%		Texas	33.8%
CUSAE	Marshall	58.7%		Florida Atlantic	23.5%
CUSAW	Southern Miss	43.1%		North Texas	32.7%
MACE	Ohio	70.3%		Miami (OH)	18.1%
MACW	Toledo	50.3%		Western Michigan	33.1%
MWCW	San Diego State	43.8%		Fresno State	41.1%
MWCM	Boise State	59.5%		Utah State	24.3%
P12N	Oregon	72.5%		Washington	14.7%
P12S	Utah	47.4%		USC	28.9%
SECE	Georgia	77.1%		Florida	20.0%
SECW	Alabama	72.5%		LSU	18.5%
SUNE	Appalachian State	70.3%		Troy	17.1%
SUNW	Louisiana-Lafayette	46.4%		Arkansas State	35.8%

Week 4 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
Georgia	Notre Dame	67.6%	0.092
Wisconsin	Michigan	74.3%	0.026
Texas A&M	Auburn	44.9%	0.017
Stanford	Oregon	14.8%	0.009
Texas	Oklahoma State	58.3%	0.006
Vanderbilt	LSU	5.4%	0.006
USC	Utah	51.1%	0.005
BYU	Washington	24.3%	0.003
Florida	Tennessee	89.8%	0.003
Alabama	Southern Miss	98.9%	0.002

The game of the year thus far happens Saturday night between the hedges...get excited.  The next two games on the list are in different time slots, and the Utah-USC game is on Friday night.  So there's a nice wide spread of really good games to look forward to.