Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 9

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

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	CFP Prob	Change
1	Ohio State	1	93.30%	9.7%
2	Clemson	3	84.10%	9.3%
3	Penn State	5	65.58%	17.8%
4	LSU	4	61.75%	13.9%
5	Alabama	2	46.75%	1.6%
6	Oklahoma	6	11.93%	-36.7%
7	Oregon	10	9.83%	-1.9%
8	Florida	11	7.80%	1.0%
9	Georgia	7	5.30%	0.4%
10	Baylor	21	4.15%	1.0%
11	Utah	12	3.32%	1.1%
12	Auburn	8	1.85%	-5.2%
13	Minnesota	20	1.75%	0.8%
14	Notre Dame	14	1.04%	-11.1%
15	Michigan	13	0.72%	0.6%
16	Wisconsin	9	0.44%	-2.2%
17	Wake Forest	47	0.23%	0.0%
18	Appalachian State	35	0.05%	0.0%
19	Iowa	18	0.05%	0.0%
20	SMU	41	0.04%	0.0%
21	Kansas State	34	0.03%	0.0%
22	Indiana	33	0.01%	0.0%
23	Virginia Tech	75	0.00%	0.0%

1.  Once again the noon slot gives us one consequential upset, which may seem huge but is actually only enough to keep pace with our already slim chance of true chaos.  What is far more likely is a sort of faux chaos where we actually have too many deserving teams for the four Playoff slots.  This is once again illustrated by the test simulation I run before the real one (which I originally detailed here).  This week it gives us a ridiculous top six as such:

In this case the two best teams (Ohio State and Bama) are both 11-1 but fail to win their conferences because of losses to Penn State and LSU, respectively.  While both teams would have strong cases normally (especially the Buckeyes), this scenario gives us two absolute locks (LSU and Clemson), and two 1-loss power conference champs (PSU and Oklahoma).  Based on recent history it would be hard to overcome those four teams, even though either runner-up could easily be the favorite where they to make the Playoff.  Because of the angst this would cause, I am officially rooting for this to happen.

2.  A few more teams bit the dust this week, with Pitt, Iowa State, Virginia, Texas, and Arizona State all taking a third loss.  Texas has had a weird season with a) the preseason computers ratings being very low, b) the Longhorns looking good through the first few weeks, and c) an absolute nosedive since the Oklahoma loss.  Now they get to be spoiler at best.

3.  The ACC Coastal remains bizarre with Virginia losing but staying in a "commanding" lead.  Minnesota is now a very slight favorite in the Big Ten West, but they have Penn State, Iowa, and Wisconsin still to go.  The SEC basically has a four-team playoff at this point starting with Florida-Georgia this week and continuing with Bama-LSU the next.  And 3-5 UCLA still has roughly a 2% chance of beating both Utah and USC to win the Pac 12 South.  Fun stuff all around.

Conference	Favorite	Perc		Runner-Up	Perc
ACCA	Clemson	99.3%		Wake Forest	0.7%
ACCC	Virginia	47.2%		North Carolina	26.3%
AMEE	Cincinnati	88.1%		Central Florida	11.5%
AMEW	SMU	39.4%		Navy	32.6%
B10E	Ohio State	82.6%		Penn State	17.4%
B10W	Minnesota	46.2%		Wisconsin	41.2%
B12	Oklahoma	84.8%		Baylor	82.9%
CUSAE	Marshall	39.6%		Florida Atlantic	38.1%
CUSAW	Louisiana Tech	64.8%		UAB	16.3%
MACE	Ohio	54.1%		Miami (OH)	44.0%
MACW	Ball State	41.9%		Western Michigan	30.2%
MWCW	San Diego State	68.5%		Hawaii	17.6%
MWCM	Boise State	80.2%		Air Force	12.2%
P12N	Oregon	99.95%		Oregon State	0.03%
P12S	Utah	56.7%		USC	41.6%
SECE	Georgia	54.2%		Florida	45.7%
SECW	Alabama	70.5%		LSU	29.4%
SUNE	Appalachian State	91.8%		Georgia State	6.2%
SUNW	Louisiana-Lafayette	94.3%		Arkansas State	3.3%

Week 10 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
Georgia	Florida	62.2%	0.034
USC	Oregon	34.1%	0.017
Washington	Utah	47.3%	0.008
Baylor	West Virginia	89.4%	0.001
Auburn	Ole Miss	92.8%	0.001
Notre Dame	Virginia Tech	92.3%	0.001
Maryland	Michigan	10.9%	0.001
Wake Forest	North Carolina State	71.7%	0.000
Memphis	SMU	64.1%	0.000
Kansas	Kansas State	19.8%	0.000

With the extra week between Labor Day and Thanksgiving this year comes an extra bye week for most teams.  All the good teams are taking theirs this week, leaving an amazing dearth of high-importance games for a week relatively late in the season.  Aside from the top three and SMU-Memphis, it's hard to recommend any of these to anyone other than the most diehard fan.  Oh well, it's still football.

Best TV of the Decade: #7 - Twin Peaks: The Return

#7 - Twin Peaks: The Return
Aired 2017 on Showtime
Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch
Currently streaming on Showtime

For a brief introduction to this countdown, click here.

The original run of Twin Peaks in the early nineties was very much of its time.  The majority of popular culture came from original creations and portrayed an earnestness consistent with the era.  Twin Peaks was certainly original as it turned its initial whodunit premise on its side by becoming a goofy pastiche of Americana with a touch of the supernatural.  And while it's easy to confuse its quirkiness for irony, the show never strayed far from its very human heart.  The heightened performances, the wide swath of characters, and the swelling score all served first and foremost to paint a picture of a town wrecked with grief over the loss of one of their own.

In the same vein, Twin Peaks: The Return is also very much of its time.  As late capitalism collapses in on itself, the overly-corporate entertainment industry has short-circuited, thus birthing near-infinite jokers, spidermen, and hyper-realistic lion kings.  But just as remake culture has given way to the banal, it's also allowed for moments of sublime reckoning.  In that regard, Twin Peaks is the gold standard.  For as much as the show revels in the moments we giddily spend with our most beloved characters, it also undercuts every instance of that and makes it clear that you can't go back home again.

But Twin Peaks: The Return is not merely a meta commentary on its own existence.  It's an uproarious comedy.  It's a reflection on the genesis of a particularly American strain of evil.  And a near-spiritual treatise on the eternal recurrence of human nature.  I often complement shows by saying that they contain multitudes but Twin Peaks is actually multitudes.  And one of the side effects of these multitudes was the realization of perhaps the greatest volume of critical thought surrounding any single season of television.  Matt Zoller Seitz wrote about both standout episodes and the show as a whole.  Others focused on specific themes or other specific themes.  And others detailed every single theme.  Not many people actually watched Twin Peaks: The Return, but everyone who did went out and started a blog.

I embarked on this countdown for many reasons, but mainly I wanted to challenge myself to write about the series I love in a manner both comprehensive and authoritative.  By this standard, Twin Peaks is the most daunting show on the list.  Not only is there an exhaustive compendium of critical thought on the series but there's also a built-in set of obsessive fans that spent 25 years in the Black Lodge waiting for this.  I'm not one of those people and I don't feel inadequate when I say I will never catch up to them.  In that light I will say it was one of the best things of the decade and move on.

Me being me, I still want to make one quick point.  When The Return was originally announced there was some consternation even among the most devoted of fans.  Some of that was sequel fatigue and as mentioned earlier I think that fear was clearly and notably alleviated.  But there was also a large contingent of observers that feared the expanded length (18 hour-long episodes) was another case of modern drama's tendency towards quantity over quality.  While I fully acknowledge that spending 18 hours going down every Lynchian rabbit hole may not be for everyone, I think the series more than justified its length.  Indeed, that it had so much room to work with might have actually been its biggest asset.  The time spent with old characters, the introduction of new ones, and the entirely original creations (The Roadhouse, Episode 8, etc...) all served a larger story whose richness would have been nearly impossible to recreate otherwise.  I guess the lesson is that when one of the world's most famous directors announces he's re-animating one of his most beloved creations, we should probably trust him.

Weekly Playoff Probabilities - Week 8

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

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	CFP Prob	Change
1	Ohio State	1	83.64%	7.9%
2	Clemson	3	74.81%	5.4%
3	Oklahoma	4	48.63%	5.6%
4	LSU	5	47.82%	12.1%
5	Penn State	6	47.75%	9.4%
6	Alabama	2	45.16%	-13.7%
7	Notre Dame	11	12.14%	0.7%
8	Oregon	10	11.70%	-0.3%
9	Auburn	9	7.07%	0.7%
10	Florida	12	6.77%	2.7%
11	Georgia	7	4.87%	0.0%
12	Baylor	19	3.13%	2.0%
13	Wisconsin	8	2.66%	-32.5%
14	Utah	13	2.21%	0.9%
15	Minnesota	25	1.00%	0.2%
16	Wake Forest	46	0.21%	0.0%
17	Michigan	15	0.15%	-0.6%
18	Iowa State	16	0.05%	0.0%
19	Appalachian State	39	0.04%	0.0%
20	Pitt	49	0.04%	0.0%
21	SMU	37	0.03%	0.0%
22	Virginia	32	0.03%	0.0%
23	Texas	22	0.03%	-0.1%
24	Arizona State	36	0.02%	-0.1%
25	Iowa	21	0.02%	0.0%
26	Indiana	34	0.01%	0.0%
27	Kansas State	40	0.00%	0.0%
28	Virginia Tech	71	0.00%	0.0%

1.  You would think Georgia's loss last week and Wisconsin's this week would be enough to shake things up.  But one big upset a week is roughly par for the course in college football, so the Playoff odds are still quite top-heavy.  Alabama falls to their lowest spot in years largely because 1) their computer ratings fell off ever so slightly, and 2) all the other contenders have slightly easier paths to Playoff-worthy seasons.  A weak SOS (projected at .513 without an SEC title game appearance) means that an 11-1 Crimson Tide might very well be on the outside looking in.  Don't say you weren't warned.

2.  A good set of eliminations this week includes Washington, California, Oklahoma State, Duke, Louisville, North Carolina State, TCU, Arizona, and Boise State.  Washington is the first of the legitimate preseason Playoff contenders to take a third loss.  On the other end of the ledger, it's mighty impressive that Louisville made it this long before appearing here.  I guess they figured out how to get the Petrino out of their program quickly.

3.  Clemson had the highest odds to win their division all season until today, as Oregon's dominance of the Pac 12 North takes center stage.  Basically the only scenarios that don't have the Ducks winning involve multiple upsets and an unexpected run by Wazzu (unlikely) or Oregon State (reeeally unlikely).  In other news, Minnesota has crept all the way up to a 1 in 3 shot of making the Big Ten title game.  And Ball State is your new division favorite that came out of nowhere...destroying previous favorite Toledo will do that for you.

Conference	Favorite	Perc		Runner-Up	Perc
ACCA	Clemson	99.3%		Wake Forest	0.7%
ACCC	Virginia	66.8%		Pitt	14.6%
AMEE	Cincinnati	86.1%		Central Florida	11.1%
AMEW	SMU	35.8%		Memphis	32.7%
B10E	Ohio State	81.6%		Penn State	18.1%
B10W	Wisconsin	57.7%		Minnesota	32.3%
B12	Oklahoma	94.1%		Baylor	70.7%
CUSAE	Western Kentucky	42.8%		Florida Atlantic	27.7%
CUSAW	Louisiana Tech	57.0%		North Texas	16.4%
MACE	Ohio	48.2%		Miami (OH)	38.0%
MACW	Ball State	57.8%		Western Michigan	19.6%
MWCW	San Diego State	54.4%		Fresno State	34.7%
MWCM	Boise State	71.4%		Utah State	18.8%
P12N	Oregon	99.7%		Washington State	0.2%
P12S	Utah	55.3%		USC	42.2%
SECE	Georgia	53.0%		Florida	46.6%
SECW	Alabama	66.4%		LSU	27.6%
SUNE	Appalachian State	93.5%		Georgia State	4.1%
SUNW	Louisiana-Lafayette	92.2%		Louisiana-Monroe	3.7%

Week 9 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
LSU	Auburn	66.6%	0.077
Ohio State	Wisconsin	82.5%	0.060
Michigan State	Penn State	26.6%	0.042
Michigan	Notre Dame	45.8%	0.029
Kansas State	Oklahoma	11.0%	0.018
Oregon	Washington State	83.7%	0.010
Clemson	Boston College	97.3%	0.007
Alabama	Arkansas	98.9%	0.002
Utah	California	88.9%	0.001
Minnesota	Maryland	80.9%	0.001

Week 9 is not the deepest week, but the big games are fantastic.  All of the top five games feature a contender getting a major test on the road, some of them against other contenders.  We also have a couple of interesting undercards in the Big 12 with Iowa State-Oklahoma State and Texas-TCU.  Not bad.