College Football Playoff Predictor - Midseason Update

I normally update my Playoff model weekly during the college football season, but this season is quite obviously not normal.  The lack of interesting results the first few weeks followed by the frenzy around conference re-starting created a state of flux less than conducive to producing meaningful updates.  Now that we've had some upsets and all of the latecomers' schedules are set, that is no longer the case.  If you need a refresher, start here.

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	CFP Prob	Change
1	Clemson	2	71.38%
2	Ohio State	1	48.25%
3	Alabama	4	40.87%
4	Georgia	3	38.67%
5	Oregon	9	38.10%
6	Wisconsin	5	28.50%
7	Oklahoma State	11	23.42%
8	USC	12	23.11%
9	Penn State	6	15.24%
10	North Carolina	14	14.25%
11	Washington	24	9.02%
12	Utah	25	8.18%
13	Notre Dame	8	7.46%
14	Michigan	15	3.04%
15	California	48	3.03%
16	Arizona State	47	2.81%
17	Stanford	36	2.66%
18	Miami (FL)	22	2.66%
19	BYU	18	1.87%
20	Virginia Tech	20	1.67%
21	Auburn	10	1.63%
22	Minnesota	23	1.60%
23	Iowa	26	1.47%
24	UCLA	61	1.37%
25	Marshall	35	1.16%
26	Washington State	62	1.03%
27	Boise State	32	0.97%
28	Indiana	27	0.80%
29	Florida	7	0.78%
30	Tennessee	16	0.70%
31	Iowa State	33	0.56%
32	West Virginia	38	0.30%
33	Oregon State	70	0.27%
34	Arizona	73	0.27%
35	Texas A&M	28	0.23%
36	North Carolina State	56	0.23%
37	Louisiana-Lafayette	55	0.21%
38	Ohio	80	0.20%
39	Baylor	29	0.20%
40	Nebraska	34	0.19%
41	Buffalo	76	0.19%
42	Northwestern	39	0.18%
43	Oklahoma	17	0.17%
44	Central Michigan	86	0.14%
45	Colorado	81	0.13%
46	Air Force	64	0.10%
47	Western Michigan	89	0.08%
48	Purdue	53	0.08%
49	Houston	45	0.07%
50	Texas	19	0.06%
51	Florida Atlantic	74	0.05%
52	San Diego State	69	0.04%
53	Ball State	98	0.04%
54	Cincinnati	46	0.04%
55	Michigan State	63	0.04%
56	Kansas State	57	0.03%
57	Boston College	50	0.03%
58	Miami (OH)	99	0.03%
59	Wyoming	75	0.02%
60	SMU	58	0.02%
61	Toledo	93	0.02%
62	TCU	40	0.01%
63	Coastal Carolina	68	0.01%
64	Northern Illinois	105	0.01%
65	Illinois	66	0.01%
66	Wake Forest	59	0.01%
67	Kent State	109	0.01%
68	Virginia	54	0.00%
69	Ole Miss	44	0.00%
70	Eastern Michigan	110	0.00%
71	Pitt	37	0.00%
72	Utah State	91	0.00%
73	Rice	112	0.00%
74	South Carolina	31	0.00%
75	LSU	21	0.00%
76	Nevada	96	0.00%
77	Fresno State	92	0.00%
78	Maryland	85	0.00%
79	Kentucky	30	0.00%
80	Liberty	94	0.00%
81	Rutgers	95	0.00%
82	Mississippi State	52	0.00%
83	Arkansas	49	0.00%
84	Missouri	51	0.00%
85	Georgia Tech	65	0.00%
86	Colorado State	90	0.00%
87	Hawaii	102	0.00%
88	San Jose State	104	0.00%
89	UNLV	116	0.00%
90	New Mexico	120	0.00%
91	Akron	123	0.00%
92	Bowling Green	125	0.00%

The overall Playoff odds don't look wildly different from the start of the season as Oklahoma's tumble is the only major shake-up at the top.  The wacky results in the SEC don't matter much as the two currently unbeaten teams (Bama and Georgia) were the only two with strong odds to start the season.  The Pac-12 is boosted a bit by only having to play a 7-game schedule (which means it's likely somebody has to go 7-0).  Not sure if the committee will ding them or not, but even if they do I'm not going to blow my model up over a one-year hiccup.  Finally, BYU and Marshall are both in the top 25 largely because they're actually good.

Conference	Favorite	Perc		Runner-Up	Perc
ACC	Clemson	90.1%		Notre Dame	50.4%
AMER	Tulsa	50.4%		Central Florida	45.6%
B10E	Ohio State	74.9%		Penn State	22.2%
B10W	Wisconsin	74.6%		Minnesota	10.8%
B12	Oklahoma State	76.1%		Iowa State	45.6%
CUSAE	Marshall	74.7%		Florida Atlantic	20.9%
CUSAW	UAB	79.7%		Rice	11.2%
MACE	Buffalo	43.6%		Ohio	34.9%
MACW	Western Michigan	36.9%		Central Michigan	19.9%
MWCW	San Diego State	63.3%		Fresno State	15.2%
MWCM	Boise State	61.4%		Air Force	25.7%
P12N	Oregon	63.2%		Washington	21.5%
P12S	USC	56.7%		Utah	30.8%
SECE	Georgia	84.2%		Florida	14.7%
SECW	Alabama	88.8%		Auburn	9.5%
SUNE	Appalachian State	61.2%		Troy	16.8%
SUNW	Louisiana-Lafayette	98.1%		Arkansas State	0.7%

The conference odds are mostly what I would expect at this point with the notable exception of Tulsa and the UCF team they beat at the top of the American.  The reason SMU, Cincinnati, and others have slightly lesser odds are because 1) computers don't like them as much as the polls, and 2) Tulsa appears to be pretty damn good.  Reminder that the ACC and American are both on a Big-12 top-two model for this season - hence the single slot in the table.

Week 7 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
Alabama	Georgia	52.7%	0.132
Georgia Tech	Clemson	4.4%	0.010
Florida State	North Carolina	16.7%	0.008
BYU	Houston	73.1%	0.006
Miami (FL)	Pitt	68.8%	0.004
Notre Dame	Louisville	88.7%	0.003
South Carolina	Auburn	31.6%	0.003
Virginia Tech	Boston College	75.5%	0.002
Louisiana Tech	Marshall	13.7%	0.002
Tennessee	Kentucky	66.1%	0.001

Did you know next week is Week 7?  I kind of did, maybe.  Regardless of whether or not you are unstuck in time, this week will not help orient you.  We're still a week away from getting the Big Ten back, so we're left with Bama-Georgia and a bunch of middling ACC contests.  BYU-Houston is likely to be something worth staying up for on Friday, so there's that.