College Football Playoff Predictor - Week 12

As always explanation here, data below, thoughts after.

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	CFP Prob
1	Alabama	1	92.44%
2	Ohio State	2	68.55%
3	Clemson	3	48.13%
4	Oregon	12	36.34%
5	Northwestern	14	32.99%
6	Wisconsin	4	27.27%
7	Notre Dame	7	24.75%
8	USC	21	16.00%
9	Miami (FL)	22	14.37%
10	Texas A&M	13	8.85%
11	Washington	24	6.74%
12	Cincinnati	10	4.15%
13	BYU	11	3.37%
14	Indiana	15	2.81%
15	Florida	6	2.72%
16	Marshall	32	2.00%
17	Oklahoma	5	1.43%
18	Georgia	8	1.40%
19	Colorado	60	0.81%
20	Oklahoma State	25	0.76%
21	Iowa State	17	0.63%
22	North Carolina	19	0.61%
23	Coastal Carolina	42	0.57%
24	Maryland	71	0.40%
25	Iowa	9	0.33%
26	Western Michigan	66	0.31%
27	Texas	20	0.31%
28	Purdue	30	0.30%
29	San Jose State	84	0.28%
30	Buffalo	64	0.17%
31	Nevada	79	0.09%
32	Auburn	16	0.09%
33	Kent State	91	0.02%

Diehard Blogacz fans may have noticed I haven't updated the Playoff odds for a while.  The main reason for this was that the Pac-12 was making everything whack.  Last week's numbers had an 0-1 Arizona State all the way up in the top ten.  Normally this sort of oddity would take care of itself soon enough but not this year.  Because my model only looks at 1) number of losses and 2) strength of schedule, it is not able to account for a team that simply doesn't play a lot of games.  A Pac-12 runner-up could finish something like 3-1 with a "decent" strength of schedule and end up in the top four when it's pretty clear that wouldn't reflect reality.

Luckily I was able to come up with a quick and dirty workaround: I simply disregard any Pac-12 team with a loss.  So for the four remaining teams, their playoff odds simply reflect their odds of going undefeated.  And while I don't think a 7-0 USC would necessarily be a shoe-in, this is at least closer to reality that the previous numbers this thing was spitting out.  Good enough for 2020.

ND fans may wonder why the Irish are so low (well behind a Clemson team they beat), but it's pretty straightforward when I peak under the hood.  The model has ND with roughly a 20% chance of winning out, in which case they would definitely be in.  But if they do lose, their SOS is quite bad and my model punishes them for that.  On the other side of the ACC, the Tigers have about a 50% chance of finishing with one loss.  Because their SOS is much better, my model would consider Clemson a near-lock at that point, hence the Playoff odds in the same neighborhood.

Conference	Favorite	Perc		Runner-Up	Perc
ACC	Notre Dame	93.4%		Clemson	89.2%
AMER	Cincinnati	99.9%		Tulsa	81.1%
B10E	Ohio State	99.6%		Maryland	0.3%
B10W	Northwestern	93.0%		Wisconsin	5.8%
B12	Iowa State	74.0%		Oklahoma	67.0%
CUSAE	Marshall	96.7%		Charlotte	2.0%
CUSAW	UAB	88.0%		Louisiana Tech	6.2%
MACE	Buffalo	66.7%		Kent State	16.9%
MACW	Western Michigan	93.3%		Toledo	2.7%
MWC	Boise State	83.6%		Nevada	53.7%
P12N	Oregon	74.3%		Washington	24.8%
P12S	USC	77.5%		Colorado	13.1%
SECE	Florida	95.6%		Georgia	4.4%
SECW	Alabama	99.7%		Texas A&M	0.2%
SUNE	Coastal Carolina	98.5%		Appalachian State	1.2%
SUNW	Louisiana-Lafayette	100.0%

The conference title grid reflects the impact of Week 12, which clarified virtually every conference/division race.  There are still some pivotal games in the next three weeks (Oregon-Washington, USC-Colorado, Buffalo-Kent State, Iowa State-Texas), but almost every conference features one or two teams in the catbird seat.

Week 13 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
North Carolina	Notre Dame	35.5%	0.033
Alabama	Auburn	91.3%	0.028
Clemson	Pitt	92.6%	0.018
Michigan State	Northwestern	15.8%	0.017
Oregon State	Oregon	13.2%	0.016
USC	Colorado	81.0%	0.012
Texas A&M	LSU	74.1%	0.011
Illinois	Ohio State	5.0%	0.011
Wisconsin	Minnesota	91.9%	0.011
Washington State	Washington	34.9%	0.008

Lol the last game on this list was cancelled as I was typing this.  Cool.

College Football Playoff Predictor - Week 9

As always explanation here, data below, thoughts after.

Rank	Team	Agg Rank	CFP Prob	Change
1	Alabama	2	82.34%	3.7%
2	Ohio State	1	70.75%	18.6%
3	Clemson	3	67.43%	-4.5%
4	Wisconsin	4	40.27%	-1.5%
5	Oregon	10	35.26%	-1.7%
6	USC	13	22.30%	-1.0%
7	Notre Dame	6	10.47%	1.5%
8	Georgia	5	9.52%	0.9%
9	Washington	26	8.37%	-0.4%
10	Utah	27	7.95%	-0.1%
11	Indiana	24	6.97%	3.5%
12	Miami (FL)	22	5.22%	-1.5%
13	Oklahoma State	12	4.68%	-10.2%
14	Marshall	29	2.83%	1.4%
15	California	43	2.82%	-0.3%
16	Texas A&M	25	2.68%	0.6%
17	Arizona State	42	2.67%	-0.1%
18	Stanford	39	2.00%	-0.1%
19	BYU	11	1.82%	-0.3%
20	Cincinnati	14	1.42%	0.8%
21	Florida	7	1.37%	0.4%
22	UCLA	62	1.17%	0.1%
23	Boise State	21	1.15%	-0.2%
24	Northwestern	28	0.99%	0.5%
25	Penn State	9	0.98%	-0.4%
26	Washington State	65	0.91%	0.0%
27	Oklahoma	8	0.79%	0.1%
28	Purdue	44	0.71%	-0.1%
29	Virginia Tech	18	0.53%	0.3%
30	Iowa State	20	0.31%	0.1%
31	Texas	15	0.31%	0.2%
32	Nebraska	46	0.30%	0.3%
33	Oregon State	74	0.26%	0.0%
34	San Diego State	37	0.25%	0.1%
35	Coastal Carolina	45	0.24%	0.2%
36	Arizona	77	0.22%	0.0%
37	Auburn	16	0.22%	0.2%
38	Michigan	23	0.21%	-8.9%
39	North Carolina	19	0.21%	-1.7%
40	Wake Forest	35	0.20%	0.1%
41	Ohio	83	0.17%	0.0%
42	Buffalo	80	0.15%	0.0%
43	Central Michigan	87	0.13%	0.0%
44	Colorado	84	0.12%	0.0%
45	North Carolina State	59	0.10%	0.0%
46	Western Michigan	89	0.07%	0.0%
47	Ball State	101	0.04%	0.0%
48	Miami (OH)	102	0.03%	0.0%
49	Nevada	73	0.02%	0.0%
50	Toledo	94	0.02%	0.0%
51	West Virginia	30	0.01%	0.0%
52	Northern Illinois	107	0.01%	0.0%
53	Michigan State	68	0.01%	0.0%
54	San Jose State	82	0.01%	0.0%
55	Iowa	33	0.01%	-0.1%
56	Liberty	75	0.00%	0.0%
57	Kent State	112	0.00%	0.0%
58	Eastern Michigan	113	0.00%	0.0%
59	Kansas State	47	0.00%	-0.1%
60	Rutgers	85	0.00%	0.0%
61	Minnesota	66	0.00%	-0.1%
62	Maryland	104	0.00%	0.0%
63	Illinois	81	0.00%	0.0%
64	Akron	125	0.00%	0.0%
65	Bowling Green	126	0.00%	0.0%

More than half of the total Playoff odds belong to the three programs that are here every year.  If you're not paying attention to college football this year, you're not missing much on that front.  But there's still some juicy stuff lower down.  Like, Indiana having better Playoff odds than the entirety of the Big 12.  Or Marshall creeping into the top 15.  Or the Pac 12 slipping four team into the top ten simply because of attrition elsewhere.  To be clear, my model doesn't account for plague-related weirdness (ie. Wisconsin might only play like 5 games), but it still gives us an idea what the stakes are heading into November.  And those stakes are evidently win as much as you can and hope you get the #4 slot.

Conference	Favorite	Perc		Runner-Up	Perc
ACC	Clemson	95.0%		Notre Dame	81.8%
AMER	Cincinnati	80.6%		Tulsa	43.6%
B10E	Ohio State	96.8%		Indiana	2.8%
B10W	Wisconsin	83.3%		Northwestern	12.8%
B12	Iowa State	51.8%		Oklahoma State	48.2%
CUSAE	Marshall	96.1%		Charlotte	2.9%
CUSAW	UAB	81.6%		Rice	10.5%
MACE	Buffalo	43.7%		Ohio	34.2%
MACW	Western Michigan	36.3%		Central Michigan	20.6%
MWC	Boise State	85.3%		San Diego State	72.1%
P12N	Oregon	63.8%		Washington	21.8%
P12S	USC	57.2%		Utah	31.5%
SECE	Georgia	63.5%		Florida	36.4%
SECW	Alabama	98.9%		Auburn	0.7%
SUNE	Appalachian State	52.6%		Coastal Carolina	42.6%
SUNW	Louisiana-Lafayette	94.3%		South Alabama	5.0%

The conference odds are mostly as one would expect with a couple exceptions.  Iowa State!  Coastal Carolina!  Rice????!!!  In more orderly news, it appears that the SEC East comes down to the Cocktail Party and Boise is still really good.

Week 10 Preview

Home	Away	Home Win Prob	Playoff Teams Lost
Notre Dame	Clemson	35.1%	0.102
Oregon	Stanford	82.8%	0.026
Georgia	Florida	60.4%	0.023
USC	Arizona State	81.0%	0.021
California	Washington	38.3%	0.016
Boise State	BYU	44.0%	0.014
Wisconsin	Purdue	92.7%	0.012
Indiana	Michigan	55.1%	0.011
North Carolina State	Miami (FL)	27.7%	0.008
Kansas State	Oklahoma State	24.7%	0.006

The top weekend of the year earns that title not by having a bunch of huge games, but rather by spreading the love around.  It also earns that title by having way more competitive games that previous weeks.  The underdog in each of the games above has a reasonable shot at pulling the upset.  BYU-Boise starts things off on Friday night and leads us in to the first full Saturday of this bizarre season.  Can't wait.