Here's the first cut at National Title Odds. Note that most of the top-Strength teams do not have a first-round bye, but it's not very important since they face a weak foe and play at home. For example, Texas and Notre Dame lead the odds with Ohio State in 3rd place, as these are the top 3 rated teams in Strength. Meanwhile 2-seed Georgia is only 4th and 1-seed Oregon is just 5th; they rank #8 and #9 in Strength respectively.
CFPC Team Strength Rec Seed Champ%
1. Oregon 9 13-0 1 6.6 2. Georgia 8 11-2 2 11.1 3. Texas 2 11-2 5 26.0 4. Penn State 14 11-2 6 4.4 5. Notre Dame 1 11-1 7 20.2 6. Ohio State 3 10-2 8 14.6 7. Tennessee 7 10-2 9 5.1 8. Indiana 6 11-1 10 4.5 9. Boise St 31 12-1 3 0.7 10. SMU 13 11-2 11 3.3 11. Alabama 9-3 -- 0.0 12. Arizona St 16 11-2 4 2.5 13. Miami FL 10-2 -- 0.0 14. Mississippi 9-3 -- 0.0 15. South Carolina 9-3 -- 0.0 16. Clemson 17 10-3 12 0.7
And due to their #31 Strength, 3-seed Boise State has just a 0.7% chance each to win the national title despite their bye. That is matched by 12-seed Clemson who is #17 in Strength and plays at Texas in the first round. Boise will face the Penn State - SMU winner in the 2nd round.
Here's what the brackets look like in one beautiful ASCII map, with their Committee rank and Strength in parens:
12 Clemson(16,17)--
|--------
5 Texas(3,2)------ |
|----------
| |
4 Arizona St(12,16)----- |
|
|-----------
9 Tennessee(7,7)--- | |
|-------- | |
8 Ohio St(6,3)----- | | |
|---------- |
| |
1 Oregon(1,9)----------- |
|
|----------National Champ
11 SMU(10,13)------ |
|-------- |
6 Penn St(4,14)---- | |
|---------- |
| | |
3 Boise St(9,31)-------- | |
| |
|-----------
10 Indiana(8,6)---- |
|-------- |
7 Notre Dame(5,1)-- | |
|----------
|
2 Georgia(2,8)--------
So you can get an idea of how tough the competition is not based on seed but on Committee ranking and Strength, here are the paths for each of the 8 teams without byes:
By Committee rank:
5 Texas 28 6 Penn State 19 12 Clemson 15 11 SMU 13 7 Notre Dame 10 8 Ohio State 8 9 Tennessee 7 10 Indiana 7
The total Committee rank gives a good estimate of how hard each team's path to the "Final Four" is; as it should be, Penn State and Texas have the easiest paths, and Notre Dame, Ohio State, Tennessee, and Indiana roughly fall into line. The discrepancy is for the easier paths of Clemson and SMU. As 12- and 11-seed, the Tigers and Mustangs have a much easier 2nd round than the 7- through 10-seeded teams. They have to get past a really good team in the first round, but if they do they'll face a 4-seed ranked #12 by the Committee (Arizona State) or an 11-seed ranked #9.
It's even more explicit by Strength rating:
11 SMU 45 6 Penn State 44 5 Texas 33 12 Clemson 18 8 Ohio State 16 7 Notre Dame 14 9 Tennessee 12 10 Indiana 9
Now it looks like SMU got the best draw: #14 Penn State followed by #31 Boise State. They do play the first game on the road, but it's winnable.
But assuming Penn State defends their home field, they get the Broncos on a neutral field. So Penn State might have the best draw considering home field advantage.
Texas' draw still looks good, while Clemson's draw now doesn't look so great, only a bit better than the 7-10 seeds, and that's only because the 2nd game is friendlier; they actually have the 2nd toughest draw up front, Texas in Austin.
Either way, Indiana faces the worst situation, playing at #1 Strength Notre Dame, then if they win, Georgia, who is only #8 in Strength but is the 2-seed and has shown they can reach pretty high this season.
I think it's clear the NCAA is going to re-think it's policy of given the top 4 conference champs the byes automatically. Here we have the 9th best and 12th best teams getting a bye—or the 31st and 16th best by Strength—which is causing all these bracket imbalances. Being in an easy bracket is why our #2 team has the best odds to win it despite playing an extra game. The #1 and #3 teams play in the tougher brackets, and the weakest bracket by Strength has no team above 13th!
If you add up the seedings in the brackets, they look pretty even of course: 21, 18, 20, 19
But even added up by the Committee's real estimation of the teams it looks imbalanced: 31, 14, 23, 15. The 2nd and 4th bracket are clearly the toughest.
And by Strength it's even worse: 35, 19, 58, 15
All I know is, Texas and Penn State got a big break from not falling too far after their losses. The difference between being seeded 5 and 6 vs. 7 and 8 is huge. In fact, Texas and Penn State maybe got a big break from LOSING their title games. If I were Oregon, I'd swap places with Penn State in that bracket. And maybe Georgia would be better off where Texas is, even having to play two games. Let's test that out:
CFP* Team Strength Rec Seed Champ% Chg%
1. Penn State 14 12-1 1 5.1 +0.7 2. Texas 2 12-1 2 25.1 -0.5 3. Georgia 8 10-3 5 10.8 -0.3 4. Oregon 9 12-1 6 6.3 -0.3 5. Notre Dame 1 11-1 7 18.0 -2.2 6. Ohio State 3 10-2 8 17.4 +2.8
Turns out it makes almost no difference. So maybe Oregon and Georgia shouldn't swap with Penn State and Texas, but the fact that it makes no difference means things are set up pretty wrong! Somehow both Texas and Georgia were hurt by swapping places (probability of winning isn't linear by Strength) so the SEC got the teams where they want them.
What does change are the odds for Notre Dame and Ohio State. Notre Dame gets a "harder" game vs. Texas, and Ohio State trades a game vs. a team that beat them (Oregon) for a game against a team they beat (Penn State). Notre Dame's odds go down by 2.2%, while Ohio State's go up by 2.8%.
Comments