SportsRatings

There are basically four possibilies for the Playoff now, based on whether Georgia or Alabama wins the SEC, and whether Texas Tech or BYU wins the Big Twelve. Between Ohio State and Indiana, one will get the top seed and the other will be 3rd or 4th, and there are additional possibilies for the last 2 conference auto-bids, but those don't affect the at-large teams. I leave those with Virginia, North Texas, and James Madison winning their conference title games. First up, the "Chalk" case where Georgia and Texas Tech win (41.4% chance): Rnk Team Rec 1. Indiana/Ohio State *13-0 2. Georgia *12-1 3. Texas Tech *12-1 4. Ohio State/Indiana 12-1 5. Oregon 11-1 6. Mississippi 11-1 7. Texas A&M 11-1 8. Notre Dame 10-2 9. Miami FL 10-2 ...

 Cal just upset SMU, leaving Virginia at 7-1 and five other teams 6-2 in the ACC: SMU, Miami, Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech, and Duke And that's the tiebreaker order that would hold in a logical world. Instead, it looks like Duke will get in based on "conference opponent winning percentage" The reason SMU should be in is simple: SMU beat Miami beat Pitt beat Georgia Tech beat Duke . The teams didn't play each other outside of those games, and it forms a "chain" of wins from top to bottom. Duke should finish in 6th place, not 2nd place. There is talk of an "executive decision" to take Miami instead of Duke. If they'd wanted that, then the tiebreaker should have been College Football Playoff Committee ranking. That would be acceptable, too, but they didn't do that. Now, due to the stupid conference win percentage that is impossible for fans to compute quickly (a stat that every conference uses for some unknown reason) you get 5-loss Duke. Good...

The Friends Falcons beat William Penn 53-36 today in the 2nd round of the NAIA playoffs. What does it mean for Friends ranking and the ratings of the KCAC? I've written a lot about Friends and their monstrous margins of victory (73-14, 62-7, 62-0, 59-15, 53-0, 66-7, 69-3) and how tough it is to put those in NAIA context. Not because of the huge M.O.V.'s but because Friends plays in the KCAC (Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference) which was isolated all season from the rest of the country. Friends' power ratings went through three stages: For the first 5 games of the season (Sept. 27), the KCAC divisions (Kessinger, Bissell) only played teams from the other conference, leading to non-convergence issues. Without going into detail, this is something that normally happens when a team has played only one game, but it inflated Friends' power rating to be 14 points better than the #2 team, with the #1 offense and #1 defense. Once the two divisions of the KCAC played each other...

Texas just will. not. die. The Longhorns beat Texas A&M 27-17 to stay "alive" in the Playoff picture, something that seemed impossible back when they were stumbling to overtime wins over the likes of Kentucky and Mississippi State, but here we are. Coach Steve Sarkisian says it would be a "travesty" if the Longhorns don't make the Playoff, does he have a point? Sort of, yeah. His point that the Longhorns could have avoided having 3 losses by not playing Ohio State, and teams would be discouraged from tough scheduling of quality games if they don't make it in. And they'd be in with 2 losses. The latter is probably true: the Longhorns would be ahead of Vanderbilt and Oklahoma for sure with two losses. And the former? I think it's already true that teams schedule soft outside the conference, for the most part. But is the job of the Committee to encourage tough scheduling, or pick the teams that deserve a shot at the national title? If it's the l...

Two weekends are left and still there are a lot of things unsettled about the Playoff. Here's what each team hopes will happen to guarantee them the best spot. Starting with the current Committee rankings: Ohio State (11-0) Best Case : Top Spot. The Buckeyes can hold the #1 spot if they beat Michigan and Indiana to win the Big Ten. Worst Case : Out of Top Four. If they lose to Michigan they can get a rematch if Indiana loses to Purdue, otherwise they are 11-1 and possibly out of the top 4 bye area, so they'd want Oregon to lose at some point along with Texas Tech, and the SEC teams too.  Indiana (11-0) Best Case : Top Spot. Indiana needs to beat Purdue and hope Ohio State beats Michigan, then beat the Buckeyes in Indianapolis. If they do that, they'll be the top seed. If Michigan wins, they'll play either the Wolverines or Oregon, neither of which is as big of a win and that opens the door to Texas A&M, so the Hoosiers should root for Texas to beat them. Worst Cas...

With the Committee rankings out for week 13, we look at our projected rankings and add a column for projected finish game by game, or, if everything goes to plan. Also called "chalk" where no surprises occur.  Other than some shuffling in the projected top 10—which corresponds to the current CFPC standings—the same teams make it. Indiana and Ohio State both get byes along with Texas Tech , who finishes #2 instead of the simulation average #3 (since Ohio State moves down), and up from the Committee's current #5. The SEC winds up a terrible mess with 11-2 Alabama at #6, one spot behind 12-1 Texas A&M whom they just beat in the title game, and both behind 11-1 Georgia who didn't make the title game. That's a confusing scenario where those three could be in any order (likely with Alabama and Georgia flipped, but who knows).  Oregon , Mississippi , Oklahoma , and Notre Dame follow in their current order, down 1 spot to accommodate the rising Tide. Miami is f...

For the 2nd week in a row there were almost no upsets; in the AP Top 25 the only true upset was #25 Houston losing to TCU. The week before, Oklahoma beat Alabama and caused big worry among the "bubble" teams, and the lack of upsets are making things worse for most of those teams. The exception is Oregon, who has one loss and controls their destiny to the Playoff. For 2-loss teams, most still have to worry. The top five aren't in any trouble, and would have to really screw the pooch to miss the Playoff. Indiana , Ohio State , and Texas Tech are even near-locks for a top-four bye. Texas A&M and Georgia will get the other one depending on who wins the SEC title, probably. After that nothing is certain but Oregon really improved their odds—again—by winning a key game. Up 25%, the Ducks can finally breathe easy—unless they lose to Washington. Note that even at 78.7% their odds are lower than the next three teams in line, but they are projected at #6 since they have a h...