We had to wait until championship weekend this year to get a college football playoff scenario possibility matrix that had a manageable number of boxes. Notre Dame has been out of it since week 3 (sad trombone), but hey, we can still have fun! Now that we finally have some clarity, we’ll take a look at how we think things could shake out in the final playoff rankings.
Current State
First, let’s take a look at where we are today.
This is the current top four:
- Alabama, 12-0; quality wins: #11 USC, #14 Auburn, #21 LSU
- Ohio State, 11-1; quality wins: #5 Michigan, #6 Wisconsin, #9 Oklahoma; losses: #7 Penn State
- Clemson, 11-1; quality wins: #12 Florida State, #13 Louisville, #14 Auburn; losses: #25 Pitt
- Washington, 11-1; quality wins: #18 Stanford, #20 Utah; losses: #11 USC
The next four, with varying degrees of probability for playoff entry:
- Michigan, 10-2; quality wins: #6 Wisconsin, #7 Penn State, #8 Colorado; losses: #2 Ohio State, unranked Iowa
- Wisconsin, 10-2; quality wins: #21 LSU; losses: #2 Ohio State, #5 Michigan
- Penn State, 10-2; quality wins: #2 Ohio State; losses: #5 Michigan, #25 Pitt
- Colorado, 10-2; quality wins: #18 Stanford, #20 Utah; losses: #5 Michigan, #11 USC
Nobody else is realistically even on the fringe of the playoff discussion. The closest are of course #9 Oklahoma and #10 Oklahoma State, who will play a regular-season game against each other for the Big 12 title, but neither is relevant in the playoff picture regardless of the outcome of that game or how much carnage strikes the teams above them.
College Football Playoff Scenario 1 – Chaos-Free:
#1 Alabama is SEC champ, 13-0, adding a win over #15 Florida.
#2 Ohio State, 11-1, enjoys some cheeseburgers.
#3 Clemson is ACC champ, 12-1, adding a win over #23 Virginia Tech.
#4 Washington is Pac 12 champ, 12-1, adding a win over #8 Colorado.
#5 Michigan, 10-2, stews over some cheeseburgers.
#6 Wisconsin is Big Ten champ, 11-2, adding a win over #7 Penn State.
Alabama would be the #1 seed. Duh. An ACC champion Clemson would probably leapfrog Ohio State for the #2 seed, although you could sell me on Clemson not jumping them as well. It’s a coin flip, as Clemson has more ranked wins but Ohio State has better wins. Our guess based on past history is that, while the committee loves conference titles, they also really love top-ten wins, and Ohio State’s three top-ten wins and one top-ten loss would outweigh Pac 12 champion Washington’s one top ten-win and one top-fifteen loss. Unlike their comparison to Clemson, Ohio State has Washington on both quality and quantity here. Ohio State gets the #3 seed, and Washington gets the “thanks for playing” #4 seed matchup with Alabama.
The committee would no doubt breathe a big sigh of relief here, as a Wisconsin victory in the Big Ten title game would remove any controversy about putting Ohio State into the playoff ahead of a three-loss non-conference-champion Penn State team that beat them.
College Football Playoff Scenario 2 – Maximum Chaos:
#1 Alabama is SEC runner-up, 12-1, adding a loss to #15 Florida.
#2 Ohio State, 11-1, chomps away at those cheeseburgers.
#3 Clemson is ACC runner-up, 11-2, adding a loss to #23 Virginia Tech.
#4 Washington is Pac 12 runner-up, 11-2, adding a loss to #8 Colorado.
#5 Michigan, 10-2, develops an ulcer from the stress.
#6 Wisconsin is Big Ten runner-up, 10-3, adding a loss to #7 Penn State.
#7 Penn State is the Big Ten champ, 11-2, adding a win over #6 Wisconsin.
#8 Colorado is the Pac 12 champ, 11-2, adding a win over #4 Washington.
Phew. What a nightmare… In this scenario I could see Ohio State nabbing the #1 seed, but there’s no way Alabama would drop below #2. Then there’s a whole bunch of flotsam and jetsam to sort through for the next two spots, and lots of qualitative judgments to be made. While the chaos of this scenario could lead in a lot of different directions, I think the most likely outcome would be that Clemson would stay at #3, Washington would of course drop out, and Penn State would jump Wisconsin, Michigan, and Washington for the last playoff spot. You could make a case for Michigan with wins over Wisconsin, Big Ten champ Penn State, and Pac 12 champ Colorado, but that Penn State win over Ohio State is huge and I just can’t see the committee jumping a two-loss non-conference champion over a reasonable conference championship choice.
College Football Playoff Scenario 3 – Little of Column A, Little of Column B:
#1 Alabama is SEC champ, 13-0, adding a win over #15 Florida.
#2 Ohio State, 11-1, enjoys some cheeseburgers.
#3 Clemson is ACC champ, 12-1, adding a win over #23 Virginia Tech.
I think it’s pretty likely that Alabama and Clemson are going to win their conference title games, which locks things up for them. Clemson could possibly jump Ohio State on the strength of the ACC championship, as noted above, but really all that would change is the jersey colors in that semifinal. Ohio State is likely in regardless based on their one loss and their three wins against top-ten teams, especially if one of those wins ends up the Big 12 champion after knocking off Oklahoma State this weekend.
Where things get interesting is with the Pac 12 and Big Ten championships, which I could see going either way; Vegas agrees, as the Huskies are favored by 6.5 and the Badgers by a paltry 1.5. Michigan would likely get into the playoff as the #4 seed if Colorado and Wisconsin win. I’m torn on this, because
If Washington wins, they’re in and we’re done, but even so they’ll probably stay at the #4 seed; even with the Pac 12 title, their resume doesn’t stack up to the other three playoff teams. Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State each have better top wins and a top-15 out-of-conference quality win. Washington’s out-of-conference schedule was putrid, featuring Rutgers, Idaho, and Portland State. If Rutgers is the strongest team in a particular group…
If Washington loses and Penn State wins, as noted above, I like Penn State to jump Michigan for the final playoff spot. I think the conference title would be enough to tip the scales in Penn State’s favor, which would give them the right to get stomped by Alabama instead of Michigan. Whee.
As for poor old Colorado, I don’t see any path to the playoff for them as their resume wouldn’t compare favorably to anyone besides the Washington team they just beat. They have four teams from the Big Ten ahead of them, including two who won’t be playing and thus won’t have an opportunity to drop with a loss, and one of those two beat them comfortably earlier in the year.
Do you have to be bowl eligible to be selected for the playoffs? If a 5-7 Alabama team won the SEC and beat the five best teams in the country to do it, could they be in the playoffs? Long day at work…
I think Wisconsin still has a shot. Penn State would be a nice top-10ish win to add to whatever quality you give LSU, Nebraska (with Armstrong), and Iowa. Their two losses were by one score at Michigan and in OT vs Ohio State, both top 5 teams. How much weight do they put on conference titles?
That will be an interesting question with Ohio State as we think about Notre Dame’s future with the playoff. In the past it seemed to be an overly meaningful criteria, now it seems like maybe not so much. As the B1G will show, the title doesn’t mean you’re the best team in your conference, it’s just an nice trophy and an extra game. That game can be valuable as another data-point to prove quality and add a win to your resume, or it could also be a loss that kills your playoff hopes (you think OSU wanted Sparty to upset Penn State last week? No way I’d want to play another game if I didn’t have to).
If Ohio State falls out (unlikely, IMO), that’s a pretty bad sign for Notre Dame in a four-team playoff format. That would probably mean that even at 11-1 we’d have a tough time getting into the final four. I’ve seen some concern over whether they drop to #3 or #4 meaning things for our future as well, but I’m not sure I buy into that; I think the important thing is making the playoff, and having a non-champion Ohio State team in sets a precedent that is helpful to us regardless of where they’re seeded.
I’ll concede that I wouldn’t rule Wisconsin out, but I think they’re a pretty big long shot to make it regardless of what happens. I think their losses to Ohio State and Michigan, however they happened, pretty much kill their chances. But hey, the committee likes to surprise us, so you never know.
Also, in your Scenario 2, you’d have only 1 conference champ [PSU] in the playoffs (and you toy with the idea of none). Which would lend more credence to an overall resume versus whether or not a conference championship was won.
You don’t think Clemson drops out of the top 4 if they lose? Consider the case where Clemson and Washington lose (as you did) but Alabama beats Florida this time, securing the 1-seed. Does this result in an Alabama, Ohio State, B1G CONFERENCE WINNER HERE (could be Penn State or Wisconsin at this point), and Michigan as the 4 playoff teams?
That would be a ton of chaos, I don’t think they have the stones to put 3 teams from the same conference into a 4 team playoff….But just looking from 30,000 feet it would be hard to argue that tOSU, Michigan and the PSU/WIS winner aren’t among the 4 best teams in the land right now if there are relatively unimpressive (for playoff consideration) ACC, PAC and BIG12 champs.
Ironically, this year we might not really need a 4 team playoff, this could be a BCS-type dream year, aside from the arguments of which one Big10 team should be slaughtered, err get to play Alabama.
I think in that chaos scenario the 4 teams are:
Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, Colorado
Michigan is really sitting pretty because of all those head to head wins. I do think the committee would shirk at putting 3 Big 10 teams in and instead put a very solid 11-2 Colorado team in the field.
I don’t see Clemson dropping out if everybody loses. If they’re the only favorite that loses, then they’re in a very bad spot for sure – you’d have 11-2 non-conference champ Clemson versus 10-2 non-conference champ Michigan and 11-2 conference champ Wisconsin or Penn State. They’d almost certainly be outside looking in if that happens.
In elimination terms… The SEC title game is an exhibition for Alabama. Ohio State is probably in regardless. Clemson and Washington control their destiny – win and they’re in, period. I think Clemson could still conceivably get in with a loss, but only if Washington loses. If Washington loses, I think they’re out, period.
Also, I think there’s absolutely zero chance that the committee puts two Big Ten teams in and one of them isn’t the 2-loss conference champ.
Barring really weird results (like, say, PSU beating Wisconsin 59-0), I think you can pretty easily just make a list of teams (with possible scenarios) and the order in they can get in…
1. Alabama (Win or Lose)
2. Ohio St.
3. Clemson (with a win…also maybe they jump OSU to 2, but either way I think these teams are 2/3)
4. P12 Champ Washington
5. B1G Champ Wisconsin
6. Michigan
7. B1G Champ Penn St
8. P12 Champ Colorado (Since Mich + both B1G CG teams are above Colorado, I think it’s impossible for them to get in)
9. 2-Loss Clemson
10. B12 Champ Oklahoma
You could move Clemson around a bit there, but if Clemson loses, I think it’s impossible for them to get in. At least one of PSU or Colorado would be ahead of them, as would Michigan.
The interesting discussion (I think) is Michigan vs B1G Champ PSU. PSU’s 13th game is needed to put their SOS anywhere in the ballpark of Michigan’s (thanks to unbalanced scheduling). PSU/Mich/OSU (the top teir B1G Teams) would be 1-1 against each other. Each would have beaten Wisconsin, each would have lost to a mid-teir opponent (Iowa/Pittsburgh). The obvious gaps between the two of them is that PSU won a trophy after winning a tiebreak and their next best wins besides the ones listed above: Michigan beat Colorado while PSU beat Iowa. I think the gap between beating a top 10 Colorado and beating a top 50 Iowa is bigger than the value of the trophy, but that’s me, a ND fan who believes conference championships are generally dumb, esp with the unbalanced schedules. The committee could see it the other way, but I hope they don’t.
The other one is B1G champ Wisconsin vs Michigan vs P12 champ Washington. I think Wisc/Michigan’s resumes are very, very close (good non-con wins, losses in OT to OSU, wins over PSU), but adding PSU to the list of scalps for Wisconsin could/should push them ahead of Michigan. Again, it will be very close. Bringing Washington into the mix is very interesting because it will show us the value (or hurt) of a 2nd loss. Washington’s schedule is light — Compared to Michigan, they’ll both have beaten Colorado, and both lost to a top 10-ish team (USC/OSU). The differences is obviously that Michigan lost to Iowa, but makes up for it by beating PSU and Wisconsin instead of lower ranked Washington St and Utah. Personally, right now, I’d have Michigan ahead of Washington (Wins over 6/7/8 + a loss to 25 > wins over 20 + ~30), but again, your mileage may vary.
Gonna be an interesting weekend…
I think your list above is pretty close. Agree with you that Washington vs Michigan is probably more worthy of a debate than how close it would be in reality. It’s really the resume vs quality debate, and how much two losses hurt you, but I don’t think the committee has the balls to drop a P12 winning Huskies team after beating Colorado and slot Michigan in at #4 when they’ve been cheeseburgering.
Penn State vs Michigan would be interesting – I think Michigan is probably a top-4 team and suspect the committee does too. But there’s so much backlash potential there with two non-title winning teams, especially bluebloods, making it in. But in that scenario the Harbaughs have wins over two of the top six with Colorado and PSU, a win over something like #10-12 Wisconsin, and showed they belong with OSU. Penn State has the best single win over Urban, maybe a slightly better win over Wisconsin (neutral site / could win by >1 score), and the title, whatever that’s worth. Is that enough to overcome getting killed head to head and only two top 25 wins?
To me that’s why Wisconsin has a better chance if they win – both their losses were close, most importantly the H2H w/ Michigan on the road. Penn State and LSU are nice resume wins, and I think the committee will look at Nebraska with Armstrong as a top-25 team. They’d also be a top-4 team in strength of record, which is a bad metric but the one that the comittee’s rank has probably been closest to all season.
They def. won’t drop Washington now, which I’m ok with. I think buy Washington>Mich, assuming they beat Colorado.
The PSU/Mich one, who knows. Michigan > PSU would be very good for us long term. It would show that the committee truly values resume (even small differences) over the stupid CCG thing. It will definitely be a splitting hairs scenario. Plus, in general, telling PSU that their garbage non-conference scheduling (which they’ve been doing for years) is a liability is a positive for college football.
Agreed. Some of this does point to the luck of scheduling – who would have thought preseason that Michigan playing Colorado in the non-conference would be a huge deal? Or that our outcome against Michigan State would be meaningless?
What scares me with ND and the playoff is that conferences and divisions generally guarantee at least the appearance of quality wins. Iowa wasn’t great last year but by virtue of of being in a weak P5 division came awfully close to the playoff.
But last year, for example, our daunting schedule really didn’t come through for us, to the extent to which we probably would have been SOL even with just one loss to Clemson. The ’15 wins over Texas, GT, and USC didn’t mean much as they all fell below expectations, and we were left hoping Temple and Navy could have some of the best years in program history to give us resume-building wins.
Now, maybe that’s just some bad luck, and other years the schedule will go the right way. But even next year, in a hypothetical world where we’re talking playoff again, we’re heavily dependent on some combination of USC/Stanford/UGA/MSU/Miami/UNC becoming top wins. And while that’s a strong portfolio to bet on, only two of those teams lost less than four games this year.
I think even more important than SOS is that you have to, have to, have to beat everyone at the top end of your schedule. If we were 11-1 last year with a loss to Virginia, we would’ve made the playoff. If we were 11-1 with a loss to Stanford, there’s at least a decent chance we would’ve made the playoff. That’s why I think Wisconsin has no chance at all – even if they knock off Penn State to win the Big Ten title, they lost to the top two teams on their schedule, Ohio State and Michigan.
Does anyone really think that the BIG10 is really so good to have 4! top 10 teams right now and possibly get 2 in the playoffs?
I don’t think it’s crazy. UM and OSU are clearly good enough to be in the playoffs, and I’d rather see the committee picking best teams than just conference champs.
To me it shows the leverage you gain winning non-conference games – what’s keeping so many B1G teams around the playoffs are that they’ve disqualified other teams/leagues with their wins. Collectively they have wins over LSU (#21), Oklahoma (#9 and likely higher if they beat Okie State, which they should), and Colorado (#8). Those carry enough weight that when you add them to the wins over each other (mostly close) their resumes are simply better than the other 2-loss teams out there (of which there aren’t many this year, mostly the Big 12 who has zero big non-conference wins).
What would have been really interesting to me is if USC had beaten Utah. They’d also have 2-losses, but two marquee wins (potentially three, as I think they’d be in the P12 title game for a UW rematch) and a lot of “momentum” discussions since it’s clearly been a different team since Darnold has taken over.
Completely agree on the non-conference point. Alabama beat #11 USC, Ohio State beat #9 Oklahoma, Clemson beat #14 Auburn, Wisconsin beat #21 LSU. Washington was outside the first top four because their schedule was terrible at that point – they didn’t have a win that was comparable to USC/Oklahoma/Auburn. Had they scheduled, say, Okie State instead of Portland State, or even instead of Rutgers, well, then they’d have a point.
I also think momentum is a big thing. The committee has said in the past that it matters, that development over the course of the year can be significant. I think Penn State looks better now than they did when they got smacked around by Michigan, and I think Michigan looks down a bit from the beginning on the year.
I also firmly believe that there’s no way the committee would ever put in two non-champs from a conference over a champ from that same conference that has an argument. There’s just no way. The conferences would revolt. To me, however you get there and through whatever technicalities, if you end the season as #3 or #4 in your conference and get left out you should just shut up and take your medicine.
I think everyone stinks. No, I don’t think the Big Ten is good enough to have four top ten teams, but if you look through the rest of the rankings, who else would you put in there? Here’s the rest of the top 20:
11. USC (9-3)
12. Florida State (9-3)
13. Louisville (9-3)
14. Auburn (8-4)
15. Florida (8-3)
16. West Virginia (9-2)
17. Western Michigan (12-0)
18. Stanford (9-3)
19. Navy (9-2)
20. Utah (8-4)
Three losses remove any indisputable case for top ten inclusion. So we’re looking at West Virginia, Western Michigan, and Navy. West Virginia lost to #10 Okie State and got destroyed by #9 Oklahoma, so no real reason to include them. Navy had the win over now-unranked Houston, but they also lost to Air Force and South Florida and their strength of schedule (per Sagarin) is the lowest of any ranked team not named Western Michigan. Which, of course, is the main problem with Western Michigan, who according to Sagarin has the 118th SOS rating in the country – the lowest ranking in the top ten CFP teams is Washington, at 60th. I’d love to see WMU in the top ten, but I understand why they’re not.
The problem with putting other teams besides Wisconsin and Penn State in the top ten is that there just aren’t a whole lot of options out there.
NO BECAUSE FOR THE LAST DECADE I’VE BEEN TOLD THE ESSS EEEE SEEE IS THE BEST CONFERENCE AND THEREFORE THEY MUST BE, SO LET’S JUST HAVE BAMA, LSU, FLORIDA, AND SURE WHY NOT VANDY IN THERE BECAUSE IT JUST MEANS MORE, Y’ALL
Drue Tranquill has a 3.74 in mechanical engineering – http://www.und.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/120116aab.html – to which I can only say one thing:
NERD
You seem to be treating these rankings much more like the traditional polls than the way the committee has treated their weekly rankings in the past. In that you are moving people up and down starting with their current standing, while the committee has basically thrown out their weekly rankings and assessed everything from scratch.
I say this mostly regarding tOSU. They are the exact example of how they could miss the playoff. I could easily see the committee going with Bama, Clemson, Warshington, and then putting in 11 win PSU over 11 win tOSU due to a conf champ and head to head, especially after watching tOSU look fairly meh the last two games of the season, one of which was to a bad MSU team.
I think tOSU will be in, even though I don’t think they should be. But I don’t think them being in, and especially not them as #2, should be a foregone conclusion.