We all know what is at stake. The final stage has been set. Who will put themselves in the best position to win the College Football Playoff?
Current Playoff Predictions
Here is the current forecast for the final Playoff Committee rankings. As a reminder, here is how the Rankings Right Now algorithm figures out how to rank each team before, during, and after the games have completed.
For games that have not yet been played, it takes the Las Vegas spread for each game to identify an “expected” score
For games in progress, it uses the same “expected” score until the start of the second half, when it then references the live game score
For games that have completed, it uses the final score of the game
In this scenario, this is how the seeds would look:
Oregon
Texas
SMU
Boise State
Notre Dame
Penn Sate
Georgia
Ohio State
Tennessee
Indiana
Alabama
Arizona State
What Is Oregon’s Incentive?
First, let’s show what would happen to Oregon’s ranking if they were to lose to Penn State according to the algorithm.
Geez Payton, why do you think Penn State would blow out Oregon like that?
Let’s play this scenario. Right now, if Oregon win’s their game, they are for sure going to get a bye week in the first round of the playoffs. Fine, cool.
What if Oregon just decided to take a little bit of a gamble and not play their best players?
Think about it. What if Oregon doesn’t believe Penn State could even hang with their second string roster? Oregon could try and double dip here. Rest your best players in the Big 10 Championship game. There are one of two out comes that could happen:
Oregon still beats Penn Sate. Penn State looks like complete fools. Your best players now get TWO games of rest late in the year.
Penn State, as they should, beat Oregon’s practice squad. Penn State now gets a bye week in the first round, but Oregon is going to have home field advantage in the first round against a team that just snuck in, with one of the best home field advantages in the country.
Double by week with the risk of having a home playoff game? It might be worth the risk. Do I actually think they’d do it? Absolutely not. But, makes you think…
Three Games
There are three games that actually matter for this weekend
Clemson vs SMU
Boise State vs UNLV
Arizona State vs Iowa State
Clemson Can Make The Committee Look Silly
The Playoff Committee has to be pulling for SMU to win. Why? Here are the projected rankings based on a Clemson win against SMU.
With a Clemson win:
Clemson receives an automatic bid for the playoffs, so they take up a spot. That means according to this output, Clemson would be the #12 seed in the playoffs, pushing out SMU completely. The model has SMU below Miami, which I don’t think would be completely true, but it doesn’t matter. #12 ranking means your the first team out
According to this model prediction, Clemson would move ahead of South Carolina in the rankings…after South Carolina just beat them last week.
I understand why you would want to reward teams for winning their conference championship. If Miami would have taken care of business against Syracuse, this conversation wouldn’t be nearly as interesting. If Clemson would have beat South Carolina last weekend, this conversation would feel more rewarding for Clemson.
If SMU loses this game, get ready for the Playoff Committee to try and avoid this conversation entirely.
Mountain West and Big 12 Championships
We’ve already seen the situation where ASU and Boise State win their conference championship games, but what do things look like the other way around?
Another funny scenario where UNLV beating Boise Sate might not put them ahead in the rankings, but would give them a playoff birth over the Broncos.
Who Gets The Last Bye?
What happens if all three of these games end in an upset? Who would get the last bye spot? According to the What If simulation tool, Iowa State would be the highest ranked team with a conference championship and get the #4 ranking. UNLV would be the #11 seed, Clemson would be the #12 seed.
SMU and Miami with a #10 and #11 ranking, projected to be ranked higher than Clemson, UNLV, and Iowa State, would have neither team qualify for the playoff.
College Rank Em Challenge
The Week 14 College Rank Em Challenge is once again Kcarnahan. Some really good picks for rankings #15-#24 took him to the top of the leaderboard.
Reminder for everyone to get their picks in for the College Rank Em Challenge! Deadline closes at noon ET Saturday.
Never heard of this before? Check out this video that walks through the fun competition!
Week 15 Prediction Results
Here was the head to head comparison for the Week 15 Playoff Committee rankings compared to the Rankings Right Now predictions.
We all knew the model only dropping Ohio State down one spot was interesting, but silly. That caused a little more trouble up top in the rankings, more than we’ve seen in the past few weeks. The model, unfortunately, was not correct on the #11-#14 debate holding all of college football hostage the last week. Personally, I was hoping the model would be correct because South Carolina is one of the most fun teams to watch the last few weeks.
Will be a great focal point in the offseason to see how to clean up these predictions. It’s close, but with some updates and different logic for how to come up with more accurate models, it can be a lot closer.
What’s Next?
Screaming at the TV Friday and Saturday
Newsletter Sunday morning going through everything we watched over the weekend and the final Rankings Right Now predictions for the final Playoff Committee Poll
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Access the What If simulation tool to see how your predicted outcomes will affect the projected rankings
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