The top of the College Football Playoff rankings remained the same this week, but there was some movement in my projections. Washington saw its stock go up a bit by clearing the USC hurdle, but most of the changes were in the chasing pack outside the top tier of contenders.
In last week’s projections, there were 23 teams that made the CFP in at least one simulation. Many of those were complete longshots. Just 11 of those teams made the CFP is more than 1 percent of the simulations. This week there are just 13 teams that made it any of the simulations.
Most of that is due to teams losing. LSU, Notre Dame, Missouri, USC, Kansas State, Air Force and Utah lost, which eliminated any longshot hopes for those teams. Plus, the longer we go with five undefeated teams, the less likely it is to see total chaos that would allow a two-loss team to sneak into the CFP.
Here’s how the model works: I have developed a season simulator that produces odds for winning the national title, making the College Football Playoff, and winning conference and division titles. After every simulation is complete, I have developed a model that selects playoff teams. The playoff selection model is quite simple and very similar, in my opinion, to the committee’s selection process in that it creates a “resume strength rating,” derived from prior resume strength ratings, past playoff rankings and playoff selections for each season.
Here’s how the national title contenders rank after Week 10, according to my model.
Projected national title and College Football Playoff chances
| team | title | playoff |
|---|---|---|
|
22.1% |
74.7% |
|
|
21.8% |
70.8% |
|
|
17.8% |
76.8% |
|
|
12.1% |
51.1% |
|
|
10.1% |
55.8% |
|
|
8.5% |
31.4% |
|
|
3.7% |
16.4% |
|
|
1.9% |
10.7% |
|
|
1.7% |
9.4% |
|
|
0.4% |
2.8% |
|
|
0.02% |
0.05% |
|
|
0.01% |
0.09% |
|
|
0.01% |
0.02% |
Biggest risers in national title chances
Washington: +3% (9.1% to 12.1%)
Ohio State: +2.3% (15.5% to 17.8%)
Alabama: +2.3% (1.4% to 3.7%)
No surprises in this group. Alabama beat LSU, which was the toughest game left on its regular season schedule. Washington beat USC, which is relevant even though the Trojans are falling quickly in my numbers. Even Ohio State’s win over Rutgers was meaningful in that it was the toughest non-Michigan game left on the Buckeyes’ schedule.
Biggest fallers in national title chances
Oklahoma: -3.9% (3.9% to 0%)
Georgia: -1.8% (23.6% to 21.8%)
Florida State: -1.6% (11.7% to 10.1%)
Biggest risers in CFP chances
Washington: +9.7% (41.4% to 51.1%)
Alabama: +8.8% (7.6% to 16.4%)
Ohio State: +5.5% (71.3% to 76.8%)
Biggest fallers in CFP chances
Oklahoma: -20.5% (20.6% to 0.1%)
Florida State: -4.4% (60.2% to 55.8%)
Georgia: -3.9% (74.7% to 70.8%)
(Photo of Kendall Milton: Jeffrey Vest / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
