Updated Playoff Projections

Submitted by alum96 on

Two weeks to go and it is getting interesting out there.   I will say thus far I am liking what the committee seems to be doing which is rewarding the # of quality wins BUT giving small penalties if you look like dog crap in most of those wins (FSU).

There were not a lot of key results this week as the SEC teams played their 4th non conf game this week ahead of some key rivalry games, the Big 10 is mostly moot, the ACC is a 1 team conference, and the Pac 12 essentially had 1 key game.  Ole Miss who was depanted by Big Bert was the only major loss in the top 10.

UCLA did have a big win over USC to create an outside chance at the playoffs if they can win next week and knock off Oregon in the Pac 12 championship game.  Wiscy-OSU seem on a collision course although Jerry Kill will bring his rough and tumble team into Madison and not make it easy.  Baylor goes for style points vs KSU in 2 weeks to try to get that 4th spot over Miss State... who themselves faces what seems to be a broken Ole Miss this week.  FSU has a tricky game vs FL and Bama v Auburn.

Question of the week - will Baylor and OSU flip flop?

  1. (1)  Bama 10-1
  2. (2) Oregon 10-1
  3. (3) FSU  11-0
  4. (4) Miss State 10-1
  5. (5) TCU 9-1
  6. (6) OSU 10-1
  7. (7) Baylor 9-1
  8. (9) UCLA 9-2
  9. (10) Georgia 9-2
  10. (11) Staee 9-2
  11. (13) Arizona State 9-2
  12.  (12) KSU 8-2
  13. (15) Arizona 9-2
  14. (14) Auburn 8-3
  15. (16) Wiscy 9-2
  16. (8) Ole Miss 8-3
  17. (20) Missouri 9-2
  18. (18) Georgia Tech 9-2
  19. (21) Oklahoma 8-3
  20. (22) Clemson 8-3
  21. (24) Louisville 8-3
  22. (25) Minnesota 8-3
  23. (17) Utah 7-4
  24. (19) USC 7-4
  25. (NR) Colorado State 10-1
  26. (26) UM 5-6

Miss State will be going for style points vs Ole Miss to lock in #4 but in the Big 12 Baylor has 1 last chance for style points vs KSU in 2 weeks to try to move ahead of Miss State a week from Saturday.  TCU is out of quality wins to be had.

If all goes to form the only 2 other teams who still have outside shots would be Georgia and UCLA if they win their championship games over teams #1 and #2 although they'd be 2 loss teams.  (Georgia requires Missouri to lose to Arkansas to even have a chance to be in the game).  It *would* be interesting if somehow Georgia beats #1 Bama in the SEC championship game or UCLA* beats #2 Oregon (or both happened) - in theory the committee should be rewarding conference champions so you'd think that would vault either or both of those teams into a playoff spot.  Over a Mississippi State or over the odd man out of TCU and Baylor.

*Pac 12 South has three 2 loss teams in 1st place, two of which (AZ ASU) play each other next week.  UCLA has Stanford, so there will be a tiebreaker if UCLA wins as two teams will be tied with 2 losses.  UCLA has beaten both AZ and ASU.

Dawggoblue

November 23rd, 2014 at 12:51 PM ^

Ole Miss beats Miss St.

Auburn Beats Bama.

Oregon, FSU, OSU, Baylor, TCU win out.

Hello 4 team playoff with no SEC teams.

LSAClassOf2000

November 23rd, 2014 at 3:16 PM ^

I have tried to piece together an argument that we have some quality losses to a few teams, but then we have some not as quality losses in the mix as well, so I think the committee might call it a wash. Not sure if I am going to send this e-mail to the committee after yesterday, of course, but if I can help out our ranking a smidge, I will. We would at least move higher up the list of "also ran" teams.

alum96

November 23rd, 2014 at 1:30 PM ^

I think someone posted the other day the combined winning % of all of Marshall's opponents is like .380.  I had Marshall and CSU in my projections the past few weeks but it seems the committee is not buying the stock.  At least CSU has 1-2 legit opponents and beat 1 Power 5 team, Marshall has not.

ghost

November 23rd, 2014 at 1:59 PM ^

Marshall's best wins are probably Mid Tenn St., Rice, and UAB.  Mid Tenn St. did only lose by 11 to Minnesota.  UAB lost by 13 to Miss St.  UAB scored late to make it that close but they did put up 548 yrds on Miss St.  I don't think they should be ranked in the top 10 or anything, but even in CUSA it does take something to be 11-0

Bagheera

November 23rd, 2014 at 1:16 PM ^

I don't see a single justification for having Baylor below OSU.  Their best wins are both better than OSU's best wins and OSU's loss is worse.

Mocha Cub

November 23rd, 2014 at 1:55 PM ^

It really does seem like Baylor has been penalized for their big comeback against TCU more than TCU was for the actual loss. Although if you look at the top 5's nonconference schedule, they all play better opponents than Baylor, which could also be the committee's reasoning for having them below Ohio State and TCU. Who knows for sure though at this point.

ESNY

November 23rd, 2014 at 6:35 PM ^

Perceived is the key word. Miss St has beaten exactly one top 25 team, that being a 3 loss auburn team that is at the bottom of the rankings. Ole Miss probably won't be ranked at the end of the season if MSU wins either. Assuming they all win out, OSU, TCU and Baylor will all have better wins compared to MSU and its not even close for the most part. OSU surprisingly probably has the best wins but also the worst loss by a mile. It reeks of historical AP/Coaches Poll where MSU Is still number 4 because teams don't get passed over

funkywolve

November 23rd, 2014 at 4:33 PM ^

Is a little weak, but it's very similiar to TCU.  Both Baylor and TCU played SMU and a 1-AA team.  The difference is TCU played Minny and Baylor played Buffalo.

If Baylor beats KSU I don't know how they can keep TCU ahead of Baylor.  Baylor would have won the head to head.  Would the committee really say that one non-conference game trumps the head to head result?

Baughlieve

November 23rd, 2014 at 3:50 PM ^

Baylor should be above OSU. They have the easiest schedule of any top 10 team and that home loss to VT is just awful. They even struggled against an Indiana team playing with their 6th string QB. I still think they got too much credit for beating Sparty.

Muttley

November 23rd, 2014 at 4:34 PM ^

to penalize Baylor for the very poor quality of the bottom half of their schedule, of which they chose three.  (I don't agree with that judgment.)

The other thing that the committee could be doing is starting to stratify by conference.  They likely wouldn't want to put BOTH TCU and Baylor in before Ohio State but would put Baylor above Ohio State should TCU lose or Baylor jump TCU.  If that's what the committee is doing, then I think that is reasonable.

Rankings per Massey.

Baylor SOS vs Ohio St Opponent Quality

Baylor Opponent Rank --Result-- Ohio St Opponent Rank --Result--
TCU 4 W 61-58 Michigan St 12 W 49-37
Kansas St 13 TBD B1G West 14/30* TDB
@Oklahoma 15 W 48-14 @Minnesota 30 W 31-24
@WVU 34 L 41-27 @MD 43 W 52-24
@Texas 37 W 28-7 Cincinatti 45 W 50-28
Okla St 67 W 49-28 Va Tech 54 L 35-21
Texas Tech 78 TBD Penn St 56 W 31-24
@Iowa St 93 W 49-28 Rutgers 66 W 56-17
Kansas 95 W 60-14 Michigan 68 TBD
@Buffalo 114 W 63-21 @Navy 71 W 34-17
SMU 127 W 45-0 Illinois 75 W 55-14
NW St 147** W 70-6 Indiana 90 W 42-27
No CCG --- ---- Kent St 123 W 66-0

* Possible CCG Opponents: #14 Wiscy or #30 Minny

**The Sagarin ranking for this FCS team.

   Massey only ranks the 128 FBS teams

Perkis-Size Me

November 23rd, 2014 at 1:23 PM ^

So where is Marshall in all of this? Aren't they still undefeated? Not saying they should be in playoff consideration, but how are they not ranked?

Other than that, the top 4 look pretty solid to me. Ole Miss isn't looking like much of a threat to Miss State anymore, so they should hold fast at #4. I think the lack of a title game in the Big XII is going to kill TCU's and Baylor's chances to get in, and bias aside, OSU did not look like a playoff contender yesterday.




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ghost

November 23rd, 2014 at 1:41 PM ^

Ole Miss may not be a threat to beat Miss St., but what Arkansas did to Ole Miss yesterday hurt Miss St.  Assuming Alabama beats Auburn Miss St. will not have beaten a team with fewer than 4 losses all year.  Baylor would 3 wins over teams with 3 losses or fewer.  

At that point how does Miss St. stay a head of Baylor.  The fact that they lost to Alabama by 5 in a game that they really had not shot of winning?

Most people expect Baylor to end up in the 4th spot if they win out and this weekend did nothing to change that except for hurting Miss St.'s resume.

Mocha Cub

November 23rd, 2014 at 1:47 PM ^

They're on the outside looking in and that's most likely where they belong. I think they were 18 in the rankings last week. If you look at their schedule, most of their opponents will finish below a 0.500 winning percentage. Those opponents with winning records got smoked by any major conference opponent they played. 

 

Edit: I'm referring to Marshall btw.

bronxblue

November 23rd, 2014 at 1:54 PM ^

I'm more interested in what happens if FSU loses a game this year, even in the ACC title game.  Everybody is dying to drop them, but even if they struggle the next couple of weeks I wonder if that's enough to see them be left out of the playoff if, say, Miss St. and Alabama keep winning.  Sure, Miss. St. won't play for the SEC title, but we've seen the committee in the past not hold that against teams whose only loss is to the SEC rep.

titanfan11

November 23rd, 2014 at 1:56 PM ^

sticks to what they have been saying about conference championships meaning something.   If a team like Mississippi State were completely dominant but had one slip up (say, on the road to another dominant team like Bama), I could see them potentially getting in.  However, they have not been dominant.  Sure, they have won their games, and beaten some quality opponents in conference.

I would like to see Baylor, TCU, or even Ohio State, given a conference championship, to make the playoff.  I also think that might be the impetus needed to expand the playoff to 8 or 16 (or what about 12, giving the top 4 seeds byes....too much like the NFL???).  

funkywolve

November 23rd, 2014 at 7:45 PM ^

According to Sagarin ratings:  Auburn is ranked 6th, LSU is ranked 12th, Arkansas is ranked 17th and A&M is ranked 18th. 

According to Massey ratings:  Auburn is 9th, Arkansas is 17th, LSU is 19th and A&M is 21st.

 

Sure a lot of these teams have a handful of losses but they've all played each other.  Most people knew in September that some of these teams were going to end up with 3 or 4 losses.  Not saying all these teams are great, but just cause some of these teams are going to end up with 4 losses doesn't mean they are bad teams.

ESNY

November 23rd, 2014 at 8:17 PM ^

Any ranking that has a 6-5 team that is 2-5 in conference in the top 20 is fucking insane. There has to be a limit to "good losses" otherwise these ranking are completely out of whack. Maybe one good loss shouldn't hurt you but five shouldn't help you.

BlueinLansing

November 23rd, 2014 at 4:43 PM ^

folded its tent.  The injuries to key players has broken their will, they won't beat Miss. State.  Alabama should beat Auburn then MIzzou or Georgia which means for me its down to if Oregon or FSU get upset in their conference title games.

UCLA is playing good football and Arizona already beat Oregon, so its possible.  FSU is living on the edge.

funkywolve

November 23rd, 2014 at 4:54 PM ^

If UCLA wins out, it'll be interesting to see what the committee does.  I think UCLA would have a pretty strong case to make the playoff even with two losses.

Georgia would also be interesting because they would have one of the best non-conference resumes wth W's against Clemson and GTech.  However, the SEC East isn't nearly as strong as the Pac-12 South, imo.