Week 14 College Football Playoff Rankings

The results of Week 13 are in and the most important set of College Football Playoff Rankings to this point is set to come out on Tuesday night. Up until now, the CFP Rankings have just been good sports talk fodder and something to argue about. There were far too many games left in the season to really be analyzed seriously.

But, after a weekend with a lot of shake-ups and pertinent results, the rankings are much more compelling. And, with just one week left in the regular season before conference championship games, they absolutely deserve more time and consideration.

 

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College Football Playoff Rankings Week 13 Relevant Results

Big Ten

Ohio State 38, Indiana 15

Penn State 26, Minnesota 25

SEC

Oklahoma 24, Alabama 3

Florida 24, Ole Miss 17

Auburn 43, Texas A&M 41 (4OT)

Big 12

Arizona State 28, BYU 23

Kansas 37, Colorado 21

Iowa State 31, Utah 28

Mountain West

Boise State 17, Wyoming 13

Fresno State 28, Colorado State 22

UNLV 27, San Jose State 16

ACC

SMU 33, Virginia 7

Miami (FL) 42, Wake Forest 14

College Football Playoff Rankings Analysis & Championship Game Scenarios

How did the Week 13 results impact the teams and conferences? What are the tiebreakers and title game scenarios?

Big Ten

Ohio State’s win over Indiana will be the most talked about one because the Hoosiers had played a very lackluster schedule up to that point and failed on the scoreboard and with the eye test in Columbus. But, Indiana is a major-conference team with just one loss that is a big favorite against Purdue next week.

I’ll be honest. I’m anti-Indiana in the CFP. They had under 250 yards against Michigan and were clearly no match for Ohio State against the two most talented teams they’ve played. As of now, the only bowl-eligible teams Indiana has played are Nebraska, Washington, and Ohio State. Michigan State and Michigan each have five wins heading into Week 14. Yes, they can only play the teams on the schedule, and they’ve beaten the hell out of most of them, but the quality of opponent simply isn’t there. More on them later.

Would Penn State have fallen far enough to drop out of the Top 12 with a loss to Minnesota? No, but the Nittany Lions lack a signature win and their lack of “Game Control” against USC in one of their better wins could’ve given the Committee some ammunition to start pouring cold water on their case. They were down 20-6 at halftime and Lincoln Riley out-James Franklin’d James Franklin with his fourth quarter game management. It doesn’t matter now because they won and they’ll beat Maryland to get a home game in Happy Valley in the First Round.

SEC

Alabama moved up three spots in last week’s rankings after a thoroughly impressive (yes, this is sarcasm) win over Mercer, only to lose to Oklahoma in Norman. With three losses, you’d like to think that the Crimson Tide are out, but stats, metrics, and narratives can be manipulated and the College Football Playoff’s main objective is still to make money for all involved. Which team produces more compelling TV and draws more eyeballs? Indiana or Alabama?

This is the “more on them” part from above about Indiana. The Hoosiers are absolutely a college basketball brand. They are absolutely not a college football brand. There is a difference between “deserving” and “deserving to be on ABC/ESPN in the signature tournament for the sport”. The Committee is absolutely not a group of independent observers, analysts, and thinkers. These are people with deep-seated ties to conferences and plenty of powerful and influential people.

If Alabama beats Auburn, I think they still find a way to finish in the Top 12.

Ole Miss picked up the dreaded third loss as well. I think the losses to unranked Kentucky and Florida clearly put them on the outside and the relative lack of brand enthusiasm relative to Alabama has them clearly eliminated from the picture.

South Carolina is the interesting team to me. If they beat Clemson this week, is it possible in any world that the Committee considers them as the three-loss SEC team over Alabama? The Gamecocks got screwed out of a win against LSU and probably should have beaten Alabama in Tuscaloosa. They didn’t and that’s probably the difference, but a win over rival Clemson puts the stamp on a hell of a regular season for South Carolina.

I also wonder where the Committee stands on Tennessee. The conference metrics are mediocre and the non-conference schedule was bad, as NC State had no business being ranked at any point. Keeping out a two-loss SEC team for the sake of putting in a three-loss one, especially Alabama, who Tennessee beat, would open a lot of cans of worms, so I can’t see it happening. The Florida and Oklahoma wins aged better this past weekend, too.

The Vols were soundly punished for their loss to Georgia by dropping four spots and won’t get any favor for the UTEP win over the weekend. Of course, they still have to get through Goliath slayer Diego Pavia and the Vanderbilt Commodores in Nashville this week. Also, even though Tennessee can be 6-2 and finish in a four-way tie in the SEC, Texas A&M, even with the Auburn loss, would make the SEC Title Game over them with a win against Texas. Georgia is already in.

Big 12

CHAOS! People who said that an expanded CFP would damage the regular season have been proven very wrong. The Big 12 is quite the example. There are four teams at 6-2 going into this week and all of them are ranked in the Top 25 of the AP Poll. There are five more teams at 5-3 and we could have an absolute nightmare situation for the Big 12 based on tiebreakers and this week’s matchups.

Week 14 Big 12 Schedule

  • Oklahoma State at Colorado (6-2)
  • West Virginia (5-3) at Texas Tech (5-3)
  • Kansas at Baylor (5-3)
  • Arizona State (6-2) at Arizona
  • TCU (5-3) at Cincinnati
  • Kansas State (5-3) at Iowa State (6-2)
  • Houston at BYU (6-2)

As Max Olson of ESPN tweeted late Saturday night, there is a path to Baylor vs. Texas Tech in the Big 12 Championship Game in Arlington. It is possible that eight teams finish 6-3 and then a slew of tiebreakers become very relevant.

You can see with the conference records in parentheses how the eight-team, clear-as-mud scenario is possible.

Of course, as bettors, we know how truly unlikely it is given that Arizona State is over a touchdown favorite on the road and Colorado and BYU are big home favorites, so those three teams are expected to improve to 7-2. Iowa State is also a home favorite over Kansas State.

So the likeliest scenario is that we have a four-way tie at 7-2. The craziest part of all of this is that we don’t have a lot of head-to-head results between those four teams.

Here’s the tiebreaker scenario as of now:

If all four teams win: 

Arizona State, Iowa State

If three teams win:

Iowa State, Colorado, Arizona State: Iowa State, Arizona State

Iowa State, Colorado, BYU: Iowa State, BYU

Iowa State, Arizona State, BYU: Arizona State, Iowa State

Colorado, Arizona State, BYU: Arizona State, BYU

In other words, the only way Colorado makes the Big 12 Championship Game is to win and have two of the 6-2 teams lose.

Major shout-out to Scott Dochterman of The Athletic for listing all the scenarios. Go check out his article for more of the details.

The Big 12 champ makes the CFP no matter what, but could very well be on the road in the First Round.

Mountain West

Boise State survived against Wyoming. But, that wasn’t the only development in the MWC. Colorado State got beat by Fresno State. And it wasn’t an upset. The Bulldogs were favored.

But the door is very much open now for UNLV, who is favored over rival Nevada this week and is in with a win. The Rebels own the relevant tiebreakers over the Rams and should honestly have the edge in the computer metrics if they lose and Colorado State also loses to Utah State.

The Boise State/UNLV game at Allegiant Stadium was tremendous theater and a pretty evenly-matched game. The rematch would be on the Smurf Turf at Albertsons Stadium in Boise. Obviously no weather forecast matters this far out, but I’ll assume it’ll be cold for the boys from Sin City.

Nevertheless, Boise State would have been about a 17-point favorite in my Power Ratings over Colorado State. I’d have them -4.5 against UNLV, but expect the line to be higher than that. Boise State was -4 in Las Vegas on October 25.

ACC

Miami is in “win and in” mode against Syracuse this week. SMU has already punched a ticket regardless of what happens against Cal, but they are sizable favorites in Dallas.

Clemson is done at 7-1 and would get the spot if Miami loses, but the Tigers are behind in the tiebreakers.

AAC

Outside of UNLV, the team that benefitted the most from Colorado State’s loss is Tulane. We have to have a very honest discussion if Tulane beating Memphis this week and Army in the AAC Title Game is more impressive than UNLV’s resume and a win over Boise State. Remember, the highest-ranked Group of Five conference champ gets in.

Tulane was 20th in last week’s rankings, four spots ahead of UNLV. If Boise State were to lose to UNLV (assuming we get to that point), will the Green Wave stay ahead of the Rebels?

UNLV’s win over Kansas is aging tremendously well and the Oregon State win got a huge boost with the Beavs beating the Cougars last week. 

Tulane improved in the “Quality Loss” metric with Oklahoma beating Alabama and they were right there against Kansas State, but they don’t have a signature win yet. Beating Memphis this week and Army in the title game would be good wins, but are they enough?

Week 14 College Football Playoff Rankings Projection

1. Oregon

2. Ohio State

3. Texas

4. Notre Dame

5. Penn State

6. Miami

7. Georgia

8. Tennessee

9. Boise State

10. SMU

11. Indiana

12. Alabama

13. Arizona State

14. Clemson

15. Ole Miss

16. South Carolina

17. Texas A&M

18. Tulane

19. Iowa State

20. BYU

21. Missouri

22. UNLV

23. Illinois

24. Colorado

25. Florida

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