How to Unleash College Football Playoff Chaos
It's likely the College Football Playoff Committee will have to make at least one tough decision in the final year of the four-team playoff.
After a wild slate of rivalry games, just one more week of action stands between the College Football Playoff committee and its final rankings. And as things currently stand, the committee’s decision seems like it could be pretty easy: the Top 4 teams in the AP poll (Georgia, Michigan, Washington and Florida State) are all undefeated power-five schools. If they all win, it would pretty much be the dream scenario for anybody picking a four-team playoff field.
But as we should know by now, things in college football rarely go according to plan.
Instead of having four clear-cut playoff squads, championship week could also bring about any number of ridiculous scenarios where it’s not at all obvious who the committee would — or should — choose. So in the spirit of pure chaos, let’s run through all the possibilities that would create the most headaches for the selection committee next week.
First things first, we should establish which teams the CFP tends to prefer in its selection process. Many years ago, Nate Silver ran a useful exercise in which he grouped FBS teams into categories based on how many losses they had, whether they were in a power conference or not, and whether or not they won their conference’s championship. (Or were Notre Dame.) He found that, in the old BCS era, undefeated power-conference champions finished in the Top 4 of the AP poll (a proxy for the playoff rankings) 100% of the time, while 1-loss power-conference champs made it 72% of the time, and so forth.
We’ve updated that research to look at results from the playoff era, and we found that the CFP rankings have given even more weight to teams that check off those boxes than the AP poll did in the pre-playoff era:
So indeed, if Georgia, Michigan, Washington and Florida State all win, that would leave exactly four undefeated major-conference champions — the types of teams college football has never denied from its Top 4. Easy-peasy.
Fortunately, though, there’s only a 9.8% chance all of those results happen based on the implied probabilities from Vegas odds. It’s actually far more likely that the committee will have at least some tough choices to make coming out of next week’s contests, and that means a chance for some truly chaotic scenarios to transpire.
Tops on that list, if we want to maximize the uncertainty of who might make the playoff: How about if all four of the major undefeated teams lose their conference title games, with Texas winning the Big 12 and (why not?) Liberty winning C-USA?
Under that combo, the selection committee would be working with zero undefeated power conference teams — the traditional sure things — but three 1-loss power conference champions (Oregon, Texas and Alabama), five 1-loss power conference non-champions (Georgia, Michigan, Washington, Florida State and Ohio State) with an undefeated minor-conference champ (Liberty) thrown in for good measure. Good luck sorting all of that out.
Of course, not every set of results can create quite that much uncertainty. Here’s our full list of doomsday scenarios, ranked scientifically according to how much each combination is likely to make the committee members regret joining a group that’s under extreme pressure to correctly rank football teams:
Circling back to some of the calmer scenarios for a moment: If Florida State loses the ACC championship to Louisville, we suddenly have at least two 1-loss major-conference non-champions — remember, Ohio State fits that category, too — which is the type of team that the CFP picks after it has exhausted the undefeated and 1-loss power-conference champs. That’s fine if Texas wins the Big 12 title over Oklahoma State, because the committee would still have exactly four power-conference champs with 1 loss or fewer. But if Texas also loses (and there’s a 7% chance of both results), suddenly the committee must parse the differences in resumes between the Seminoles and Buckeyes.
(Yes, they would probably pick Ohio State based on its superior schedule strength, but they’d have to think about it for a second.)
Traveling further down the rabbit hole, if FSU and Texas win but Washington loses to Oregon, the committee would have to ponder four 1-loss major-conference teams — including two conference champs (Oregon and Texas) and two non-champs (Ohio State and Washington) — to fill the last spot in the playoff field behind the three undefeated squads. And a similar (but arguably even more difficult) situation would play out if Washington wins but Georgia loses the SEC championship to Alabama. This would also leave three undefeated major-conference champs, then the choice between the defending national champions (UGA), the SEC champion that just beat them (Bama), plus Texas (who beat Alabama by 10 in Tuscaloosa back in September) and Ohio State, all among the 1-loss contingent. Talk about tough decisions!
There are more ways to add chaos. If Georgia and Michigan still win their respective title games but Washington, FSU and Texas all lose (a trio of results that has a 5% chance of happening), the committee would be left with two undefeated power-conference champs, a 1-loss power-conference champ in Oregon, and three different 1-loss power-conference non-champs — Washington, FSU and Ohio State — to choose from. (Note that this same scenario would also be true if Iowa beats Michigan for the Big Ten — LOL — with FSU winning the ACC, but the chances of that are a lot more remote.) Again, you’d probably expect the Buckeyes to snag that final spot, but it’s not a sure thing.
Just for fun, we can make the above scenario slightly more chaotic if it’s also paired with a Liberty win over New Mexico State in the Conference USA championship, adding a 13-0 non-power conference champ into the mix as well. Sure, the committee probably would never take the Flames over teams like Florida State or Ohio State in a million years, but there’s at least some precedent for an undefeated minor-conference team ranking among the pre-bowl Top 4 — it’s happened for 14% of such teams during the playoff era, and 25% of them before that.
Believe it or not, we can get even weirder from here. If Michigan, FSU and Texas win but Georgia and Washington don’t, suddenly there are two undefeated power-conference champs and a whopping six 1-loss power teams (three conference champs and three non-champs) bidding for the leftover two playoff spots. The cynics among us might suggest this gives the committee the daylight it needs to punch two SEC teams’ tickets — Bama and Georgia — but don’t tell that to power-conference champions Texas (who, again, beat Bama head-to-head) and Oregon.
And unsurprisingly, the combinations with truly the greatest chances of chaos involve most or all of the undefeated contenders losing next week.
If the sole winner among that group is either Michigan or FSU, and Texas wins the Big 12, the playoff choice would come down to one undefeated major-conference champ, three 1-loss major-conference champs and four 1-loss major-conference non-champs (including Georgia). And that’s actually the easier version of this scenario. If the lone undefeated winner is either Georgia or Washington — meaning 2-loss Iowa and Louisville each snag power-conference crowns — and Texas loses, the committee would be staring at one undefeated major-conference champ, a 1-loss major-conference champ and four 1-loss major-conference non-champs.
Even that is not quite as crazy as the highest-rated scenario on our earlier list, where all of the undefeated teams lose and a choice has to be made between eight (!) different 1-loss power-conference teams. Who would even get the nod in that situation? Oregon, Texas and Alabama, the trio of 1-loss conference champs, would be a good bet, but sorting out the 1-loss non-champs (Georgia, Michigan, Washington, Florida State and Ohio State) would be a complete nightmare — and it might even come down to how each individual conference title game played out.
The good news for the selection committee is that this most chaotic of doomsday scenarios has just a 0.4% (or 1-in-269) chance for all of its components to slide into place next week, according to the Vegas odds. In other words, the nightmare combo is 26.5 times less likely than the dream scenario of all four undefeated teams winning and making for possibly the easiest playoff decision ever. But improbable as it may be, fans of mayhem and disarray in the sport can always hold out hope that things get really weird between now and the selection announcement.
Filed under: College Football
Well, so far it looks like a 🔥🔥 scenario, but if either Michigan loses (which seems unlikely given a 10 point lead over Iowa's non-existent offense) or FSU loses (which is certainly possible with the score only 3-0 at the half), we're in a scenario not on the chart. Are those more 🔥 or less?