Penultimate Playoff Chase Standings

 

Below are my rankings for the College Football playoffs. I included all teams with nine wins or more.

• WinsR is wins ranking. 

• SWR and SLR stand for Strength of Wins and Strength of Losses Rank.

• PDR ranks teams based on how many points they were from going undefeated. 

As was demonstrated last year, the Playoff Selection Committee can change its mind from week to week, so their standings released later today will have little meaning. 

I can, however, make some safe predictions:

• My final Playoff Chase rankings for next week will differ from the Selection Committee's. The winner of Lousiana-Marshall, for instance, is bound to move up just for the victory in an extra game against a winning team.

• The winner of the Moutain West championship game (Boise-State-UNLV) will receive a bid and the loser will go home. The winner of the AAC Championship will not be invited.

• It's unlikely that any Big 12 team will be invited aside from the championship game winner.

• I may have heard this on the Cover 3 Podcast: As with the AP Poll (last column above), the Selection Committee will be inclined to favor 3-loss SEC teams over 2-loss teams (and perhaps one-loss teams such as Army or Indiana) from any other conference. Therefore, Penn State and SMU must win the championship game to get an invitation, despite their better records than Alabama, Ole Miss, and South Carolina.

• Teams that are safe to get in barring a championship game blowout loss: Oregon, and Texas. Notre Dame is also a lock, and I think Tennessee, Ohio State, and Indiana will get in as well.

James Leroy Wilson writes The MVP Chase (subscribe). Thank you for your subscriptions and support! You may contact James for writing, editing, research, and other work: jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.