College Football Playoff Eliminations

Image: Torsten Bolten

In a few weeks, I'll start providing two separate rankings for college football teams.

The first ranking will be a power ranking: who are the best teams in terms of who I would favor if they played any other team. The second will be the teams most deserving to make the FBS playoffs based on what the teams have done so far. 

Scores and won-loss records will be the only data used in both rankings. That is, I won't rely on offensive, defensive, or special teams statistics. The main difference is that I will take the margin of victory into account (within limits) for the "best" team rankings, but not for the "deserving" rankings. I will, however, take "margin of defeat" into account for both rankings; other things being equal, losing two games by a total of 14 points is better than losing one game by 34, because you haven't shown that you can be terrible.

The Playoff Chase rankings ("deserving" list) will work this way.

For each team:

1. Determine the number of wins of the teams it beat. The more teams you beat that themselves have won a lot of games, the better.

2. Add the sum of the average number of wins of the teams they beat. This is likely to differentiate between Team A beating a 10-win Team B and Team C beating a 10-win Team D. Team B's opponents may average to a 7-5 record, whereas Team D's opponents may average to a 5-7 record. Team A's win over Team B is "better" than Team C's win over Team D. 

3. Subtract the number of losses of the teams it lost to. Let's say two teams are 10-1 entering the last game of the regular season. The first loses a close one to an 8-3 team, and the second loses a close one to a 3-8 team. It's less harmful to lose to a good team than to a bad team. Note: If a team loses to an FCS (lower division) school, the FCS school will be considered to have a 1-11 FBS record. Losing to an FCS team is a disaster.

4. Subtract the margin of defeat, counted by the number of possessions, or the number of (non-extra point) plays it takes to tie or win the game. Lose by 1-7 points, the "margin" is 1. Lose by 8-14 points? 2. 15-21? 3. Etc. Etc. The margins are by increments of 7 (touchdown with extra point) rather than 8 (touchdown plus 2-point conversion) because a missed extra point is an error, whereas a two-point conversion involves making a play; it requires the same playbook and execution an offense needs to score a touchdown.

I'd like to know if we even need the first two criteria. Perhaps all we need #3 and 4: how bad were the teams you lost to, and by how much?

Every week, I will eliminate nine teams from FBS playoff contention based on their losses and loss margins. There are 136 FBS teams; if we deduct nine every week, then entering conference championship week, we'll have 19 teams left in contention, after which I'll eliminate seven more. We'll see if the twelve remaining will be identical to the Playoff Committee's selections. 

The First Worst teams after Weeks 0 and 1:

1. Middle Tennessee: Lost by 20 to an FCS team.

2. Army: Lost by 3 to an FCS team.

3. Missouri State: lost by 60 to USC

4. Georgia State: lost by 56 to Ole Miss

5. Coastal Carolina: lost by 41 to Virginia

6. Marshall: lost by 38 to Georgia

7. Nevada: Lost by 35 to Penn State

8. North Carolina: Lost by 34 to TCU

9.  Sam Houston: 0-2; played in both Weeks 0 and 1, lost both games by 17.

Of teams in the so-called "Power Four" conferences, North Carolina had the worst start. Of course, many other power teams had opening-day virtual scrimmages against FCS opponents or non-power FBS teams like most listed above. Head coach Bill Belichick and crew, in contrast, faced a Big 12 team coming off a 9-4 season.

 

Last season, Clemson started the season with a 31-point loss to Georgia but went on to make the playoffs as the ACC champion. Technically, the Tar Heels could do the same, but TCU is not as good as Georgia was, and North Carolina isn't good enough to win the conference. At-large teams with two losses that make the playoffs will likely have a smaller total loss margin in two games than North Carolina already has.

Therefore, Belichick's crew gets the dubious distinction of getting scratched off the Playoff Chase list. 

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Contact James Leroy Wilson for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com. Visit JL Cells for my non-sports writing.