The nation watched as Georgia and Alabama treated fans to a spectacle, headlining an eye-opening weekend across college football. With a significant shift in power expected following the battle between No. 2 and No. 4, respectively, who should stand tall among the nation’s teams in the latest polls of top 25 teams?
Week 5 College Football Playoff Rankings Prediction
As the dust has settled on Week 5, we take a look at the CFN Football Playoff Meter (FPM). Using a simulation method and a forward-looking approach to the 12-team College Football Playoff, here’s our FPM’s stab at the top 25 best teams in college football:
1) Alabama Crimson Tide
2) Texas Longhorns
3) Ohio State Buckeyes
4) Georgia Bulldogs
5) Oregon Ducks
6) Tennessee Volunteers
7) Penn State Nittany Lions
8) Missouri Tigers
9) LSU Tigers
10) Ole Miss Rebels
11) Miami-FL Hurricanes
12) Clemson Tigers
13) Notre Dame Fighting Irish
14) Michigan Wolverines
15) USC Trojans
16) Iowa State Cyclones
17) Arizona Wildcats
18) Utah Utes
19) BYU Cougars
20) Kansas State Wildcats
21) Louisville Cardinals
22) Oklahoma Sooners
23) Texas A&M Aggies
24) Indiana Hoosiers
25) UNLV Rebels
Now, of course those teams won’t make the College Football Playoffs in those seeds because of how the format has been drafted up, so we can take to the CFN FPM to take a look at how these teams could be seeded.
MORE: Simulate the College Football Season with CFN’s College Football Playoff Predictor
The CFN FPM simulates the remaining games in the season based upon a multitude of factors, generating percentages along the way. Those percentages includes each team’s chance to win out, win their conference, make the Playoffs, make the national championship, and win the national championship.
So, let’s first go into it with ‘who will win their conferences’ to get the firm grip on what teams could make up the top four seeds.
ACC Championship Odds
As of right now, it’s clear that the ACC is a two-team race. Miami has been the frontrunner since running over Florida in Week 1, but the resurgence of a Clemson team with Garrett Riley as their offensive coordinator has jumped the Tigers’ chances.
Clemson throttled Stanford and Miami (now famously) escaped Virginia Tech. Here is where we sit after Week 5 in terms of each team’s chance to win the ACC:
- Miami-FL: 42.62%
- Clemson: 34.99%
They don’t play each other in the regular season, and sadly for the ACC itself, it’s beginning to look more and more like the other conferences are so jumbled at the top that the winner of the ACC may be the only conference team that makes the Playoffs.
Big Ten Championship Odds
We’re getting a bit into the weeds with this, but here we are. The Big Ten is not nearly as convoluted at the top as the Big 12 or even the SEC, as there is a clear-cut top of the food chain.
Oregon still hasn’t quite figured themselves out, but with their schedule aligning the way that it will and their place atop the College Football Playoff Rankings since the offseason, it’ll be hard for them to be knocked from the top spot, even with Ohio State on the schedule soon.
Here are the top winning probabilities for each team in the Big Ten, or, well, at least those with a chance above 5%.
- Oregon: 30.84%
- Penn State: 24.30%
- Ohio State: 23.41%
- Michigan: 8.57%
- USC: 7.08%
Rutgers comes in at sixth here, but at 1.47%. As we love the growth at Rutgers, it’s hard to see a world in which they’ll compete with the big five above them in the Big Ten. With Penn State avoiding Michigan and Oregon this year, this could shape up to be a part where three different Big Ten teams finish the season at 11-1 and have similar losses.
What a mess, but in the end, it’s likely that those same three teams (Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State) would make the Playoffs.
SEC Championship Odds
Can the SEC place as many as FIVE teams in the College Football Playoffs? What about six? Maybe seven? Okay, now we’re just getting crazy, but it’s hard to see a world in which the majority of the 12 teams in the College Football Playoffs aren’t hailing from the SEC.
After all, you only have to have one representative from the other Power Four conferences and one from the Group of Five. That leaves the SEC with a potential of eight “other spots” to fill. Let’s start with who can win the conference at this point in terms of SEC winning probability:
- Texas: 37.13%
- Alabama: 14.42%
- Georgia: 13.12%
- Tennessee: 10.05%
- LSU: 9.26%
- Missouri: 7.72%
- Ole Miss: 4.20%
- Texas A&M: 2.81%
The Longhorns are almost a lock for one of the spots in the SEC Championship Game, but they also have to get past a pretty tough stretch of games that includes Georgia. A second loss and Georgia is likely out of the conference championship, but not the Playoffs.
For the other SEC teams not-named Texas or Alabama, their chances likely require beating one of the top two teams or just getting into the Playoffs as an at-large team with an 11-1 or 10-2 record. It’s feasible to think that 10-2 Georgia gets in over most potential other teams vying for spots 10-2.
Big 12 Championship Odds
Now we’re getting to the fun part. A conference in which we have no clue what is going to happen weekly, let alone the rest of the way.
BYU has had the hardest road so far and has the hardest road left. Their wins against Kansas State and SMU looked terrific then and especially now. But they haven’t quite caught up to the others who find themselves with easier roads to the Big 12 Championship Game just yet:
- Utah: 23.94%
- Kansas State: 22.49%
- Arizona: 19.83%
- Iowa State: 12.93%
- BYU: 8.41%
- Oklahoma State: 5.20%
BYU has games against Arizona, Oklahoma State, UCF, and Utah up next, a tell-tale sign of just how far this team has come from preseason expectations. The Cougars’ schedule alone will help iron out this Big 12 Championship picture and also set the tone for their own playoff aspirations.
Group of Five Playoff Odds
Alright, we’re lumping all the Group of Five teams into one here — and we’ll carry over Notre Dame and even Washington State and Oregon State from the Pac-12 as well, to earn either an at-large bid or win their conference and be the highest-ranked G5 team to make it in.
It should be noted, a Group of Five program could even have the benefit of potentially earning a No. 4 seed (over a potential multi-loss P4 conference champion) if all goes to plan.
Here are the current chances to ‘make the playoffs’ for the G5, Independents, and Pac-12.
- James Madison: 70.06%
- UNLV: 47.79%
- Liberty: 39.78%
- Notre Dame: 36.98%
- Washington State: 27.53%
- Boise State: 18.13%
- Memphis: 16.88%
- Army: 15.06%
- Navy: 10.92%
It’s JMU’s world and we’re just living in it right now. The Dukes burst back onto the national stage with their 70-point showing against North Carolina but the fact of the matter is this: JMU should be double-digit favorites in just about every game they have left on their schedule.
Convincing the College Football Playoff committee won’t be too hard if you’re JMU and you’re winning by double-digit against teams in the Sun Belt this year. A 13-0 JMU team would absolutely be in consideration for the No. 4 seed and a bye week if all goes to plan.
So where does that leave the chances for potentially another G5 team to make the Playoffs? In 10,000 sims, we saw two Group of Five teams make the Playoffs over half the time, so we’re in potential rarified air here.
Who was that other G5 team that made it? The winner of the Mountain West, and that was either Boise State or UNLV, both of whom project to go 13-0, or 12-1, splitting their season series with a win in the MWC Championship Game.
The Boise State @ UNLV regular season game will be one for the ages this season.
College Football Playoff Odds
With the Group of Five playoff odds above, here is how the CFN FPM views the top 12 teams in terms of Playoff Probability, and taking into account that likely, only one of the G5 teams does actually make it:
- No. 1 seed: Texas (Playoff Probability: 90.71%)
- No. 2 seed: Oregon (78.17%)
- No. 3 seed: Miami-FL (72.57%)
- No. 4 seed: James Madison (70.06%)
- No. 5 seed: Penn State (69.58%)
- No. 6 seed: Ohio State (68.65%)
- No. 7 seed: Alabama (68.04%)
- No. 8 seed: Tennessee (66.44%)
- No. 9 seed: Missouri (56.81%)
- No. 10 seed: Notre Dame (36.98%)
- No. 11 seed: BYU (31.21%)
- No. 12 seed: Georgia (27.11%)
This projects JMU (likely a 13-0 Sun Belt Champion) to finish higher ranked than BYU (the projected Big 12 Champion), thus earning the fourth seed. The simulation model also projects Ohio State to fall to Oregon in the Big Ten Championship and gives an 11-1 Penn State team the fifth seed, with their only loss coming in the regular season to OSU.
Alabama, likely losing to Texas in the title game, and the rest of the SEC powers winning out but not qualifying for the SEC Championship Game round out the rest with the SEC earning five Playoff spots and the Big Ten earning three.
The race is not clear, that’s for sure, but it’s shaping up to be one of the most exciting times in college football history.
Reminder, you can find all this data on the College Football Network FPM.
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