What are the odds the committee takes the top 4 in the AP poll? What if the top 4 in AP and top 4 in Coaches are the same?

I know they are always down and never in the mix, but this ain't Vanderbilt we're talking about here. Pretty sure there are more than a couple of Cowbell fans who are keeping loved ones on hospital life support, just so they can "be there" when they finally win the big one. It's not even that bad of a drive. They'll be there.

LSU or Florida fans who don't think their team has much chance of winning are probably more likely to underfill the stadium.

They will release their rankings next week so we will then know much more about how the committee thinks

Indeed. Just lots of guessing at this point. Which is still fun.

Yup

Hopefully TCU is reasonably high. They seem most likely to get screwed because of name recognition bias.

AP Top 25

http://collegefootball.ap.org/poll

good god, Texas A&M has a vote

Kansas State's remaining schedule:


Texas
Oklahoma State
@TCU
@West Virginia
Kansas
@Baylor

THAT looks like so much fun, legit jealous of KSU fan

Who in the world is making the playoffs if not FSU and only one SEC team?

SEC Champ
ND?
Oregon?
Mich State?

Ughhhhh that playoff.

Say Georgia, Bama, and Ole Miss win out. Ole Miss plays Georgia in SEC CG, loses. Then we have 11-1 Bama, 12-1 Georgia and 12-1 Ole Miss with the very real possibility that the SECw gets left out (if there are multiple one loss conference champs).

How much weighting will the "they won their conference" factor have?

Do we really need to think about anOSU going instead of a SECw team?

I feel like "they won their conference" will have more weight than the SEC fanboys want.

Like, it's possible 1 loss ND doesn't go.

It's possible the SEC champion doesn't go, if it's 3 loss Georgia beating undefeated Ole Miss. Lots of things are possible, but it'll take a real perfect storm of 2 SEC Teams, FSU, and a strong one loss B1G/B12/Pac12 champ to keep one loss ND out.

At the end of the day, just like bowl selections, ND is a real powerful brand. If they can find a reason to take one loss ND over one loss Baylor, they'll do it. If it's one loss Ohio State or Alabama, well, probably not.

When I was trying to work out a prop bet to offer Bears vs. my idea of a hybrid top 2 + ranked traditional powers dart board, I figured the baseline to beat was around 15-20%. But that was a few weeks ago and given the unfolding and developing situation since then including especially Notre Dame being #7 & 8 (and talking ranking to poll goalpost shift) that it's at least gone up to 25-30%. You (goof) could give more precise odds on some of these but if ND's winout chance is around 15% and FSU's is 15%, then:

*You really can't have 2 SEC + virtual 2 ACC teams only and none of the other conferences. Don't mean to keep harping on this, but it's year 1 and SEC and ACC already play each other a lot and share states. If there were any two conferences that shouldn't monopolize the playoff, it's these.

*I find 2 SEC teams in the top 4 more plausible than the cumulative possibility that (Oregon wins out (>20%) , Sparty wins out (>10%) , TCU/Kansas St. wins out (20%)), i.e. a generous 45% chance of someone else outside the SEC moving into the top 4 and making the playoff (lol Baylor),

*assuming they pass all the SEC teams, a loser FSU could stay in front of them even in that case.

*ah, but then I was thinking of 1 ranking more likely Massey/Sagarin/FEI or something. The polls are *slightly* more likely to actually aim for balance in the final set, if for no other reason than to have something to bitch about for the next month.
*Technically Notre Dame could win out yet still finish #5. Let's even use Bears' super-low 70% estimate there. They are like the prettiest girl in high school; even if she won't actually put out, as long as she's willing to just touch your dick, you're still going to date her (and jerk off to how great it felt when she touched it and how amazing it would be if she goes all the way, i.e. "almost beat FSU"!). And she's also the richest.

EDIT to add: I'm just starting from my old number, which accounted for dealmaking and other comittee shenanigans. Also, Ohio State is effectively ineligible due to ridiculously bad OOC loss + perception/reality of lol B1G (Sparty's is allowable).

Fixed

Your own model, sagarin and Vegas will all have 1+ non-champ SECW team(s) above 1+ conference champs but the committee may overly weight conference champs

Notre Dame being a quasi ACC school and having that used against them if FSU is in the playoff would be hilarious.

It will be really interesting to see the poll goal post shifting in the final week of rankings before the selection. I mean there's no way a #1 or #2 ranked team is getting left out of the playoff but I could also easily see a mysterious drop for 11-1 Auburn or Alabama from #2 to #4 or lower in the final week and then people will start arguing "you can't take a #4 ranked non-SEC champ and leave out #5 Sparty or ND or whoever." It would also be super tough to leave out any #3 ranked team but it's conceivable I guess.

Aside from lol PAC having 5 top 15 schools looks good to me. Should be like 3 top 25; Oregon in the 5-10 range, Arizona St in the 15-20 range, and UCLA in the 20-25 range. Stanford and USC are not top 25 teams. They just are not. Utah is possibly top 25.

LSU at #8 is bad, too. Not as bad as Oregon at #1 or Stanford at #12 or USC at #14. Those are straight awful.

Ranking of all undefeated and 1 loss teams by how difficult their resume would be for a top-5 team to achieve according to Sagarin:

1. Mississippi State 18%
2. Mississippi 20%
3. FSU 34%
4. Alabama 49%

Auburn 56%
K State 66%
UGA 67%
TCU 69%
Oregon 74%
Notre Dame 77%
Arizona 77%
Sparty 78%
Baylor 78%
ASU 79%
Nebraska 82%
Marshall 83%
Minnesota 83%
CSU 88%
Utah 89%
Ohio State 90%
ECU 91%
Duke 94%

UGA 2 achievement? Wow

UGA is the only team to beat an SEC West team. #2 in achievement is maybe too low.

I'll take "WTF is up with LSU #18 accomplishment and Clemson #19 predictive", Alex.

Missouri #7 achievement? how so?

I change my vote to Trout's

The AP poll is probably representative of how the playoff committee will vote. It's gotten a lot better lately with more data available and I feel like writers take it more seriously now. For example, Michigan State didn't jump Auburn when Auburn lost. 10 years ago that would have been a certainty. Slot the new members of the 1-loss club behind the old members and keep them there.

The Coaches poll is still completely worthless. I wish it didn't even exist. Obviously coaches are going to sort by 1. Record 2. Their own conference. Hopefully the committee won't be influenced by that.

Auburn and Michigan State were 24th and NR this time last year. There is a lot of carnage left.

The FSU game went about as horribly as it could have. FSU remained undefeated and ND got a lot of style points and almost half a win for getting robbed by the refs. If FSU and ND both get in- and probably a B1G team as well- FML.

It's looking really likely that half the playoff will be reserved for Ohio State/Michigan State and FSU. The SEC/PAC/XII will fight it out for the other 2 spots. That just ****ing blows and we're going to see the 8-team expansion gears start turning in the offseason if that happens. I really hope the committee will look beyond the number of losses and see the resume as a whole, but unless you have data and stat guys on the committee it's just not going to happen.