The first College Football Playoff rankings will be revealed Tuesday night (7 p.m. ET), and once again I’ll be using my projections model to try to predict how the selection committee will rank the teams each week.
I’ve studied metrics that have been valued by the committee in the past, and after some guess and check, I found a formula that tested well compared to the actual rankings. There are some caveats, the biggest being that this is the first year of the 12-team Playoff and I’m using data from the four-team era. Will the criteria change? We will find out.
Also, the members of the committee change from year to year, and I have no way of knowing if different people will change what is being valued. But I’m pretty confident the changes aren’t going to be drastic and that the formula I’ve created is likely to be pretty accurate.
Here’s what I expect Tuesday’s rankings to be:
|
Rank
|
Team
|
Record
|
SOS
|
AP poll
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1
|
 Oregon |
9-0
|
38
|
1
|
|
2
|
 Georgia |
7-1
|
3
|
2
|
|
3
|
 Ohio State |
7-1
|
22
|
3
|
|
4
|
 Miami |
9-0
|
65
|
4
|
|
5
|
 Texas |
7-1
|
78
|
5
|
|
6
|
 Penn State |
7-1
|
30
|
6
|
|
7
|
 Indiana |
9-0
|
82
|
8
|
|
8
|
 Tennessee |
7-1
|
59
|
7
|
|
9
|
 BYU |
8-0
|
62
|
9
|
|
10
|
 Notre Dame |
7-1
|
35
|
10
|
|
11
|
 Alabama |
6-2
|
2
|
11
|
|
12
|
 SMU |
8-1
|
46
|
13
|
|
13
|
 LSU |
6-2
|
12
|
14
|
|
14
|
 Boise State |
7-1
|
83
|
12
|
|
15
|
 Texas A&M |
7-2
|
14
|
15
|
|
16
|
 Ole Miss |
7-2
|
50
|
16
|
|
17
|
 Iowa State |
7-1
|
74
|
17
|
|
18
|
 Clemson |
6-2
|
51
|
19
|
|
19
|
 Army |
8-0
|
131
|
18
|
|
20
|
 Washington State |
7-1
|
79
|
20
|
|
21
|
 Kansas State |
7-2
|
49
|
22
|
|
22
|
 Colorado |
6-2
|
55
|
21
|
|
23
|
 Pittsburgh |
7-1
|
84
|
23
|
|
24
|
 Louisville |
6-3
|
11
|
25
|
|
25
|
 Vanderbilt |
6-3
|
18
|
24
|
Next five: Missouri, South Carolina, UNLV, Arizona State, Tulane
Biggest question: What to do with Notre Dame?
There is a pretty big unknown with Notre Dame, considering it lost to Northern Illinois at home, which is probably the biggest upset we’ve seen from a contender since the CFP began in 2014. I’m not exactly sure how the committee will penalize the Fighting Irish for that. So I decided to experiment, as my model is pretty bullish on how the Irish will be ranked at the end of the season, with an 88 percent chance to make the bracket.
What if I count the Northern Illinois loss as 1.5 losses and see how that changes Notre Dame’s ranking? This is mostly projection and might be totally off-base, but some seem to think Notre Dame will be penalized heavily, especially if it loses another game. Notre Dame’s current projected ranking with just one loss is 10th; with this added penalty, it would fall to 11th. So, not a big drop in the rankings, though squarely on the bubble.
I think that the AP poll (No. 10) has penalized Notre Dame for the loss while the coaches poll (No. 8) has been a little more forgiving. What will the CFP committee do? My guess is it follows the AP poll’s lead and ranks the Irish lower than the coaches.
What the 12-team bracket would look like
The bracket below is based on the projected selection committee rankings for Nov. 5. Find my projections for the final bracket here.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Peter Joneleit, Michael Miller, Rich von Biberstein / Getty Images)
