As the college football season winds down, let’s look at the resumes of the remaining contenders for the College Football Playoff.
Welcome back to the Bubble Watch. If you’ve been reading through my Eliminator articles, you’d know that I still count 11 teams with a shot at reaching the College Football Playoff. (And if you haven’t been reading them, please feel free to go back to them.)
Now that teams have played enough games, we can get a real look at every team’s resume. So, for the 11 teams still alive, I am going to present all of the resumes to you (plus one extra). We’re going to look at every resume so that we can compare what positives and negatives each team has. It’s the easiest and best way to understand what each team is bringing to the table in the College Football Playoff discussion.
Right now, it looks like Ohio State, LSU, and Clemson have the top three spots locked down. Looking at the resumes will show why Ohio State and LSU can easily survive a loss this week. Clemson with a loss, though, is a bit more iffy. And, of course, the resumes will tell us who has the best shot at finishing No. 4.
How this works
Let’s go over what I’m looking at and why.
Quality of wins
For the purposes of determining quality wins, things like Top 10 and Top 25 are arbitrary numbers that do more harm than good. There is no reason the gap between No. 25 and No. 26 is considered significantly larger than the gap between No. 24 and No. 25. Therefore, to counteract this, I am being very lenient as to who is considered Top 10 or Top 25. Any team in the Top 25 of one of the major polls (CFP, AP, or Amway Coaches), or in a significant number of the accepted computer rankings, will be considered in the Top 25 for resume purposes. This leads to the awkwardness of having more than 25 “Top 25″ teams, but it presents a more accurate picture of the overall resume. Moreover, it just makes sense. The committee is aware of who is a good team and what counts as a win of decent quality, even if that team didn’t quite make it into the rankings.
I also split up every game each team has played into different groups. The groupings are important. First of all, I focus on Top 10 and Top 25 wins. These are, obviously, the quality wins. Next, I’m looking for teams in the Top 40. These are solid wins and deserve respect. The next group is teams somewhere between 41st and 80th in FBS. These are mediocre teams–they are games that any Playoff contender should win, but could in theory lose on an off day. Everyone outside the Top 80 is a complete cupcake game, and should be valued as a negative. To determine where each team is and who is outside the Top 80, I use a collection of computer rankings that focus on different things (e.g. Sagarin and Anderson) to get broad perspectives on who is a cupcake and who isn’t.
The selection committee has consistently mentioned “wins over teams with winning records” as an important metric over the past few years, so I’m going to show that to you. It is a less detailed way to view a win than looking at where each win is ranked, but the committee seems to care about it so we have to. I will not count a win over an FCS team as a +.500 win, regardless of record. Again, even though the metric is a stupid one–there are cupcakes with +.500 records (for example, Buffalo or Western Kentucky)–the committee cares about it, so we have to as well.
Offensive and defensive performance
I include the rankings in yards per play of each team. On one hand, the resume focuses on which teams you have beaten, so I stick to only identifying the quality of wins and losses and show you each contender’s remaining games. On the other hand, the committee “watches teams play,” which is really not a quantifiable statistic, but something that we can at least try to get a bearing on. Still, it’s hard to find an offensive or defensive metric that accurately represents all teams and styles of play.
Some metrics will over-value “air raid” type offenses while some will prefer more consistent, but less explosive, gameplans. The rank in offensive and defensive yards per play gives a basic metric of how efficient and/or consistent a team is on both sides of the ball.
SOS range
The SOS range is taken from numerous computer rankings. Ranges can be quite large, especially as different rankings favor different things. They do, however, give a decent picture of the possibilities of how strong the schedule actually is. SOS Ranges could still be wide in some cases, but in general they should narrow a bit over the next few weeks. Still, different methodologies can lead to some very different types of SOS numbers, and getting the full range presents a more accurate picture.
Next… Teams that control their own destinies
