Predicting College Football Playoff rankings after Week 12: How will SEC be sorted out?

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Predicting College Football Playoff rankings after Week 12: How will SEC be sorted out?

There wasn’t too much drama within the top five of the College Football Playoff rankings during Week 12, thanks to No. 1 Oregon’s comeback at Wisconsin, but No. 6 BYU lost for the first time and No. 7 Tennessee fell on the road at Georgia to create some changes in the rest of the top 10.

I have been a bit confused by the selection committee’s ambiguous strength of schedule metrics, so I decided to look into it a little closer. I believe the committee’s strength of schedule metric is based more on win-loss record of opponents than margin of victory. Why is that important? Well, the strength of schedule metrics that I have been posting and the ones that you will see on ESPN during the CFP rankings show are based on margin of victory.

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So when you saw Georgia outside the projected bracket last week despite playing one of the toughest schedules in the country, it’s because its opponents’ records aren’t as good as you’d think. For example, a win over 4-6 Kentucky — a team that is ranked in the top-40 in my ratings — might be seen as worse than a win over 7-3 Colorado State despite Kentucky likely being more than a touchdown favorite if those two teams played on a neutral field. It’s not a perfect process, but I needed to adjust my Playoff algorithm’s strength of schedule component to account for this.

So with that adjustment, let’s take a stab at projecting the committee’s rankings for this week after having a so-so performance last week.

Projected CFP Top 25 after Week 12

Rk	Team	Record	****	AP poll
1		11-0	50	1
2		9-1	46	2
3		9-1	69	3
4		9-1	31	4
5		10-0	79	5
6		9-1	54	6
7		8-2	14	7
8		8-2	47	9
9		8-2	1	8
10		9-1	63	11
11		9-1	73	13
12		8-2	42	10
13		9-1	84	12
14		9-1	51	14
15		8-2	40	15
16		8-2	44	16
17		8-2	52	17
18		7-3	6	19
19		8-2	55	22
20		8-2	38	21
21		9-0	131	18
22		9-2	100	20
23		7-3	41	24
24		8-2	97	23
25		7-3	48	NR

Next five: Missouri, Washington State, Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville

Biggest question: What to do with the logjam in the SEC?

Last week, the committee ranked No. 10 Alabama ahead of No. 11 Ole Miss, which was ranked one spot ahead of No. 12 Georgia after the Rebels’ 28-10 head-to-head win. Now, after Georgia took down Tennessee in Athens on Saturday, Tennessee enters the conversation as it falls from No. 7.

Considering that Alabama and Ole Miss both have wins against Georgia, I think the Volunteers are likely to fall to the bottom of that group despite their win against Alabama. Factor in that Tennessee was ranked below Indiana and BYU last week, and I’d be shocked at anything otherwise. Tennessee isn’t out of the Playoff race, by any means, but it may need to root for some chaos elsewhere. According to my projections model, the Vols have just a 34 percent chance of making the field, compared to 94 percent for Texas, 88 percent for Georgia, 76 percent for Alabama, 70 percent for Ole Miss and 14 percent for Texas A&M.

And if you think that’s all tough to sort out, root for Texas A&M to beat Texas in two weeks to create a six-team logjam. Good luck, selection committee.

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What the 12-team bracket would look like

The bracket below is based on the projected selection committee rankings for Nov. 19. Find my projections for the final bracket here.

Note that, based on these rankings, Boise State would get a bye as the fourth-highest-ranked conference champion, while BYU, the top Big 12 team, is the No. 12 seed.

(Photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

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