Haha, I endorse this. 
Down goes LSU. I predict the playoff will be 1 Georgia vs 4 USC, 2 Michigan vs 3 TCU.
Who picks the teams?
Still done by committee as far as I know. They’re going to have really work up a sweat trying to keep from picking 2 SEC teams.
The College Football Playoff committee, which this year consists of former players, former coaches, one former sports reporter, and several Athletic Directors. 13 members.
Hard to argue, barring any upsets in the conference championship games. USC might play Oregon or Utah, both of which could beat them. TCU will likely play Kansas State, which is certainly capable of beating the Frogs.
After Saturday’s games, there are 79 teams with bowl-eligible records. Two teams can join them, although one has to jump through some hoops; Buffalo, if it beats Akron next Friday, and New Mexico State, if it can get its postponed game against San Jose State played and it wins.
The top three teams in the 5-7 qualifying list, based on four-year football APR (with one-year football APR used as a tiebreaker), are:
- Rice
- UNLV
- Michigan State
Michigan State needed that tiebreaker rule to finish ahead of Auburn for the #3 spot.
Georgia is a huge favorite (-16.5) over LSU. But even if LSU should win, Georgia will still be in the playoff.
Likewise, Michigan is a -16.5 favorite over Purdue. If Purdue pulls the unlikely upset, does that knock Michigan out of the playoffs?
USC is favored by -2.5 over Utah. Utah handed USC their only loss earlier in the season; a Ute victory likely keeps the Trojans out of the CFP.
TCU is favored by 2.5 over Kansas State. K-State led TCU 28-17 at halftime of their regular-season game before TCU stormed back to win 38-28. Should KSU win (a strong possibility, IMO), TCU is probably bounced from the playoffs.
Clemson lost yesterday, which will probably leave 1-loss Ohio State as the #5 ranked team and Alabama (2 losses) at #6. Those two teams probably are the next in line for the playoff.
Here’s hoping that Georgia, Michigan, USC, and TCU all win on Saturday.
Huh. Well, I hope Michigan is in it. It’d be incredible.
Congratulations for the win. It was a great follow-up to last year’s.
I’m actually happy with how the team played. The coaching, though, was absolutely terrible. The offensive calls were too cautious, except the series after UM’s first touchdown. The defensive coaching was unforgivable. How many time did we get caught with no one in the backfield? That’s the coaches’ fault.
Head coach is still new, he’ll survive another year. But he’s on notice now. The defensive coordinator should be fired after any bowl game.
UM coaching was excellent. OSU physicality was shutting down the run in the first half, but they adapted. Second half, they adjusted. Your team will keep doing well if you can keep the coaches on board.
I don’t think Michigan has ever played Ohio.
Correct:
Reports are coming out this morning that Wisconsin is going to hire University of Cincinnati coach Luke Fickell as their new head coach today, rather than giving the job to current interim coach Jim Leonhard.
Leonhard, who had been the Badgers’ defensive coordinator for several years, prior to the firing of head coach Paul Chryst earlier this season, was seen by many fans as a great choice, and there was, initially, a lot of enthusiasm for making him the permanent coach. However, the team didn’t play particularly well under Leonhard: they’d gone 4-3, but barely qualified for a bowl, and lost a winnable game against Minnesota yesterday.
The Gophers missed a field goal, which would have put the game out of reach even without the carnival of errors. The PI was probably a good play; I think that was a catchable ball.
Minnesota had a chance to win the Big Ten west this year. After they crushed Michigan State in East Lansing I thought they could do well, with only Penn State as a stumbling block, but they lost to Purdue and Illinois and got blown out by Penn State.
They still had had a chance, but lost to Iowa again for the 8th year in a row. Next year they get both Michigan and Ohio State.
Fivethirtyeight has the following as percentages, though I don’t know how they calculate their odds:
National Championship Chance:
Michigan - 29%
Georgia - 39%
TCU - 9%
Chances to make playoffs:
Michigan - 97%
Georgia - 92%
TCU - 71%
USC - 46%
Ohio state - 36%
Kansas - 20% <–a team that is 9-3. No way they can get in, right?
Again, I don’t really know how 538 reaches their conclusions, but I would be thrilled for Michigan to win a national championship. I will say, beating Ohio State they way they(we?) did on Saturday was so incredible, everything else is icing. I still have gone back and watched the highlights again and I never go back to a game a few days later.
If Ohio State makes the playoffs, it would be extremely interesting. Like, I could almost see them do it just to create the drama of a Michigan vs. Ohio State rematch.
For the sake of all that is good and holy, please do not confuse Kansas and Kansas State. K-State, 9-3, as usual has a good football team this season; Kansas, at 6-6, is average, although it’s their best year in over a decade.
Kansas State (as per @Railer13 's clarification) is playing TCU for the Big 12 title on Saturday. If they win, they’d be the champion of a Power 5 conference. That said, they were ranked #12 in last week’s CFB rankings, and are #13 in the current AP poll, so unless a whole lot of other dominoes fall a certain way in the conference championship game, I’m not sure that they’d make it in.
I think the Kansas State odds include some of the favorites in other conference champion teams losing the game (GA, UM, USC, Clemson) and the Playoff Committee historically favoring conference champions. The model isn’t taking into account bias for the lurking “better” teams that can’t win a championship like Ohio State, Alabama, and Tennessee that would probably get over theoretical Big12 winner K-State.
The odds should be 1% based on K-State beating TCU by 100 points that unequivocally show they are a top 4 team. There’s too much built in bias for SEC and Ohio State for K-State to overcome.
It’d be a wild ride for Ohio State to be invited to the playoffs, but I really don’t like teams who aren’t conference champions participating in the playoffs.
I would prefer to only play Ohio State once per year, win or lose. Anything after that is anti-climactic. It happened. It’s over. We’ll do it again in one year.
But even if those four teams lose, I still don’t see any way that K-State makes the top four. I have no idea how 538 came up with a 20% chance that they make the playoffs.
This, exactly. Georgia is in even with a loss, and these three teams (or perhaps Utah) would be selected over KSU.