College football’s playoff field has tripled. Turns out picking 12 teams is just as hard

This season is the best of times and the worst of times to host a twelve-team playoff in the top level of college football.

It’s the best of times because the results so far have presented a muddled picture where picking just four teams would have been extremely difficult, and we’ll need these play-off games to provide some clarity.

These are the worst times because choosing twelve teams is also extremely difficult.

Like referees and judges, members of the play-off committee are doomed to the realization that someone is going to feel aggrieved by their work. For each committee member (there are 13 of them), there are dozens of talk radio and TV hosts on hand to cheer about the selections.

One issue that will require significant rethinking in college football is the bloat among the major conferences. We have too many contenders who haven’t met their fellow candidates.

Take the Atlantic Coast Conference, which now extends to the Pacific Coast. The top three teams – SMU (8-0 conference record), Clemson (7-1) and Miami (6-2) – did not face each other and lost the majority of their games against 5-3 teams. conference sign.

The Big 12 had similar problems. Four teams finished atop the league at 7-2, and the only teams in that bracket to face each other were Arizona State and BYU.

But unless the big bang of conference expansion follows the astronomical model of the Big Crunch and reverses itself, we’re stuck with these planning errors.

The bigger inherent problem is simpler: selection is subjective.

This is not the case in professional sports. If the Atlanta Falcons win the NFC South division, they will be in the playoffs. The NHL takes the top three teams in each division and then the next two in the conference standings. Aston Villa finished fourth in the Premier League last year and therefore qualified for the Champions League.

In college football, where 134 teams compete for the top prize and each team plays only twelve regular-season games, objective criteria are more difficult to apply.

But not impossible. It’s also not impossible to come up with a measurement that’s easy to track in real time instead of next-day polls or calculations.

Computer rankings are objective, but while college football programs are still associated with universities that supposedly teach math and computer science classes, “the computers” have. never been popular in college football circles. They also don’t let fans know exactly what teams need to accomplish on the field. ESPNs Football Power Index generates numbers that don’t mean much – Texas has an FPI of 26.5, Ole Miss is at 20.5, Penn State is at 19.7, etc.

So instead of using the computers to a final ranking, let’s use them to establish a reference point. Pick a date – maybe after week 10, maybe after week 12 – and divide the teams into tiers (top 5, top 10, top 20, top 40, etc.) based on their computer rankings at that moment. After that, there is no need to update anymore – 10 or 12 weeks is long enough to collect enough game data, and we want to have clear scenarios in the last few weeks.

Then we need a new measure: adjusted gains and losses.

The idea is simple. A win over a Tier 1 team counts more than a win over a Tier 2 team. A road win over a Tier 2 team counts more than a home win over that same team. A road loss to a level 1 is not as expensive as other losses.

Something like this:

Gain:

• 1.5 adjusted wins for beating a Tier 1 team (top 5).

• 1.4 for level 2 (6th to 10th)

• 1.3 for level 3 (11th to 20th)

• 1.2 for Tier 4 (the rest of the top 40)

• 1.0 for Tier 5 (the rest of the top 100)

• 0.8 for Tier 6 (all others)

To lose

Bonus: Winning a road match against a team in the top four tiers is worth a 0.1 point bonus. A road loss against such teams is 0.1 point better than a home or neutral field loss.

Example: Base values ​​on ESPN Football Power Index Starting November 24, let’s take a look at two teams competing for a playoff spot that aren’t in the conference finals.

Tennessee: Actual record 10-2, adjusted record 10.7-1.1 (net 9.6)

• 1 Tier 1 win (Alabama), worth 1.5 adjusted wins

• 2 road wins at Level 4 (Oklahoma, Vanderbilt), each worth 1.3 adjusted wins

• 1 home win at Level 4 (Florida), worth 1.2

• 3 Tier 5 wins, worth 1.0 each

• 3 Tier 6 wins (the Volunteers’ non-conference schedule wasn’t particularly strong), worth 0.8

• 1 Tier 1 road loss (Georgia), 0.4 adjusted losses

• 1 Tier 4 road loss (Arkansas), 0.7 adjusted losses

Indiana: Actual record 11-1, adjusted record 10.4-0.4 (net 10.0)

• 1 home win at Level 4 (Michigan), 1.2 adjusted wins

• 6 Tier 5 wins, 1.0 each

• 3 Tier 6 wins, 0.8 each

• 1 road loss at Tier 1 (Ohio State), 0.4 adjusted wins

Add it all up through Week 14, and here are the current top-12 teams (*could have more adjusted wins in a conference championship game):

The twelve teams that need to make the College Football Playoff

Teams in conference championships may have more adjusted wins, but because we don’t want to penalize teams for playing in a finals, they won’t have adjusted losses. The only competing team that could still do it to lose points is Army, which plays the traditional army-navy game after the conference championships.

Since we know how much each win is worth, we can see the maximum net record each team can achieve.

CFP 2024

Iowa State is in the bubble with a current net rating of 8.9. Miami (8.8), Alabama (8.5) and South Carolina (8.4) cannot qualify.

Five conference champions will win automatic bids, but two of them will finish well above the cutoff, so only three champions can advance and beat one of the teams in the top twelve. That means the top nine teams are safe. (To break down the tie between Boise State and BYU, we can use the ESPN Football Power Index.)

The Sun Belt, MAC and Conference USA champions are unable to qualify, leaving the ACC, American and Mountain West champions playing a two-seater game of musical chairs.

A few scenarios:

• Clemson wins the ACC. The Tigers could still miss out. At best, they would be the fifth-best conference champions. (SMU would still be eligible, however.)

• UNLV wins the Mountain West. Boise State is still safe. UNLV would only qualify if Clemson and/or Tulane win their conference finals.

• Tulane wins the American. The Big 12, ACC and Mountain West champions would qualify; Tulane wouldn’t do that.

• Army wins the American And Beat Navy. The Black Knights would qualify easily, and Clemson would have no path to the playoffs as the Tigers would finish behind the Mountain West winner.

Once all the calculations are done, it won’t be much different from what the selection committee decides. But it will be more definitive and we can see the situation happening on the field rather than on a Zoom call or board meeting.