The Athletic has live coverage of the College Football Playoff rankings release.
The College Football Playoff committee didn’t change its top five last week, but this could be a week that sees some movement. My model-projected rankings have the same top three as last week with Georgia at No. 1, followed by Michigan and Ohio State in that order. After Georgia and Michigan got top-10 wins, maybe the committee will match that top three.
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My projected rankings have swapped Washington and Florida State with the Huskies moving up to No. 4, but they’re basically the same in the model. There was a lot of movement in my projected rankings last week because the top five teams had been very close for the past two weeks. The top three now have a bit of separation from Florida State and Washington.
In terms of strength of schedule, Michigan moved up 21 spots from 82 to 61 after playing at Penn State. The Wolverines’ schedule ranking will continue to move up with a game at 6-4 Maryland and of course the home game against Ohio State coming up.
Alabama’s strength of schedule is up to No. 1 after playing at Kentucky. The Crimson Tide have played four top-20 teams in Texas, Ole Miss, Tennessee and LSU, although all four of those games were at home. Alabama’s schedule will dip with an FCS game against Chattanooga this week.
Before we get to the projected rankings, here’s how this works: Using the committee’s past rankings, I’ve looked at various metrics that have been valued and, after some guess and check, I found a formula that tested well compared to the actual rankings. Now, there are some caveats. The committee changes from year to year and I have no way of knowing if the changes in personnel 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 regardless. After all, it’s a sport where you rank higher if you win games and you’ll drop if you lose.
We’re also including an extra column for strength of schedule, which is how my model ranks each team’s schedule. It’s there because so much of the discussion of how to differentiate teams with the same number of losses revolves around strength of schedule.
One last note before the rankings, my algorithm does not take into account the committee’s prior week’s rankings. The algorithm is simply projecting where teams should be ranked based on how the committee has ranked teams throughout all College Football Playoff rankings, not just last week’s.
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Projected College Football Playoff rankings
Just missed: Kansas, SMU, Toledo, UNLV
James Madison is ineligible for the postseason and has not been considered by the CFP committee, but would slot in at No. 18, just ahead of Notre Dame, in the projections if the Dukes were to be included.
What the 12-team playoff would look like
Byes: Georgia, Michigan, Washington, Florida State (top four conference champions)
No. 12 Tulane at No. 5 Ohio State
No. 11 Missouri at No. 6 Oregon
No. 10 Oregon State at No. 7 Texas
No. 9 Louisville at No. 8 Alabama
(Photo of Dominic Lovett: Steve Limentani / ISI Photos/Getty Images)
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