That's probably based primarily on the odds of lots of teams ahead of us losing. I think in reality our chances are lower than that because of:
1) A lack of "quality" wins. There are only two tier-1 programs on our schedule this year (Florida State and USC) and they're both pretty bad. Wisconsin is probably our best win so far, and the Badgers aren't even ranked in the AP poll.
2) The "eye" test. We would need to finish the season with a run of games where we don't play to the level of our opponent. With the exception of USC every game we've won has been close (within a touchdown) at some time in the fourth quarter. Only Wisconsin looks like a blowout win based on the final score.
Good post, by the way.
Case in point if you click the Wisconsin win out tab it gives them a 14% chance of making the playoff.
There is a 0.0 % chance of Wisconsin going to the playoff if they win out. Rounding up of course.
First off, I don't think the CFP Committee will do anywhere near as deep a dive as you did with respect to data. I honestly think for them that it's mostly a combination of number of losses + conference championships + the eyeball test.
Until this past weekend, I couldn't even wrap my brain around what it would take for ND to get into the CFP. I honestly thought that an Access Bowl bid was as good as it was gonna get (and even then, by no means guaranteed) this season. I think after last weekend, what we need to make the CFP came into sharper focus. Here's how I see it.
First, I conceded CFP bids to Georgia and Cincinnati. Georgia appears to be the most dominant team in college football this season by a substantial margin. And ND may need Cincinnati to qualify for the CFP in order to get in -- certainly, Cincinnati making the CFP helps ND out at a minimum. Also, Cincinnati has the easiest path remaining to the CFP of the teams still in contention. With those allowances, ND probably will need any four of the five following scenarios to make the CFP:
1. One Wake Forest loss;
2. One Oregon loss;
3. One Alabama loss;
4. Two Oklahoma losses (also one Oklahoma State loss in the event that Oklahoma State administers both Oklahoma losses);
5. Chaos in the Big Ten.
Now, for the analysis.
Wake Forest is a team that has snuck up on a lot of people. I think they're the one team on the list whose SOS is comparable (or perhaps even a little weaker) than ND's. I expect that with the first CFP rankings, Wake will probably be ranked below ND (although I could be wrong about that). But as the season progresses, if Wake remains undefeated we will start to hear about undefeated seasons, conference championships and 13th data points. However, I don't think Wake has the presence/historical success to merit being ahead of ND where both have the same number of losses. For that reason, I think ND only needs one Wake loss.
Oregon has the advantage of a weak Pac-12, and overall, their SOS isn't really a great deal tougher (if at all) than ND's. But if it were to come down to a decision between a one-loss Oregon team and a one-loss ND, I think Oregon may get more mileage out of their win over Ohio State than ND would get over a better loss (Cincinnati vs. unranked Stanford). Plus there's that whole thing about conference championships and 13th data points. So ND probably needs one more loss for Oregon to take care of them.
Alabama is Alabama, but as you said, nobody has ever made the CFP with two losses. So one more loss, even to Georgia in the SEC championship, would take care of them.
One certainly could make an argument that Oklahoma hasn't performed any better (if as well) in the CFP than Notre Dame has, so Oklahoma should receive no greater consideration than ND from the CFP Committee. However, the talking heads don't talk nearly as much about Oklahoma's CFP failures as they do about ND's, so at some point perception may have become reality. Oklahoma vs. ND is probably in a similar position to Oregon vs. ND, except that Oklahoma is presently undefeated. So I think Oklahoma needs two losses. Caveat: if Oklahoma loses twice to Oklahoma State, Oklahoma State could leapfrog ND in that scenario. So ND probably needs an Oklahoma State loss as well should Oklahoma State beat Oklahoma twice.
Which brings us to the Big Ten. ND's best-case scenario in the Big Ten would be for Wisconsin to get hot, go to the championship game and upset the East Division champ there. That would accomplish two things: it would eliminate the Big Ten East champ from contention for the CFP, and it would prop up ND's win over Wisconsin. The next best thing for ND would be for either Minnesota or Iowa to replace Wisconsin in that scenario. If neither of those things occur, the best-case scenario for ND is probably as follows:
Penn State beats both Michigan and Michigan State.
Ohio State beats Michigan State.
Michigan beats Ohio State.
That gives everyone in the Big Ten East at least two losses.
First off, I don't think ND fans need to clutch their pearls about the possibility of getting into the top 4 this year. The current system isn't really setup to allow ND to back its way in without any style points. I'm not saying that it's rigged against us when we're deserving (last year is proof of that), I'm just saying that we won't get any breaks in years like this when we're undeserving. Right now I'm more interested in potential Fiesta or Peach Bowl opponents, but I'll weigh in here just for fun.
I disagree that Cincy is a lock if they win out, and that it would be good for ND. I think tomorrow's initial Playoff Committee rankings are going to be rough for both teams. I think Cincy will be no better than 5th, and ND will be somewhere between 10-14. Even though Cincy's undefeated record gives ND a "good loss", I think that's outweighed by Cincy taking up one of the 4 playoff spots that are normally reserved for conference winners.
With the P5 conferences, the general rule of thumb is that a one-loss conference winner is going to get in over a one-loss ND. Even if it's Wake Forest. That premise could be tested if Wake's one loss comes this Saturday @ UNC, but if Wake's one loss is @ Clemson, then I'm confident they would (and should) get the nod over us on the strength of their more decisive wins over the 3 common opponents FSU, @ UVA, and @ UNC.
So the clearest of all the muddy paths for ND involves:
- Cincinnati losing.
- No more than 3 one-loss conference champs (Pac-12 and ACC are the most likely candidates).
- No one-loss non conference champs (Other than a Bama win over UGA in the SEC title game, the greatest threat here is Michigan St having its only loss be to Ohio St. A Sparty loss @ Purdue this Saturday would help ND's playoff chances on multiple levels. And if Wake's only loss is to NC State, then they could miss out on the ACC title game and finish 11-1)
- No "hot" two-loss teams from the SEC. (I would expect the winner of this weekend's Auburn vs A&M game to be ranked ahead of ND after that game, and if Bama loses to UGA in the SEC title game it can't be close.) I know there has not yet been a two-loss team that's been selected for the Playoff, but there has also never been a one-loss non conference champ as weak as this year's ND team that's been selected.
BK has taken 3 uNDefeated teams to a championship or a playoff, and the scores above resulted (w/ 3 of ND's 4 TD's scored in garbage time). There was also the 10-34 loss to Clemson last December, w/ another garbage time TD.
ND's outside playoff shot would be as a 4 seed, presumably facing SEC champ. While past performance may not be an indicator of future results, the odds of ND being competitive in a semifinal against such an opponent whose staff has extra prep time is somewhere between slim and none.
Sagarin's predictor model currently makes ND a 13 pt. underdog to GA and an 11.5 underdog to AL on a neutral field. Given the caliber of ND's remaining opponents and given the fact that the rating of the SEC champ will likely improve, that spread will likely widen.
In short, while speculating on JS's beloved playoff conversation can make for interesting message board reading, reality is that any potential playoff participation will likely end embarrassingly.
This is based on predicted betting lines between any two teams on a neutral field. Now you know why North Carolina is favored against undefeated Wake Forest on Saturday.
Here are the teams we would be the biggest underdogs against.
7.5 pts or higher:
Georgia - 20 pts.
Alabama - 18 pts
Ohio St. - 14 pts
4-7 pts.
Oklahoma - 7 pts
Cincinnati - 7 pts.
Michigan - 5 pts
Florida - 4 pts
Not so sure about the latter 4, esp. about my other alma mater. That doesn't matter, however, as ND presumably would face 1 of the former 3 in a playoff.
They held Georgia for a while and then the floodgates burst open.
The 3TD blitz in last 3 minutes of 1st half shocked me, and I suspect, those who actually care about the Gators. When they took AL down to wire in Swamp, I expected much better from them. Mullen went 21-5 his first 2 years at UF and has now gone 12-8 last 2 years.
The difficulty of a schedule shouldn’t be judged on the strength of the top opponent(s) only.
For example, a schedule of all 4 loss teams is harder than a schedule of two 1 loss teams and the remainder being awful teams.
Most likely, Cincy will have wins over 3 teams with 3 losses or less (possibly even 4) if they win out. Yet most will say their schedule isn’t tough enough (and that is at the very least a fair point for debate).
I’m not saying ND deserves to get in the playoff (we don’t as of now). I’m not saying we will get in the playoff (we probably won’t and obviously wouldn’t if the season ended today). But we haven’t played as terrible of a schedule as you suggest (I know it will drop a decent amount from here, but it’s ranked #9 as of now). And this is a weird season with more ranked teams losing than ever before so far (which throws off what the “norm” was in the past). So if we win out and mayhem continues to ensure, there’s still a chance we get into the playoff. And even though I know many here would hope against that, getting into a playoff gives you a shot at least. So I think that would be a good thing!
that they are playing the likes of SMU, UAB, Morgan State, Murray State, almost exclusively, vs having 1 or 2 tomato cans on the schedule. Beating teams that lose to UT Martin, vs beating teams that lose to a down FSU is not co-equal. At some point, the breadth of talent does matter.
Still hanging out around the bottom of the Top 25.
Cincinnati could have as many as four wins against teams with < 4 losses: Houston (likely opponent in the AAC championship game), ND, SMU and UCF (the most questionable one in this group, UCF is already at 3 losses but should be favored in at least every remaining game except SMU). That doesn't necessarily mean that they have a tough schedule, however.
Beating teams that lose to 1-3 AAC teams sitting in 2nd to last in their conference (i.e. Miss State losing to Memphis this year) seems to still carry weight.
Anyway, 100% agree that Cincy's schedule isn't as tough as most Power 5 ones. But I am just pointing out that the initial "how many 3 loss or less teams you beat" view is flawed, especially when he's including wins over Group of 5 teams with 3 or less losses in the calculation (i.e. 2019 OSU had 2 of those).
I didn't need that to tell me that Alabama and Clemson have been the two strongest programs in the CFP era (since 2014).
I don't think you necessarily need to have a difficult schedule in order to discern how good a team is. The problem isn't that ND's schedule is weaker than usual this year, the problem is that we haven't been good enough to control the game against those teams the way we did last season.
If we had an average margin of victory of 20 points or more, then I don't think our schedule would be a tremendous impediment to making the Playoff, but since we've been playing down to the competition this year I expect Tuesday's committee rankings to have ND a couple spots lower than our current AP and Coaches Poll ranking.
Your 3rd paragraph (as far as chances of making the CFP with no wins over really good teams) is correct, and your 2nd paragraph (you can determine how good a team is even if they haven't beaten anyone good but have done it impressively) might be partially true (although I don't think it's certain/completely true) IF you're undefeated.
If you have a loss, and no quality wins (from an opponent, not margin standpoint), then I both question the legitimacy of how good you actually are and I think you can really, really put yourself in a tough spot to get in.
Of course, it's an art, not science, when evaluating/ranking teams, with multiple factors that are considered.
Technically a poll voter or CFP committee member is not supposed to consider previous years, but obviously there is some benefit of the doubt given to teams that are perennial contenders.
In 2015 they closed their final three regular season games with wins at 9-3 Baylor, over 10-2 TCU and @ 10-2 Oklahoma State. (All records at time of selection.)
In 2017 they won at Ohio State (and also beat 10-3 TCU twice, i.e., TCU had only 1 non-OU loss).
In 2019 they beat 11-2 Baylor twice, one of which was on the road (Baylor was 11-0 against teams not named Oklahoma).
I'm not here to debate whether Baylor or TCU or Oklahoma St were actually good, but those wins were much more highly-valued by the committee than any of ND's will be this year, assuming Wisconsin drops at least one more.
2018 is the one possible exception for Oklahoma, but the committee/rankings respected Texas a lot for their record actually was, plus OU's win over Texas in the Big 12 Championship made people think the October loss was a fluke. The only competition that year for the last slot was Ohio State, who had a win over Michigan... and not a ton else (plus lost by 29 to .500 Purdue and went to OT with Maryland). UGA, with 2 losses, including to Alabama in the SEC Championship, was de facto eliminated.
So it was sort of Oklahoma by default that year, and I'm not saying it can't be ND by default this year... but if we get into a "non-default" argument (e.g., with a 1-loss Oregon and/or a 1-loss Oklahoma), our lack of a really good win combined with some of the struggles could very well haunt us.
9/10 I’m in agreement with you. I do appreciate you breaking it down though. Gives me a little more respect for OU
and also in favor of forcing the serious power programs to strengthen their schedules. 11 of 12 games need to be against the other serious power programs, which would make for 13 great Saturdays instead of the crappy Septembers and Octobers college football currently has. Instead we are headed for weaker schedules (an 11-1 team on the current ND schedule coasts into an 8 or 12 team playoff).
We can debate what a serious power program includes (definitely not D-1aa or bottom 2/3 of group of 5), but the better and stronger the regular season, the better the sport is overall for me. If they go the route of college basketball (December and January Madness), the single best regular season in all of sports will be permanently ruined (not that it hasn't already been damaged by conference shuffling and the Playoff Committee's poorly defined criteria).
This is not a commentary on whether expanding the playoff is a good thing, but non-conference schedules are getting better in coming years. Alabama is playing home-and-homes (starting next year @ Texas) instead of their 'neutral' site games. Georgia has some insane non-league schedules in coming years, although some might be amended as they had scheduled series with both Texas and Oklahoma prior to them saying they'll join the SEC.
There are many other examples. This appears to be connected to falling attendance and not the playoff, but the better games are a good thing regardless of cause.
question that matters to the decision makers. Does playoff expansion make us more money?