Happy Sunday evening, CFB fans. Earlier today the GCR came out and had not only a new top 4, but a new #1 for the first time in a long time. For those who are seeing the GCR for the first time, that concept is pretty rare. Ohio State held that spot in a way no other team ever has. LSU has now passed them, for now. Looking ahead to future weeks, I suspect we will see some more changes coming. It’s not surprising when you think about the fact that some teams front-load the tough games and some back-end load. Ohio State has Penn State (7) and Michigan (15) left on the schedule after playing Rutgers (74) while LSU has Mississippi (75), Arkansas (161) and Texas A&M (27) remaining. This type of scenario plays out through all of Division I which is why November is so much fun.
Before we get into this week’s Explanation, I wanted to congratulate 13 teams for joining the bowl-eligible ranks this week and condolences to 4 who will be watching others play and eating popcorn with the rest of us. We now have 55 bowl-eligible teams to fill 78 slots and there are 16 more with 5 wins just needing…that…one…more to join the club. There are 18 now who are out with 16 additional teams sitting at 6 losses with no room for additional failure. Here are the new adds: first the 13 in and then the 4 not so much.
| Team | Conference |
| Hawaii (71) | MWC |
| Illinois (41) | Big 10 |
| Miami (30) | ACC |
| Nevada (108) | MWC |
| Southern Cal (26) | Pac-12 |
| Southern Miss (82) | C-USA |
| Temple (61) | AAC |
| Texas (18) | B12 |
| Toledo (78) | MAC |
| Virginia Tech (40) | ACC |
| Washington (49) | Pac-12 |
| W Kentucky (85) | C-USA |
| W Michigan (136) | MAC |
| Team | Conference |
| East Carolina (175) | AAC |
| Georgia Tech (109) | ACC |
| Maryland (102) | Big 10 |
| Vanderbilt (67) | SEC |
As I was thinking about the analysis for tonight, it hit me that there are a finite number of 0, 1, and 2 loss teams. I honestly wasn’t sure what the actual number was and therefore ready for a bunch of analysis. But, it turns out, there are just 28 in FBS (did not add FCS to this round). The thought is that we can look at this group because the Playoff teams will come from this group – 100%. First, let’s look at the 5 undefeated teams:
| 0-Loss Teams | SOS Rank | Off Eff | Def Eff | Best Win |
| LSU (1) | 23 | 173 | 136 | Auburn (4) |
| Ohio State (2) | 59 | 207 | 319 | Wisconsin (11) |
| Clemson (3) | 108 | 155 | 251 | Louisville (23) |
| Baylor (5) | 96 | 123 | 146 | Kansas St (16) |
| Minnesota (9) | 87 | 138 | 136 | Penn St (7) |
One question a person might ask upon first looking at this chart is why aren’t the teams who have pretty much identical records (all 9-0 except 10-0 Clemson), in descending order by SOS? Great question, oh great reader. It’s because there are other factors including location of games and margin of victory that play into it. By the way, as a reminder Off Eff is a score with a 100 average which would mean that your team scores exactly the opponent’s average points allowed. Ohio State, then scores more than twice the “expected” average so they have a really good offense. Def Eff is the opposite. 100 means that your team allows the same number of points as your opponents score against everybody else. Ohio State’s Def Eff shows they allow about 1/3 of the “expected” points. Looking at this without anything else tells me they blow out all of their opponents, but there opponents haven’t been that difficult so far. To compare, Rutgers (74), Ohio State’s next opponent’s Off Eff and Def Eff are 55 and 83 respectively. They have also played the 6th most difficult schedule. Looking at those numbers, we could conclude, without any other data that Ohio State has a good record and Rutgers does not. Hope that makes sense. If not, send a comment and I’ll try it a different way – if you don’t follow me, it is clearly a miss on my part (and my lack of actual writing skills). Feedback is always good and welcome. But it is impossible for all 5 of these teams to be undefeated at the end of the season (if nothing else, Minnesota and Ohio State would play in the Big 10 Championship). However, if 4 survive, those four will be in because LSU and the Big 10 winner will be undefeated (if Minnesota beats Iowa (19), Wisconsin (11), and Ohio State (2) to remain undefeated they will have earned it). Clemson is in even with the weak schedule because they are the defending champions and have longest winning streak in FBS (26 games). Baylor would be in undefeated because they will probably have to beat Oklahoma (21) twice. But what happens if we get to 1-loss teams Here they are:
Looking at this and assuming the SOS Rank doesn’t change (it will so this is just a mental experiment here), there are really only 6 of these that would be in consideration for the Playoffs (Alabama, Penn State, Georgia, Oregon, Utah, and Cincinnati). After that, the SOS knocks them out, just as Clemson would be, without a doubt, if they suffer a loss (highly unlikely). Of course, Alabama has Auburn (4), Penn State has Ohio State (2), Georgia has Auburn (4), Oregon and Utah will more than likely face off in the Pac-12 championship, Cincinnati is a Group of 5 team. On the plus side Oklahoma, they will probably face Baylor (5) twice. Also keep in mind, this gets muddied because if we get to the point that we are talking about 1-loss teams it means at least some of the current perfect 5 are included in the conversation. But, we need to dig deeper because the GCR did something unprecedented this week – it put a 2-loss team in the top 4. Auburn lost to LSU (1) 23-20 and Florida (24-13) both on the road. They still have Georgia (10) and Alabama (6) yet this season and, oh yeah, they beat Oregon (12) the best team in the Pac-12 to start the season. Let’s assume 2-loss teams are in the mix (note: no 2-loss team has ever been in the playoff). Here’s what that looks like:
For a 2-loss team to be considered the SOS has to be ridiculous, so I’d say the only ones on this list that are even remote possibilities are Auburn and Notre Dame (lost to Georgia (10) as well as Michigan (15).) Also keep in mind that to get to 2-loss team world the number of perfect teams has to be 0 or maybe 1. That’s going to be tough. Then the number of decently SOS’d 1-loss teams cannot be more than 2 or 3 (if no undefeated teams). It’s possible because for the War Tigers to be a 2-loss team at the end, Alabama and UGA will be too. If UGA also loses to Texas A&M so Florida wins the East and then Florida loses to LSU for the SEC title and if Penn State loses to Ohio State who then loses to Michigan and Minnesota trips up, there would be only one 1-loss team from the Big 10. If Clemson stumbles on top of that, and Utah beats Oregon or worse, Utah loses again and a 4-loss Southern Cal beats Oregon in the Pac-12 championship, and Baylor and Oklahoma split, then a 2-loss Auburn gets in. It’s harsh, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. As I look at Notre Dame’s remaining schedule, Navy (39), Boston College (60), and Stanford (95), they are already out no matter what happens.
That’s it for tonight – please comment and question, share with others and enjoy November, find a veteran to thank, and enjoy the greatest game on earth. Thanks, G
If someone tells you that a 2-loss team cannot be in the final 4, it has already happened. In 1974 or 1975 (I forget exactly), Colorado was number 3 in the country with losses to Nebraska and Oklahoma. Nebraska was number 1 and undefeated. Oklahoma was number 2 with one loss to Nebraska. All three teams were in the Big 8 at the time, which I guess was a pretty strong conference that I’m thinking GCR analysis would have confirmed. That must have been before the SEC was invented.
Carl, there have been 2-loss champions before most recently in 2007 with 12-2 LSU. My reference to “never” was this latest experiment to have a unanimous champion, the College Playoff. So far, no 2-loss team has made the cut. It is inevitable even at 4 games especially if the committee “punishes” and undefeated for a weak schedule. I believe in the next 2-3 years they will move to 8 teams and it will be more common. I don’t see much beyond 8 as long as there are conference championship games because at 8, the final combatants would be playing game 16. At some point, if they want a larger field similar to the (actually NCAA recognized) FCS 24-team playoff, they would have to cut schedules back to 11 games and there would be too many bowls.