Forde-Yard Dash: Predicting College Football Playoff Bracket

There are 11 teams locked in for the 12-team field. Here are the arguments for and against a handful of teams on the bubble.

The Miami mascot, Sebastian, makes a crying gesture, and the Hurricanes may be feeling similar emotions as they sit on the College Football Playoff bubble. / Rich Barnes-Imagn Images

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football (flag plants and fisticuffs sold separately all over this great land of ours).

First Quarter: Eleven Teams for 12 Spots

A season of upsets and attrition has brought us to this point, with Selection Sunday a week away: There are only 11 worthy teams for a 12-team College Football Playoff (1). So many losses, so many shaky performances, so much uncertainty and fluidity—we’re lacking a full bracket of contenders. The bubble is a muddled mass of mediocrity.

Put it this way: Teams that lost to the Northern Illinois Huskies and Arkansas Razorbacks are locks for the field. Teams that lost to the Cincinnati Bearcats, Vanderbilt Commodores, Kentucky Wildcats and Kansas Jayhawks could join them. 

Pending further shenanigans Tuesday night from the CFP selection committee, The Dash has the following teams locked in.

The Big Ten has four: the Oregon Ducks, Penn State Nittany Lions, Ohio State Buckeyes and Indiana Hoosiers. (Indiana’s time on the bubble should have ended this weekend. But that remains to be seen.)

The Southeastern Conference has three: the Texas Longhorns, Georgia Bulldogs and Tennessee Volunteers.

The Atlantic Coast Conference has one: its champion, either the SMU Mustangs or Clemson Tigers. After the automatic bid, it gets very interesting.

The Big 12 has one: its champion, either the Arizona State Sun Devils or Iowa State Cyclones. 

The Mountain West champion: Either the Boise State Broncos or UNLV Rebels will get the Group of 5 automatic bid, unless something gets really weird.

And the independent Notre Dame Fighting Irish are in as well.

The motley assortment of contenders for the 12th spot consists of a second ACC team, a pileup of three-loss SEC teams and possibly a Big 12 Hail Mary reconsideration of the BYU Cougars. Let’s examine them all:

The Miami Hurricanes (2). Status: 10–2 overall, 6–2 in the ACC, no more games left to play. CFP ranking last week: No. 6. Best wins: on the road over the Florida Gators (7–5) and Louisville Cardinals (8–4), at home over the Duke Blue Devils (9–3). Losses: on the road to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (7–5) and Syracuse Orange (9–3). Neither were in the last CFP top 25, but Syracuse could and should be this week. Sagarin strength of schedule: No. 61.

The Canes Cristobal’d the ending at Syracuse on Saturday, trailing by seven in the final four minutes and facing a fourth-and-goal from the Orange 10-yard line. Mario Cristobal, whose in-game coaching remains a weekly adventure, opted to kick a field goal to make it 42–38 and rely on his well-savaged defense to get a stop and give his team another chance. That didn’t happen, as Syracuse ran the last eight plays to end the game. That loss knocked Miami out of the ACC championship game, surrendering that spot to Clemson for a bid-thief opportunity. So now the Canes reside on the bubble.

SMU (3). Status: 11–1 overall, 8–0 in the ACC, playing for the league title Saturday against Clemson. CFP ranking last week: No. 9. Best wins: on the road over Louisville and Duke, at home over the TCU Horned Frogs (8–4) and Pittsburgh Panthers (7–5). Loss: at home to No. 19 BYU (10–2). Sagarin strength of schedule: No. 63.

The Mustangs can take the automatic bid Saturday night, of course. But if they don’t, they will get strong consideration as an at-large team—perhaps even knocking out fellow ACC aspirant Miami. SMU is 8–0 with Kevin Jennings as its starting quarterback, and a three-point loss to BYU is negligible. The Mustangs are one of just two power-conference teams to go undefeated in league play, along with Oregon, and one of just four in the entire FBS (Boise State and the Army Black Knights are the others).

The Alabama Crimson Tide (4). Status: 9–3 overall, 5–3 in the SEC, no more games left to play. CFP ranking last week: No. 13. Best wins: home over the No. 7 Georgia Bulldogs (10–2) and No. 15 South Carolina Gamecocks (9–3), on the road against the LSU Tigers (8–4). Losses: at Vanderbilt (6–6), No. 8 Tennessee (10–2) and Oklahoma Sooners (6–6). Sagarin strength of schedule: No. 14.

The Zombie Tide remain undead, despite all attempts to eliminate themselves from consideration. Just like last year, we’ve arrived at the point where they might just slip into the field at the expense of an ACC team. Alabama has good wins, but two ghastly losses—they never led against Vandy and were routed by three touchdowns by Oklahoma. They are the epitome of the SEC’s strength-of-schedule argument for inclusion.

The Mississippi Rebels (5). Status: 9–3 overall, 5–3 in the SEC, no more games left to play. CFP ranking last week: No. 14. Best wins: home over No. 7 Georgia, on the road over No. 15 South Carolina. Losses: home against Kentucky (4–8), on the road against LSU and Florida. Sagarin strength of schedule: No. 46.

Ole Miss probably has the weakest overall hand to play of the SEC bubble trio, given the nature of its losses (especially that Kentucky debacle). But it also dominated Georgia and blew out South Carolina in Columbia, which means it’s very hard to put the Gamecocks ahead of the Rebels with the same record. On the flip side, it’s very hard to put the Rebels ahead of Miami, given their outcomes against common opponent Florida.

South Carolina (6). Status: 9–3 overall, 5–3 in the SEC, no more games left to play. CFP ranking last week: No. 15. Best wins: on the road over No. 12 Clemson (9–3), at home over No. 20 Texas A&M (8–4), at home over the No. 21 Missouri Tigers (9–3). Losses: at home to LSU and Ole Miss, on the road to Alabama. Sagarin strength of schedule: No. 17.

Outside of Oregon, there is no hotter team in the sport. The Gamecocks have reeled off six straight wins, half of them over ranked opponents. Unfortunately for them, this is a full-body-of-work sport that can’t ignore what happened in the first half of the season—especially when two of their losses were to teams ranked directly ahead of them. Beating Clemson on the road could give them a chance to jump ahead of Alabama and Ole Miss, but that’s still a tough argument.

BYU (7). Status: 10–2, 7–2 in the Big 12, no more games left to play. CFP ranking last week: No. 19. Best wins: on the road over No. 9 SMU and the Baylor Bears (8–4). Losses: at home to Kansas (5–7), on the road to Arizona State (10–2). Sagarin strength of schedule: No. 37.

It’s hard to see BYU vaulting ahead of everyone it would need to clear to get into the playoff coming off a victory over 4–8 Houston. But the wins over SMU and Baylor have only gained strength in the second half of the season, and losing to ASU is certainly not a shame. BYU is worth a committee reevaluation this week against the above competition.

And then there is the team that could make this 12th place argument moot: Clemson (8). The Tigers aren’t going to the playoff unless they beat SMU on Saturday night in Charlotte. If they do that, there are several side effects.

As mentioned, that could lead to ACC-on-ACC crime: A Clemson bid could evict either Miami or SMU from the field. Or it could be the firewall against a fourth SEC team, despite the Tigers going 0–2 against that league (Georgia and South Carolina). But it also could cost the ACC a first-round bye, dropping its champion to the lowest of the five automatic bids and assuredly facing a road game in the first round. (Boise State, if it wins the Mountain West, could move into the top four with a 12–1 record.)

This much is sure: The oft-superfluous Tuesday rankings will actually matter this week. The order in which the committee ranks Miami, the three SEC teams and BYU shouldn’t change after then, since none of them have any remaining games. We could know who the 12th team is then … pending a Clemson complication.

How Home Field Is Shaping Up

Two of the first-round hosts seem all but assured at this point: Notre Dame (9) and the loser of the Big Ten title game (10) between Oregon and Penn State. The other two could be the SEC title game loser—either Texas or Georgia—and a résumé battle between Tennessee and Ohio State.

Ohio State and Tennessee have similar resumes. Both are 10–2 with a bad loss—the Buckeyes to 7–5 Michigan, the Volunteers to 6–6 Arkansas. Ohio State has a No. 52 Sagarin schedule strength, while Tennessee is No. 53. The Dash would give the edge to Ohio State based on both a better signature win (at Penn State vs. home against Alabama) and a better loss (by a point at Oregon vs. by 14 at Georgia). 

Regardless of which 100,000-seat venue hosts the game, a Tennessee-Ohio State, No. 8 vs. No. 9, first-round game could be coming. That would be a juicy one, unless the Buckeyes are completely in the tank after the debacle in The Horseshoe on Saturday. 

The Buzzin’ Dozen

This is how The Dash would seed the playoff if today were Selection Sunday:

1. Oregon (Big Ten champion, automatic bid)
2. Texas (SEC champion, automatic bid)
3. SMU (ACC champion, automatic bid)
4. Boise State (Group of 5 champion, automatic bid) 
5. Notre Dame (at-large selection) 
6. Penn State (at-large selection)
7. Georgia (at-large selection)
8. Ohio State (at-large selection)
9. Tennessee (at-large selection)
10. Indiana (at-large selection)
11. Arizona State (Big 12 champion, automatic bid)
12. Miami (at-large selection)

On the bubble: BYU, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Army.