The College Football Playoff will only include four teams, so which of the Power-5 conferences is most in danger of being shut out?
When the 12-person committee decides which four teams are to take part in the inaugural College Football Playoff, they aren’t supposed to take conference affiliation into consideration. Assuming no conference gets two teams in the final four (which is possible), then at least one conference will be left out of the party.
Say what you will about the BCS, the one thing that it did have was transparency. Very little of the BCS rankings had to do with human opinion. It was mostly compiled stats and numbers run through various algorithms, assigning a total number of points to each team.
So regardless of how much more fair this new playoff system seems, one or more conferences in the Power-5 will end up with hurt feelings, and could possibly even make accusations of favoritism.
The criteria that the committee are supposed to take into consideration are conference championships, strength of schedule, and head-to-head meetings (although we’ve already seen where head-to-head bears seemingly little weight).
The SEC West has dominated the Top 6 teams for the past several weeks, going as far has having three of the top four ranked teams. While that makes for great headlines and water cooler talk, it will obviously sort itself out, and has already begun to do so. The SEC could possibly land two teams in the final four, but honestly it’s highly unlikely at this point.
It’s safe to assume the SEC will have a least one team in the playoff, more than likely the SEC champion. The only scenario where the SEC is possibly locked out of the final four is if the winner of the SEC Championship game is a 2 or 3-loss team out of the East, and no team in the West can be ranked any higher than five.
The Pac-12 is likely to have a representative, and it will probably be Oregon, unless they completely fold here in the last few weeks of the season. But if the Ducks sink, the Pac-12 has little chance of a replacement, with the team closest in terms of ranking being No. 14 Arizona State.
The Big 12 looks quite good in terms of quality teams who could wind up in the playoffs. No. 7 TCU, No. 9 Kansas State, and No. 13 Baylor all won over the weekend, and will likely move up in the rankings as a number of teams above them lost or were upset. By the time the SEC and Pac-12 get done cannibalizing themselves, one of those Big 12 teams stands a good shot at a playoff semifinal.
The ACC hangs their lone hope on undefeated Florida State. The Seminoles keep winning (although not always pretty), and as long as they do that, they’ll be there in the top four, if not sitting at number one. But if FSU takes and unlikely turn down upset lane and loses to Miami, Boston College or Florida, then they could conceivably slip out of favor with the committee.
The Big Ten is where we see the most distance between the haves and have nots. Right now the highest ranked B1G team is No. 8 Michigan State, who had a bye this past week. After that, you have to go all the way down to No. 15 and the Nebraska Cornhuskers before you find another team out of the conference.
For the Big Ten to wind up in the final four, Michigan State will probably have to win out (meaning they’ll have to run the remaining table against Ohio State, Rutgers, Maryland and Penn State). One more loss for the Spartans, and they are almost mathematically eliminated from the playoff, as their first loss was to Oregon.
Now here’s where things get interesting. It’s time to add Notre Dame to the mix.
The No. 10 Fighting Irish are technically part of the Power-5 dining table, but they have no real affiliation with any of those five conferences. The only loss on the Notre Dame resume right now is a very close defeat at the hands of Florida State. Should the Irish finish the season with just that loss, and enough of the teams sitting above them lose two or more games (which a couple already have after this weekend), then the Irish can slide right into the top four.
So if you have independent Notre Dame in that group of four, then you’d probably have not just one, but two of the Power-5 conferences sitting on the outside looking in.
So, in answer to our original question — which conference could be shut out — the truth is, it could be any of them.
The Big Ten undoubtedly has the toughest road to getting a team in the playoff. The ACC has all their eggs in one basket. The SEC has several teams near the top, but Auburn still has to play Alabama, which will knock one of them out of contention. The Pac-12 is similar to the ACC, in that if Oregon falters, it may end any chance of them being represented. And the Big 12 has three teams on the cusp, just waiting for losses above them.
Still not a definitive enough answer? Well, based on win-loss probability, strength of schedule, upcoming head-to-head meetings and a bit of gut-feeling, here are the likely teams and the percentage chance for each Power-5 conference to have a team in the College Football Playoff.
ACC (Florida State) – 80%
SEC (Mississippi State, Auburn, Alabama) – 70%
Pac-12 (Oregon, Arizona State) – 65%
Big 12 (TCU, Kansas State) – 50%
Big Ten (Michigan State) – 40%
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