Projected CFP bracket using BCS rankings sets up Ohio State-Notre Dame first-round showdown

For a handful of programs last year, the College Football Playoff selection committee did the unthinkable. It made them miss the Bowl Championship Series.

So as we get ready for the committee's first rankings of the season, let's dust off the old BCS formula and see how it would make college football's playoff picture look through last weekend's games.

Top four: Miami, Georgia, Utah, UCLA

The biggest takeaway? The BCS wouldn’t shake things up much.

Miami and Georgia hold the top two spots in the media and coaches' polls, and they'd be there under the old rules, too. In fact, the BCS and those two polls agree on the entire playoff field. The same 12 teams — the top 11 in the rankings, plus the highest-ranked team from the Group of Six — appear in both. They’re just in a different order.

Miami, Georgia, Utah and UCLA would claim the top four seeds and the coveted first-round byes. The Bruins are the biggest mover, jumping into the top four despite sitting fifth in both human polls.

First-round matchups

• No. 12 Boise State at No. 5 Indiana
• No. 11 Ohio State at No. 6 Notre Dame
• No. 10 Texas at No. 7 Kentucky
• No. 9 Alabama at No. 8 BYU

Reigning national champion Indiana would host Boise State in the first round. Alabama would travel to BYU, and Texas would visit Kentucky in an all-SEC playoff opener.

The unquestioned headliner, though, would be in South Bend. Under this version of the bracket, Notre Dame would play host to Ohio State in a blockbuster first-round showdown.

No surprise: SEC, Big Ten combine for most berths

The conference breakdown is equally predictable.

The SEC leads the way with four teams in the field, followed by the Big Ten with three. The Big 12 lands two bids, while the ACC gets one. Notre Dame qualifies as an independent, and No. 21 Boise State claims the Group of Six automatic berth as the highest-ranked non-Power Four team.

Kiffin’s old, new schools on the bubble

The polls and BCS also agree on the first team out: Mississippi.

Ranked No. 12 across the board, the Rebels get squeezed out because of the CFP’s automatic berth for the Group of Six’s highest-ranked team. The computers actually love Ole Miss. Three of the five computer models have the Rebels in the top 10, but they’re dragged down by their ranking in both polls.

But Lane Kiffin’s old school isn’t the only one sweating. So is his current school.

LSU sits at 13th in the BCS rankings, just missing the field. Also on the wrong side of the cut: Texas Tech, Wake Forest and Tennessee.

Here’s how we did it

It’s been a while, so let’s refresh ourselves on how the BCS formula worked and explain the tweaks we made. 

Back then, each team’s score consisted of three parts: the Harris Interactive poll, the coaches poll and the average of six computer rankings with high and low outliers removed.

A few things have changed since 2013.

First, the Harris poll no longer exists, so we replaced it with The Associated Press Top 25. Back in 2004, the AP blocked the BCS from using its rankings following a brouhaha involving Texas and California. But 22 years later, we’re guessing the AP won’t mind us borrowing them for this unofficial project.

Second, only five of the six computer models are still actively publishing rankings. We used those five, removed each team’s highest and lowest computer ranking, then averaged the remaining three to produce a final computer score.

That decision had a bigger impact than you might expect. Removing the high and low computer rankings elevated UCLA into the top four and earned the Bruins a first-round bye. Had we counted all five computer rankings, Indiana would have moved up to No. 4 and UCLA would have fallen to fifth.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow