The College Football Playoff selection committee’s weekly rankings are starting to fall in line with the bracket projected by our trusty supercomputer — with one notable exception.
The Opta supercomputer ranks every team in the FBS while assigning a “Playoff Potential” score that estimates its likelihood of making the 12-team Playoff field.
With three weeks left in the regular season — and with another weekend full of massive data points behind us — we refreshed the supercomputer’s rankings and found 10 of the 12 projected playoff teams appear in both brackets.
Let’s take a closer look at where the computer and the committee agree — and disagree.
Supercomputer projects final 12-team College Football Playoff field
Supercomputer rank | Team | Opta Playoff Potential | CFP Committee Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Notre Dame | 99.9% | 5 |
2 | Georgia | 99.9% | 1 |
3 | Alabama | 99.9% | 3 |
4 | Utah | 99% | 2 |
5 | UCLA | 98.6% | 4 |
6 | Wake Forest | 98.5% | 13 |
7 | Miami | 98.1% | 7 |
8 | Texas | 97.2% | 6 |
9 | Tennessee | 94.3% | 8 |
10 | Indiana | 91.7% | 9 |
11 | Iowa | 87.1% | 15 |
12 | Boise State | 74.6% | 24 |
13 | Duke | 69.6% | NR |
14 | LSU | 68.8% | 21 |
15 | Houston | 58.5% | 14 |
16 | Ole Miss | 49.3% | 19 |
17 | Oregon | 48.3% | 16 |
18 | BYU | 44.4% | 10 |
19 | Liberty | 43.2% | NR |
20 | Ohio State | 42% | 20 |
21 | Arizona | 40.9% | 23 |
22 | New Mexico | 39.2% | NR |
23 | South Carolina | 30.7% | 17 |
24 | USC | 26.6% | 18 |
25 | Oklahoma State | 23.3% | 25 |
Supercomputer’s first-round matchups
- (12) Boise State at (5) UCLA
- (11) Iowa at (6) Wake Forest
- (10) Indiana at (7) Miami
- (9) Tennessee at (8) Texas
Projected quarterfinal matchups
- Boise State-UCLA winner at (4) Utah
- Iowa-Wake Forest winner at (3) Alabama
- Indiana-Miami winner at (2) Georgia
- Tennessee-Texas winner at (1) Notre Dame
Notre Dame keeps hold of computer’s top spot
Say this about the supercomputer: It has been consistent. Notre Dame has held its projected No. 1 seed in each of the last three weeks. No reason to change now, certainly not after the Fighting Irish took down the Miami team that last week held the committee’s No. 1 slot.
In fact, the committee and the computer have the same five teams in the top five spots, just in a mostly different order. The committee has Georgia at No. 1, followed by Utah, Alabama, UCLA and Notre Dame. The computer puts the Bulldogs after Notre Dame and rounds out its top five with Alabama, Utah and UCLA.
Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, Miami and Boise State also were projected in the field according to both the CFP committee and the supercomputer.
Committee, computer disagree on Wake Forest, Iowa, Kentucky
Here’s where the computer and committee diverge. First, the computer loves Wake Forest. Like really, really loves Wake Forest. It puts Jake Dickert’s Demon Deacons in the No. 6 seed — one spot ahead of the Miami team that beat them at home in Week 3. Wake has reeled off six wins in a row, the last five by a combined 264-31, even if that last one (77-0) came against FCS Merrimack. The committee ranks the Deacs 13th, meaning they’d need some help to reach the Playoff for the first time.
And then there’s the team they’d play in the computer’s projected bracket: Iowa.
The Hawkeyes would sneak in as the No. 11 seed. They’ve won two straight and three of four, following up a 30-0 beatdown of then-No. 25 Wisconsin with a convincing win at Northwestern. Much like Wake Forest, Iowa is outside the top 12 in the committee’s rankings but is within striking distance. And with a closing stretch that includes games against Purdue, at Illinois and Nebraska, coach Kirk Ferentz’s Hawkeyes are poised to push for a spot.
But the biggest discrepancy involves Kentucky, which was blown out last week by Tennessee. The committee has the Wildcats 11th, the last at-large team in the field. The computer — which is not a UK believer and had the Cats out of the field even before that loss in Knoxville — has them entirely out of the top 25, all the way down at 27th.
Big 12’s gripe
The committee and the supercomputer also have rather different assessments of the Big 12 as a whole.
The selection committee has six Big 12 teams in its top 25 while the computer has four — and even more differences lie in who those teams are and where in the rankings they appear. The committee puts No. 3 Utah and No. 10 BYU in its bracket, with No. 12 Texas Tech, No. 14 Houston, No. 23 Arizona and No. 25 Oklahoma State.
Meanwhile, the Utes are the only Big 12 team in the computer’s top 14. It has Houston 15th, Arizona 21st, Oklahoma State 25th — and Texas Tech out of the top 25 completely, down at 28th.
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