College Football Playoffs projections after Week 1: Florida State joins the top group of contenders
Week 1 of the college football season saw one big upset among expected contenders for College Football Playoff spots with Clemson losing at Duke. Florida State also made a statement with a lopsided win against LSU. As a result, both teams are on the move in how my projection model views their CFP chances.
According to the projections, Georgia is still the clear favorite at the top, but Michigan has moved up to the second spot. Florida State convincingly clearing the LSU hurdle and a less than stellar data point for Clemson, the supposed other favorite in the ACC along with the Seminoles, has made FSU’s path to the CFP much clearer than it was a week before.
FSU-LSU was the big mover from Week 1. Alabama–Texas will be the big mover in Week 2. It’s worth noting that Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers was 0-for-7 on throws of 15-plus yards downfield against Rice in Week 1. If Texas is going to be “back,” Ewers will need to make throws downfield to pull off the upset in Tuscaloosa.
If you’re new to this, here’s how the model works: I have developed a season simulator that produces odds for winning the national title, making the College Football Playoff, and winning conference and division titles. After every simulation is complete, I have developed a model that selects playoff teams. The playoff selection model is quite simple and very similar, in my opinion, to the committee’s selection process in that it creates a “resume strength rating,” derived from prior resume strength ratings, past playoff rankings and playoff selections for each season.
Let’s take a look at what the numbers say after Week 1. Here are the top 25 national title contenders according to my model.
Projected college football national title chances
What stands out after Week 1
Florida State
It’s possible the Seminoles already played the toughest team on their regular season schedule. LSU didn’t look great, but Clemson looked worse. FSU does face Duke, but that’s in Tallahassee. There is a trip to Clemson in Week 4, but FSU could be favored in every game the rest of the way. FSU’s Playoff chances according to my model doubled from a week ago.
Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State
Michigan gained a few percent in getting to the Playoff while Ohio State and Penn State lost a few. These aren’t big enough moves to get worried about yet, especially when these teams face each other. Kyle McCord didn’t set the world on fire for the Buckeyes at Indiana, but he has a few weeks to get it together before the trip to Notre Dame.
Minnesota?!
After the top 15 or 20, things get weirdddd. The Golden Gophers didn’t look great against Nebraska, but a 1.5 percent chance to make the CFP is still a longshot.It’s way too early to get worked up over the Buffaloes not being in the top 25 of projected national champions. At this point in the season, the model still has too much of last year’s data to think of Colorado as a different team truly. As I noted in my best bets earlier this week, we are overreacting to Colorado beating a possibly bad TCU team.
