Look at the Playoff Picture 2018

July 17, 2018 by Leave a Comment

As we look at who has made the playoffs in each of the 4 years, you start to see a few patterns.

  1. Pattern 1 is that 14 of the 16 teams have had a Win-Share of 8.25 or higher.
    1. ALL have had a Win-Share or higher of 7 (6.99) or higher.
  2. Pattern 2 is that 15 of the 16 teams have had a SF Rating of 4.40 or higher.
    1. ALL have had a SF Rating of 4.1 or higher.
  3. Pattern 3 is that 15 of the 16 teams finished 19th or higher in the previous seasons final F/+ Ratings.
    1. ALL of them finished 54th or higher.
  4. Pattern 4 is that 14 of the 16 teams had 10 or more wins the previous season.
    1. ALL of them had 7 or more wins the previous season.

With that information you start to get a pretty clear picture of who is most likely to be in the playoffs.  There has never been more than 1 Outlier team to make the playoffs in a given year. So 3 of the playoff teams will come from the group of teams that meet all criteria, possibly all 4.  But all 4 teams will most likely have a Win-Share above 7, a SF rating of 4.1 or higher, finish higher than 54 in the final 2017 season F/+ ratings, and have 7 or more games in 2017.

 

Tier 1 = Meet all 4 of the higher criteria

Tier 2 = Meet at least 1 of the higher criteria and all outlier criteria

 

Here are the teams, listed by Tiers.

Tier 1:

  1. Clemson
  2. Penn St
  3. Ohio St
  4. Wisconsin
  5. Oklahoma
  6. Washington
  7. Southern California
  8. Alabama
  9. Auburn
  10. Georgia

Tier 2:

  1. FSU
  2. Miami
  3. Michigan
  4. Stanford
  5. Michigan St
  6. Oklahoma St
  7. LSU
  8. Miss St
  9. UCF
  10. Notre Dame
  11. Texas
  12. Oregon

 

There is close to 100% chance that:

  1. 3 of the 4 Playoff teams will come from the first Tier teams
  2. The National Champion will come from the first Tier teams
  3. The 2 Championship teams will come from the list of 22 teams.

About a 50% chance that:

  1. 1 of the Playoff teams will come from the second Tier teams

 

Big Games between Teams on these lists (big time Playoff implications in these games):

  1. Washington v Auburn (Week 1)
  2. Michigan at Notre Dame (Week 1)
  3. Miami v LSU (Week 1)
  4. Ohio St at Penn St (Week 5)
  5. Stanford at Notre Dame (Week 5)
  6. Texas v Oklahoma (Week 6)
  7. FSU at Miami (Week 6)
  8. Auburn at Miss St (Week 6)
  9. Washington at Oregon (Week 7)
  10. Georgia at LSU (Week 7)
  11. Michigan St at Penn St (Week 7)
  12. Wisconsin at Michigan (Week 7)
  13. Michigan at Michigan St (Week 8)
  14. Clemson at FSU (Week 9)
  15. Texas at Oklahoma St (Week 9)
  16. Stanford at Washington (Week 10)
  17. Penn St at Michigan (Week 10)
  18. Alabama at LSU (Week 10)
  19. Wisconsin at Penn St (Week 11)
  20. Auburn at Georgia (Week 11)
  21. Ohio St at Michigan St (Week 11)
  22. Oklahoma St at Oklahoma (Week 11)
  23. FSU at Notre Dame (Week 11)
  24. Notre Dame at USC (Week 13 – Rivalry Week)
  25. Michigan at Ohio St (Week 13 – Rivalry Week)
  26. Auburn at Alabama (Week 13 – Rivalry Week)

These games will do the most in deciding who will be contending for the Playoffs.  Of course a win in one of these games and you get a big boost.  A loss can probably be overcome.

Of course you can also add the Conference Championship games which will most likely be between teams on these lists as well (Alabama/Auburn/LSU/Miss St v Georgia, Penn St/Ohio St/Michigan/Mich St v Wisconsin, Clemson/FSU v Miami, OU/Texas/Ok St v each other, Washington/Stanford/Oregon v USC).

Filed Under: NCAA

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