2014 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 9 Edition

It is time.

With the weekend fully behind us, and a day ahead of the selection committee for the College Football Playoff, I'm back with my fourth mockup of the Death to the BCS Playoffs.

I continue to believe that while the FBS took things a step in the right direction, they haven't gone far enough. Four teams isn't enough to decide a champion out of the whole division. Hence, the sixteen team field. Each of the ten conferences will be represented by its champion, either decided in round robin in smaller conferences, or by the conference title game in the bigger ones. The rest of the field will be filled out with at-large teams, either independents or additional squads from the ten conferences.

So how is this decided? I use math, both of my own design and by others' designs, to help me out. From my own resources, I use weekly Non Conference Schedule Strength numbers to a small degree to figure out if teams are actually doing enough outside of their own leagues. To a larger degree, I use First Degree and Second Degree Playoff Points to more closely analyze how good each team really is: did you beat someone of significance, or was it an also-ran? You can view all those numbers for each individual team here.

Because I want some outside sources as well, I use a pair of computer rankings that used to be used in the early days of BCS calculations, but they stopped since both use margin of victory (which is kind of important). I've been using Jeff Sagarin's computer rankings for the first few editions, and I finally have my other set of rankings available too. The late David Rothman made his formula publicly available, and a staff member at UCLA plugs in all the data to rank the teams as well.

Below you will find each team ordered by seed, containing all the above numbers. Non-Conference  Schedule Strength is abbreviated NCSS, First Degree and Second Degree Playoff Points are abbreviated PP1 and PP2, respectively, Rothman's rankings are abbreviated ROTH, and Sagarin's are abbreviated SAG.

If you want to refer back to last week's numbers, you can view them here. Let's get to it.

1. Mississippi State (7-0, SEC "Champion"): NCSS- 4, PP1- 35, PP2- 13.6, ROTH- 1, SAG- 4 (LW: 2) 
2. Ole Miss (7-1, At Large): NCSS- 3, PP1- 31, PP2- 13.1, ROTH- 3, SAG- 3 (LW: 1) 
3. Auburn (6-1, At Large): NCSS- 5, PP1- 29, PP2- 14.8, ROTH- 2, SAG- 2 (LW: 5) 
4. Florida State (7-0, ACC "Champion"): NCSS- 2, PP1- 26, PP2- 10.6, ROTH- 7, SAG- 13 (LW: 3) 
5. Alabama (7-1, At Large): NCSS- 4, PP1- 27, PP2- 10.7, ROTH- 4, SAG- 1 (LW: 4)
6. Oregon (7-1, Pac 12 "Champion"): NCSS- 2, PP1- 27, PP2- 11.3, ROTH- 13, SAG- 10 (LW: 7)   
7. Marshall (8-0, Conference USA "Champion"): NCSS- 4, PP1- 24, PP2- 6.1, ROTH- 18, SAG- 35 (LW: 6) 
8. Michigan State (7-1, Big Ten "Champion"): NCSS-4, PP1- 24, PP2- 8.4, ROTH- 15, SAG- 12 (LW: 8) 
9. Notre Dame (6-1, At Large): NCSS- 14, PP1- 22, PP2- 10.0, ROTH- 16, SAG- 14 (LW: 9)
10. Nebraska (7-1, At Large): NCSS- 4, PP1- 23, PP2- 9.0, ROTH- 17, SAG- 18 (LW: NR)
11. Arizona (6-1, At Large): NCSS- 4, PP1- 22, PP2- 9.7, ROTH- 20, SAG- 27 (LW: NR) 
12. Kansas State (6-1, Big 12 "Champion"): NCSS- 2, PP1- 17, PP2- 8.2, ROTH- 6, SAG- 11 (LW: 12)
13. Boise State (6-2, Mountain West "Champion"): NCSS- 6, PP1- 24, PP2- 9.8, ROTH- 35, SAG- 37 (LW: 13) 
14. East Carolina (6-1, American Athletic "Champion"): NCSS- 7, PP1- 12, PP2- 5.2, ROTH- 39, SAG- 40 (LW: 14)
15. Toledo (5-3, MAC "Champion"): NCSS- 6, PP1- 15, PP2- 8.2, ROTH- 76, SAG- 70 (LW: 15)
16. Georgia Southern (6-2, Sun Belt "Champion"): NCSS- 5, PP1- 11, PP2- 1.7, ROTH- 78, SAG- 73 (LW: 16) 

Out of the Playoffs: USC (10)

Photo by Rick Egan (The Salt Lake Tribune)

USC's loss to Utah pushed them out of the playoffs, since they were technically the Pac 12 "Champion" for a couple weeks. Now, Oregon leads the conference, so they get the auto bid, opening up another At Large spot. Ole Miss' loss to LSU gave the SEC's auto bid to Mississippi State, but I only swapped the two schools at the top, so there wasn't a huge difference. Other than that, the conference champions remained the same.

With USC's fall, I needed a new At Large team. While I considered adding yet another SEC team, I couldn't really do it. Georgia has a decent argument (22 PP1, 11.2 PP2, Top 10 in both computer rankings), as does LSU (25 PP1, 10.9 PP2, Top 10 in both computer rankings). LSU has two losses, however, and other than maybe Missouri, I'm not sure that Georgia has really beaten anyone of significance. Nebraska really hasn't beaten anyone either, but their lone loss came to the current Big 10 "champions", and Nebraska leads its division, while having one more PP1 than Georgia. I'll rate that slightly over the better computer rankings, but it's close.

When I first finished the field, I actually almost pushed Arizona out of the playoff picture in favor of Ohio State (NCSS of 6, 23 PP1, 10.7 PP2, and the same average computer rankings, only more extreme). Ohio State has a good argument, but they don't have a signature win. Arizona does: Oregon. I still have Oregon ranked higher, but that's based on their conference "title" and overall better numbers. Unfortunately, if the season ended today, this would mean we have a first round rematch between the two, and it's at Oregon.

Photo by Trent Penny (The Anniston Star)

Overall, I'm pretty happy with seeding. I felt a little dirty stacking the top with SEC West teams, but they overall had the best numbers. I had to decide at what point I valued stronger numbers over an undefeated mark, and since FSU and Alabama are fairly close, that's where I drew the line. Marshall, still being undefeated, gets a guaranteed home game. Bama and Oregon are close and could be swapped, but I decided I valued Bama's loss to be "better" than Oregon's loss, and the computers seem to agree that Bama is better.

My toughest outs this week? Georgia, Ohio State, and LSU, for the reasons stated above. I also gave Arizona State some consideratoin, as well as Utah (the Utes probably had a better argument), and then TCU was on my radar a bit as well. The computers love them, but they really haven't beaten anyone. Had they beaten Baylor... well, then they'd be undefeated and in automatically, and one of the other teams above would probably have gotten in over Kansas State. Alas.

I'll be back on the college football beat tomorrow, as we near the end of October. There will be a handful of games before the month closes, but I'll go over that in detail when I look at non-conference tilts.