2015 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 12 Mock Bracket

The football gods just keep making this tougher and tougher, don't they?

Last week's mock bracket was easy to fill, but hard to sort. With only two undefeated teams left in the country, it makes my job to a degree easier, but it also makes it that much harder, because now I have to sort through teams with blemishes on their resumes. That's part of what makes this fun though.

So for those of you new to the concept of the Death to the BCS Playoffs, it's a system built on the concept created by sportswriters Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter and Jeff Passan. We expand on the current College Football Playoff by going to 16 teams: the ten conference champions all get automatic bids, and the rest of the field is filled with at-large bids. These teams will then be seeded 1-16, with home field advantage going to the higher seeds for the first three rounds, and the national title game played at the Rose Bowl as God intended.

So how do we pick the field (in particular, the at-large teams), and how are they seeded? I'm a selection committee of one, but I have multiple tools at my disposal. I use my NCSS and Playoff Points rankings. Then, to attempt to remove any bias I may have, I also use computer rankings compiled by Jeff Sagarin and a UCLA faculty member using the publicly available formula created by the late David Rothman. These rankings all kind of jumble together organically until I come up with a 16 team field that is seeded properly.

After the jump, you can see my newest mock playoff field.

1. Clemson (11-0, ACC Champion)- NCSS: 1, PP1: 59, PP2: 19.64, SAG: 3, ROTH: 4. (LW: 1) 
2. Alabama (10-1, At Large)- NCSS: 3, PP1: 59, PP2: 25.50, SAG: 1, ROTH: 2. (LW: 2)
3. Michigan State (10-1, At Large)- NCSS: 6, PP1: 60, PP2: 24.40, SAG: 15, ROTH: 13. (LW: 9)
4. Iowa (11-0, Big Ten "Champion")- NCSS: 5, PP1: 48, PP2: 16.45, SAG: 17, ROTH: 7. (LW: 6)
5. Oklahoma (10-1, Big 12 "Champion")- NCSS: 5, PP1: 55, PP2: 17.50, SAG: 2, ROTH: 3 (LW: 8) 
6. Notre Dame (10-1, At Large)- NCSS: 23, PP1: 52, PP2: 21.30. SAG: 6, ROTH: 6. (LW: 4)
7. Ohio State (10-1, At Large)- NCSS: 6, PP1: 49, PP2: 17.20, SAG: 5, ROTH: 10. (LW: 3) 
8. Florida (10-1, SEC "Champion")- NCSS: 2, PP1: 50, PP2: 19.90. SAG: 13, ROTH: 11. (LW: 7)
9. Baylor (9-1, At Large)- NCSS: 2, PP1: 35, PP2: 11.56, SAG: 4, ROTH: 1. (LW: 11) 
10. Oklahoma State (10-1, At Large)- NCSS: 2, PP1: 41, PP2: 13.70, SAG: 11, ROTH: 5. (LW: 5)   
11. Stanford (9-2, Pac-12 "Champion")- NCSS: 4, PP1: 46, PP2: 22.89, SAG: 7, ROTH: 16. (LW: 12)
12. Navy (9-1, American Athletic "Champion")- NCSS: 2, PP1: 44, PP2: 15.89, SAG: 27, ROTH: 9 (LW: NR) 
13. Western Kentucky (9-2, Conference USA "Champion")- NCSS: 10, PP1: 38, PP2: 11.22. SAG: 48, ROTH: 50. (LW: 14) 
14. Bowling Green (8-3, MAC "Champion")- NCSS: 9, PP1: 33, PP2: 12.50. SAG: 49, ROTH: 41. (LW: 13) 
15. San Diego State (8-3, Mountain West "Champion")- NCSS: 6, PP1: 26, PP2: 10.13, SAG: 53, ROTH: 79. (LW: 16) 
16. Arkansas State (7-3, Sun Belt "Champion")- NCSS: 6, PP1: 25, PP2: 9.71. SAG: 79, ROTH: 69. (LW: 15)

Out of the playoffs: Houston (10)

Another week with minimal change. Only one team fell out of the playoffs in previously undefeated Houston, so they have a replacement "champion" while the Big Ten and Big 12 "titles" switched hands as well, but did so amongst playoff teams. All of our at large bids are going to teams with one loss, so I ended up not needing to look into other teams too much this week.

Photo by Butch Dill (AP)

I thought about my seedings a little bit more, and while the difference between the #1 seed and the #2 seed is relatively negligible, I'm sticking with my principle that Clemson remains the top overall seed for the Death to the BCS Playoffs. This is not to disparage Alabama, since I did that in my NCSS post to lambast the cowards in Tuscaloosa for playing an FCS game the second to last week of the season... again... but their non-conference schedules are pretty much identical, and while the SEC is statistically a better conference than the ACC, Clemson is undefeated, and Alabama is not.

Photo by Jamie Sabau (Getty Images)

Now that we have that out of the way, it gets much, much harder after those two. Being the only other undefeated team, Iowa has earned a temporary second home game, but it's a question between the #3 seed and the #4 seed. Ultimately, there are several good candidates for that #3 seed, which I narrowed down to two over Iowa: Michigan State and Oklahoma. The Sooners are the hotter team, but Michigan State got the big win over the weekend, they lead the nation in PP1 and are up there in PP2. The computers like Oklahoma more, but I'll ride Sparty here behind those numbers, though it's really close.

Photo by Mark D. Smith (USA TODAY Sports)

Unfortunately, this relegates the Sooners down to the #5 seed as an undefeated season, especially in a really good Big Ten, has to mean something, and Oklahoma losing to Texas earlier in the year, again, has to mean something. This makes me feel bad for Notre Dame though, who won this past weekend at Fenway but drop a couple spots thanks to the major wins by the teams that leapfrogged them. The #7 seed then seems to be a sensible spot for Ohio State, who lost for the first time since 2013. I'm then giving my temporary SEC champion Florida the #8 seed and the final home game in the first round.

Photo by Matt Barnard (Tulsa World)

Everything else pretty much just fell into place in the bottom half of the field. I originally was going to seed Oklahoma State ahead of Baylor based on the Playoff Points favoring the Cowboys over the Bears, but the computers favor Baylor, and Baylor just won the head to head matchup. That matters, and it gives Baylor the #9 seed while the Cowboys fall in right behind them. This leaves six conference champions, and Stanford has the best metrics of those six, giving them the #11 seed just ahead of Navy, who has finally earned their way into the mock bracket, and you could have talked me into seeding them ahead of Stanford, as the Cardinal have two losses.

Photo by Gaston de Cardenas (Miami Herald)

Of the four remaining Group of Five champions, Western Kentucky jumps ahead of Bowling Green with the win and the Falcons' loss. Bowling Green continues to hold the "championship" placeholder despite a nice looking tie atop the MAC with NIU, but the Falcons have better metrics across the board, so they keep the placeholder for now. Bowling Green will settle for the #14 seed, just ahead of San Diego State, who gets out of the bottom seed hole thanks to an Arkansas State bye. The Aztecs will play in the Mountain West title game in a couple weeks against Air Force, who would be an interesting team to seed should they win. As it is now though, San Diego State holds the #15 seed, and that leaves Arkansas State, who have two games left, having to go to Clemson in the first round were this the official bracket.

Photo by David Butler II (USA TODAY Sports)

So who's our tough luck teams on the outside looking in? Right now it's Houston as my toughest out following their first loss of the year, but they could play their way back in next week with a win over Navy. After that it's probably Toledo. The Rockets have only one loss and a decent resume, but they lose the tiebreaker to Northern Illinois in the division, which has them out of the MAC title game. The problem from there is that the other at large teams are just so much farther ahead of Toledo that the Rockets are a tough luck out despite a solid resume that includes the win at Arkansas. Now, if they win next week and NIU loses, they could also find themselves back in the conversation, but it would be as an automatic bid.

Photo by Chuck Burton

After that, it's hard to find any other deserving teams. No other team has fewer than two losses with the exception of North Carolina, but they are ineligible for the Death to the BCS Playoffs due to facing a pair of FCS teams this season, and as far as I can tell, it wasn't a last minute emergency schedule change. It's tough luck for a team that has won ten in a row since losing their opener against South Carolina, but I refuse to reward cowardice. Now, this means Clemson has already officially locked up a berth in the Death to the BCS Playoffs as the ACC champion (and they're recognized as such above) even though the conference title game isn't for another two weeks, which is weird because no team has ever clinched this early since I started working with this playoff system. Even if North Carolina were to somehow knock off Clemson in two weeks, I refuse to put North Carolina into the Death to the BCS Playoffs based on that rule. It's a hard and fast rule, and one I will stand by.

Honestly, the field is all but set at this point. We could see some changes in automatic bids depending on results of most conference championship games, but I'm thinking at this point that the Big Ten will get at least two teams in, the Big 12 will get at least two teams in, and the SEC has a good shot at getting two teams in as well. Notre Dame will be in with a win next week, and that accounts for four of the six at large berths. The other two may be up for grabs depending on how next week goes in the Big Ten and how the next two weeks unfold for the Big 12.

That will do it for this week of college football. I'll be back tomorrow with a look at the upcoming week's schedule, which should be a good one once again!