2015 NCAA Playoff Points: Week 14

For the most part, this week's post of this nature is just formality. But it is important for the purposes of building the Death to the BCS Playoffs.

Last week, an overwhelming majority of the nation played its 12th and final game of the season, largely locking up most teams' Playoff Points scenarios. However, the Big 12 and Sun Belt do not have conference championship games because they aren't big enough, and thus had to finish out their regular seasons yesterday.

If you need a refresher on how Playoff Points work, you can refer back to my Week 1 post. Now, in the interests of full disclosure because it's important: the conference championship games do not count towards Playoff Points, either in team win totals or going towards First or Second Degree Playoff Points. I do this because it's not fair to the Big 12 or the Sun Belt to reward the other conferences for bring bigger. We may see some changes in other conferences though based on non-conference games involving those two conferences. Let's take a look at the final rankings of the year.



American Athletic
Wins: 6.33 (7th)
PP1: 25.42 (7th)
PP2: 10.92 (9th)

ACC
Wins: 6.64 (6th)
PP1: 27.71 (6th)
PP2: 13.38 (6th)

Big Ten
Wins: 7.07 (2nd)
PP1: 34.79 (3rd)
PP2: 18.93 (3rd)

Big XII
Wins: 6.80 (5th)
PP1: 31.40 (5th)
PP2: 15.92 (4th)

Conference USA
Wins: 5.54 (10th)
PP1: 18.54 (10th)
PP2: 9.39 (11th)

Independents
Wins: 7.00 (3rd)
PP1: 34.00 (4th)
PP2: 15.61 (5th)

MAC
Wins: 5.62 (8th)
PP1: 21.15 (8th)
PP2: 10.95 (8th)

Mountain West
Wins: 5.58 (9th)
PP1: 20.42 (9th)
PP2: 11.87 (7th)

Pac-12
Wins: 6.92 (4th)
PP1: 36.33 (2nd)
PP2: 22.66 (1st)

SEC
Wins: 7.21 (1st)
PP1: 37.36 (1st)
PP2: 22.43 (2nd)

Sun Belt
Wins: 5.27 (11th)
PP1: 18.36 (11th)
PP2: 9.72 (10th)

Photo by Jerome Miron (USA TODAY Sports)

If you want to see exact numbers for each team and conference, you can view my spreadsheet here. For the most part, nothing changed, though the Sun Belt got enough increases that they got out of the basement in Second Degree Playoff Points. The Big 12 also moved up a category in wins. Otherwise, it was just incremental changes that didn't change many of the rankings.

Individually, the rankings remain mostly the same. Michigan State and Oklahoma are now tied in First Degree Playoff Points with 73, while Alabama picked up another to go up to 72. Clemson is holding firm at 68 while Ohio State stays at 63. On the Second Degree side, Nebraska remains your national leader, having moved up to 31.80 points, while five other teams top 30 points, including Michigan State now.

I'll try to remember to throw in the result from Army-Navy next week, but there won't be a post on it as the game will not impact the playoffs in any way.

The selection committee announces the New Years Day bowls as well as the College Football Playoff field today. With that in mind, I'm going back to the lab one last time to officially finish out the field of the 2015 Death to the BCS Playoffs.