2016 NCAA Playoff Points: Week 5

Through five weeks of the college football season, we're down to just 16 undefeated teams left in all of FBS football. This would, in many circumstances, mean I could start looking at building mock playoff brackets. However, because many of these undefeated teams are bunched up in a few different conferences, giving an automatic bid to every conference champion would mean that some undefeated teams would be left out in the cold. I can't in good conscience do that.

As such, I will continue to just pore over Playoff Points numbers again this week based on the results from the weekend. I imagine that once again the rankings from last week will by and large remain the same, it's just the scores that will increase (or, in the case of Adjusted Playoff Points, decrease).

If you want a look at how these scores are calculated, you can view my season preview post. Here's our data from Week 5.


American Athletic
Wins: 3.00 (4th)
PP1: 3.50 (T-5th)
PP2: 1.30 (7th)
aPP: 1.50 (5th)

ACC
Wins: 3.21 (T-1st)
PP1: 5.86 (2nd)
PP2: 2.68 (2nd)
aPP: 3.43 (3rd)

Big Ten
Wins: 3.07 (3rd)
PP1: 5.50 (3rd)
PP2: 1.62 (4th)
aPP: 4.00 (2nd)

Big XII
Wins: 2.60 (6th)
PP1: 3.20 (7th)
PP2: 1.23 (8th)
aPP: 0.90 (6th)

Conference USA
Wins: 1.85 (11th)
PP1: 1.08 (11th)
PP2: 0.56 (11th)
aPP: -4.08 (11th)

Independents
Wins: 2.00 (T-9th)
PP1: 3.50 (T-5th)
PP2: 1.42 (6th)
aPP: -1.50 (8th)

MAC
Wins: 2.33 (T-7th)
PP1: 2.50 (9th)
PP2: 0.96 (9th)
aPP: -1.75 (9th)

Mountain West
Wins: 2.33 (T-7th)
PP1: 2.08 (10th)
PP2: 0.77 (10th)
aPP: -2.00 (10th)

Pac-12
Wins: 2.92 (5th)
PP1: 5.08 (4th)
PP2: 2.35 (3rd)
aPP: 3.25 (4th)

SEC
Wins: 3.21 (T-1st)
PP1: 6.79 (1st)
PP2: 3.12 (1st)
aPP: 4.71 (1st)

Sun Belt
Wins: 2.00 (T-9th)
PP1: 3.18 (8th)
PP2: 1.45 (5th)
aPP: -0.36 (7th)

To see the updated spreadsheet, click here.

Photographer uncredited (recovered from USA TODAY)

A few conferences swapped some places around, but for the most part things stayed where they were. Conference USA brings up the rear, and the SEC is now at least tied for first in every category, as seems to be the case on an annual basis.

At 5-0 with 16 First Degree Playoff Points apiece, Michigan and Tennessee are tied for the lead in that category. Clemson is in third with 14 points, followed by Texas A&M with 12 and Alabama has 11. Tennessee has moved into a tie with South Carolina for first in Second Degree Playoff Points with 5 apiece (though Tennessee's is obviously more legit given the bigger sample size), while Clemson is right there as well with 4.8 points. The 16 undefeated teams all have the same number of First Degree Playoff Points as they do Adjusted Playoff Points, while there are a number of teams in the negatives. Northwestern has the worst loss in that category thanks to Illinois State being a three loss team, but the Wildcats are only at -1 Adjusted Playoff Points, while Miami (Ohio) is in the worst shape in this category with -12 points.

I'm still trying to play around with charts a little bit, but I haven't had much more luck beyond updating the bar graph charting First Degree Playoff Points by conference. Hopefully I'll have a little more luck as the season goes along. In the meantime, I'll be back tomorrow with a look at the Week 6 schedule.