2016 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 13 Mock Bracket

And now we get down to the nitty gritty.


I'm still in a state of mourning, but I'll get over it. Wheaton deserved its win on Saturday. And so did all of the teams who won this past weekend as the Death to the BCS Playoff race gets even more complicated.

If you're unfamiliar with how this works, the Death to the BCS Playoffs are the brainchild of Yahoo! writers Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter, and Jeff Passan. They created a 16 team playoff at the highest level of college football, where all conference champions get an automatic bid, and the rest of the field is filled with at large teams. Those auto bids will all be settled next week: eight conference have a conference championship game, the Big 12 has a de facto championship game based on how the schedule aligned, and the Sun Belt will come down to a couple games and some tiebreakers to determine its champion.

From there, the field gets seeded from 1 to 16, with home field advantage going to the higher seeds for the first three rounds. This means finishing in the top two will net you three home games, a #3 or #4 seeds gets you a pair, and finishing in the top eight gives you one in the first round. These figures all assume, of course, that chalk gets rocked. But how do we decide the seeding? Wetzel, Peter, and Passan's idea was for a selection committee to do so, but in my case, I do it myself with the help of some metrics. I use (to an extent) Non Conference Schedule Strength (NCSS), First Degree (PP1), Second Degree (PP2), and Adjusted Playoff Points (aPP), as well as computer rankings compiled by Jeff Sagarin (SAG), the late David Rothman (ROTH), and the website All My Sports Teams Suck (AMSTS). These metrics all organically combine to build the exact playoff field.

And so, for the final time this season: let's create a mock bracket.

1. Alabama (12-0, SEC "Champion")- NCSS: 3, PP1: 76, PP2: 32.50, aPP: 76, SAG: 1, ROTH: 1, AMSTS: 1. (LW: 1)
2. Ohio State (11-1, At Large)- NCSS: 5, PP1: 74, PP2: 30.45, aPP: 72, SAG: 2, ROTH: 2, AMSTS: 2. (LW: 2)
3. Clemson (11-1, ACC "Champion")- NCSS: 5, PP1: 71, PP2: 30.09, aPP: 67, SAG: 4, ROTH: 6, AMSTS: 4. (LW: 4)
4. Washington (11-1, Pac 12 "Champion")- NCSS: 2, PP1: 55, PP2: 22.27, aPP: 52, SAG: 5, ROTH: 4, AMSTS: 5. (LW: 5)
5. Michigan (10-2, At Large)- NCSS: 4, PP1: 62, PP2: 26.40, aPP: 57, SAG: 3, ROTH: 3, AMSTS: 3. (LW: 3)
6. Oklahoma (9-2, Big XII "Champion")- NCSS: 4, PP1: 47, PP2: 19.67, aPP: 43, SAG: 6, ROTH: 14, AMSTS: 10. (LW: 6)
7. Western Michigan (12-0, MAC "Champion")- NCSS: 6, PP1: 54, PP2: 17.25, aPP: 54, SAG: 22, ROTH: 10, AMSTS: 6. (LW: 7)
8. Wisconsin (10-2, Big Ten Champion)- NCSS: 4, PP1: 55, PP2: 22.30, aPP: 52, SAG: 7, ROTH: 5, AMSTS: 7. (LW: 9)
9. Colorado (10-2, At Large)- NCSS: 3, PP1: 52, PP2: 23.70, aPP: 47, SAG: 11, ROTH: 8, AMSTS: 9. (LW: NR)
10. Oklahoma State (9-2, At Large)- NCSS: 2, PP1: 45, PP2: 20.78, aPP: 34, SAG: 19, ROTH: 28, AMSTS: 24. (LW: NR)
11. USC (9-3, At Large)- NCSS: 4, PP1: 57, PP2: 25.44, aPP: 48, SAG: 9, ROTH: 8, AMSTS: 9. (LW: 11)
12. Boise State (10-2, At Large)- NCSS: 8, PP1: 57, PP2: 20.50, aPP: 50, SAG: 33, ROTH: 29, AMSTS: 15. (LW: 10)
13. Temple (9-3, American Athletic "Champion")- NCSS: 4, PP1: 39, PP2: 15.00, aPP: 28, SAG: 38, ROTH: 39, AMSTS: 34. (LW: 14)
14. Appalachian State (9-3, Sun Belt "Champion")- NCSS: 8, PP1: 42, PP2: 15.44, aPP: 32, SAG: 58, ROTH: 48, AMSTS: 38. (LW: NR)
15. Wyoming (8-4, Mountain West "Champion")- NCSS: 5, PP1: 48, PP2: 25.13, aPP: 28, SAG: 80, ROTH: 65, AMSTS: 43. (LW: 13)
16. Louisiana Tech (8-4, Conference USA "Champion")- NCSS: 7, PP1: 33, PP2: 15.63, aPP: 11, SAG: 69, ROTH: 86, AMSTS: 56. (LW: 15)

Out of the playoffs: Louisville (8), Nebraska (11), Houston (12), San Diego State (14), Arkansas State (16)

Brutal week for playoff teams. I haven't had five drop out in a long time. Two of these were auto bid teams that lost their leads in their respective conferences, but are still in a position where they can reclaim their auto bids. The first three were all at large teams, but all suffered their third losses of the season and created a new level of chaos for me.

Photo by Greg Bartram (USA TODAY Sports)

The top of the bracket remains fairly stable. Alabama is one of only two teams to survive to this point in the season unbeaten, and they have the best numbers out of everybody, so they're far and away the top overall seed. It gets tricky after that, with Ohio State carrying the best metrics into Championship Week outside of the Tide, and they get the third home game despite not making the Big Ten Championship Game. Meanwhile, Clemson and Washington both jump a spot by finishing 11-1 and locking up division championships in their respective conferences this week. The Tigers, by pretty much every metric, appear to be the #3 team in the country, though they could possibly make the jump up to #2 next week if they win the ACC. We'll see. Washington, meanwhile, by virtue of only having one loss gets the jump over Michigan, who falls out of the top four for the first time all season.

Photo by Patrick Gorski (USA TODAY Sports)

The Wolverines instead get a tough 5-12 matchup and would have to go on the road to play the Huskies in Round 2, but their spot at #5 should be pretty stable. Oklahoma holds firm up at #6 following their bye with a chance to win the Big 12 outright this weekend. Western Michigan, as long as they win the MAC, should remain at the #7 spot and get a home game for their undefeated season troubles. And finally, Wisconsin gets the jump up to the #8 spot after "winning" the Big Ten. They get the conference's auto bid by default because Penn State is banned from the Death to the BCS Playoffs.

Photo by Cliff Grassmick (Daily Camera)

Colorado, after a couple weeks of consideration, finally gets its berth in the Death to the BCS Playoffs by winning the Pac 12 South and putting up excellent numbers that had gotten overshadowed up until now. They slot in one spot ahead of Oklahoma State, who will be playing for a Big 12 championship next week and while their numbers aren't overwhelming, they've only lost two games and have a solid victory over playoff contender West Virginia. Given the lack of two-loss teams with excellent resumes, I had to start looking at teams with three, and USC jumped off the page. They rank in the top 15 in PP2 and top ten in PP1 and aPP, plus the computers love them. Their wins over multiple playoff teams made them an easy choice to slot in at #11, just ahead of Boise State. The Broncos dropped a tough one to Air Force, but have a win over Washington State, an extremely high PP1 count, and reasonably favorable computer rankings to keep them in.

Photo by Yong Kim (Philly.com)

We round out the bracket with our four remaining conference "champions."  Temple remains holding onto a solid resume through twelve games but has a tough matchup with Navy, who was also in consideration for an at large bid. Appalachian State, for this week at least, hangs onto an automatic bid from the Sun Belt, but it's a tenuous grip as their schedule is complete. Wyoming dropped its fourth game this past week, but has the temporary head to head tiebreaker over San Diego State to keep it in the #15 spot. Finally, Louisiana Tech also dropped a game, though they probably would have been the #16 seed even if they hadn't.

Photo by Ronald Martinez (Getty Images)

I faced some tough decisions this week with my at large teams. Navy is probably my first team out; at 9-2 they have an unfair disadvantage of not having played their full schedule yet. Obviously a win over Temple gets them into the Death to the BCS Playoffs, but even if they lose they might still be in the mix for an at large spot depending on the Army game. South Florida and West Virginia were also in the mix this week. The Mountaineers' biggest flaw is the lack of a signature win this season, while they're 0-2 against playoff teams. South Florida is probably in better shape thanks to their win over Navy, and if the Midshipmen knock off Temple, the Bulls could steal an at large bid thanks to that win, but losses to FSU and Temple aren't the greatest. I would probably say Navy and South Florida are my toughest outs, since everyone else has three or more losses and USC has the best resume of all those teams.

I've got numbers written down though for all teams that could potentially still grab an automatic bid, and those at large spots are not necessarily set in stone. Any upsets in conference championship games could upset the balance of power and knock a team that seems firmly in the playoff picture out for a more deserving team. We'll have to see. Tomorrow I'll be back with a look at those auto bid games and see what games ultimately matter for the purposes of the Death to the BCS Playoffs!