2017 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 13 Mock Bracket

The playoffs are well underway in every division of college football except the FCS. And now that North Central got bounced badly, I can turn my full attention to basketball and the Death to the BCS Playoffs.

The regular season is over for all but one conference, plus some assorted other games including the Army-Navy game that's not going to have any playoff impact. So with the conference title games taking place this coming weekend, I need to do one final mock bracket.

This is for the playoff system created by Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter, and Jeff Passan in the pictured book where there's a 16 team field: 10 automatic bids to every conference champion, plus six at larges to fill the field. They are seeded 1-16, with home field advantage going to the higher seed for the first three rounds before the title game is held in college football's mecca: Pasadena.

So how do we fill the field, and how is it seeded? Ideally, this would be done by committee, but since we don't have a committee for this, I take that responsibility on, though I don't just do it based on the eye test. I use a number of metrics to help me make the right decision. I glance at Non-Conference Schedule Strength (NCSS) to get a measurement of whether teams are trying to challenge themselves out of their conference schedule (and it also gives me an excuse to call Nick Saban a coward). More importantly, I care about results. That's where First Degree (PP1), Second Degree (PP2), and Adjusted Playoff Points (aPP) come in. Those factor in who you beat, and also a little bit of who they beat as well as the Adjusted points factoring in losses. This helps differentiate between 10-2 teams or 11-1 teams. Finally, to help factor in margin of victory and create a lack of bias, I also look at computer rankings devised by Jeff Sagarin (SAG), the late David Rothman as compiled by a UCLA staff member (ROTH), and from the website All My Sports Teams Suck (AMSTS). These factors, along with factors like head to head victories and wins over other playoff teams combine organically to build the bracket.

And so, with that explanation out of the way, let's look at our final mock bracket for this season.

1. Wisconsin (12-0, Big Ten "Champion")- NCSS: 4, PP1: 69, PP2: 25.58, aPP: 69; SAG: 5, ROTH: 1, AMSTS: 1 (LW: 2)
2. Clemson (11-1, At Large)- NCSS: 5, PP1: 69, PP2: 31.27, aPP: 61; SAG: 2, ROTH: 2, AMSTS: 4 (LW: 4)
3. Auburn (10-2, SEC "Champion")- NCSS: 4, PP1: 60, PP2: 28.90, aPP: 56; SAG: 3, ROTH: 5, AMSTS: 6 (LW: 9)
4. Alabama (11-1, At Large)- NCSS: 3, PP1: 64, PP2: 25.09, aPP: 62; SAG: 1, ROTH: 6, AMSTS: 3 (LW: 1)
5. Georgia (11-1, At Large)- NCSS: 5, PP1: 64, PP2: 28.00, aPP: 62; SAG: 8, ROTH: 4, AMSTS: 5 (LW: 5)
6. Oklahoma (11-1, Big 12 "Champion")- NCSS: 5, PP1: 62, PP2: 24.00, aPP: 57; SAG: 7, ROTH: 7, AMSTS: 9 (LW: 6)
7. UCF (11-0, American Athletic "Champion")- NCSS: 3, PP1: 59, PP2: 20.45, aPP: 59; SAG: 16, ROTH: 3, AMSTS: 2 (LW: 8)
8. Miami (Florida) (10-1, ACC "Champion")- NCSS: 1, PP1: 57, PP2: 27.60, aPP: 50; SAG: 12, ROTH: 11, AMSTS: 11 (LW: 3)
9. Ohio State (10-2, At Large)- NCSS: 4, PP1: 59, PP2: 26.50, aPP: 53; SAG: 6, ROTH: 9, AMSTS: 7 (LW: 10)
10. USC (10-2, Pac 12 "Champion")- NCSS: 5, PP1: 58, PP2: 25.40, aPP: 52; SAG: 15, ROTH: 14, AMSTS: 15 (LW: 11)
11. TCU (10-2, At Large)- NCSS: 3, PP1: 48, PP2: 18.00 aPP: 42; SAG: 10, ROTH: 12, AMSTS: 14 (LW: 12)
12. Stanford (9-3, At Large)- NCSS: 4, PP1: 52, PP2: 29.00, aPP: 45; SAG: 13, ROTH: 16, AMSTS: 16 (LW: NR)
13. Florida Atlantic (9-3, Conference USA "Champion")- NCSS: 5, PP1: 47, PP2: 18.67, aPP: 36; SAG: 59, ROTH: 62, AMSTS: 29 (LW: 14)
14. Toledo (10-2, MAC "Champion")- NCSS: 5, PP1: 43, PP2: 15.40, aPP: 38; SAG: 51, ROTH: 49, AMSTS: 22 (LW: 15)
15. Fresno State (9-3, Mountain West "Champion")- NCSS: 6, PP1: 41, PP2: 18.33, aPP: 31; SAG: 56, ROTH: 57, AMSTS: 34 (LW: NR)
16. Troy (9-2, Sun Belt "Champion")-  NCSS: 5, PP1: 36, PP2: 13.33, aPP: 26; SAG: 74, ROTH: 80, AMSTS: 37 (LW: 16)

Out of the playoffs: Notre Dame (7), Boise State (13)

So I'm going to break my normal pattern with the exposition after unveiling the field. The ten teams labelled as "champions" at this point either have a superior conference record or hold a tiebreaker. Or, in the case of Miami still holding the ACC title, I didn't want to swap that over this week. I've got the post for the official bracket in draft mode, and copied over this field, plus eight other teams that are pretty much all the other conference championship players so I can just slide teams in.

Photo from Getty Images (photographer uncredited)

First, before I get into seeding, I want to look at the six at large teams and the process that went into it. Clemson is the first team there, and with just one loss is pretty much a lock to make the playoffs (if I'd swapped the ACC title to Clemson from Miami, the Hurricanes would probably also be safe). Alabama slots in next as a team with one of the best sets of metrics in the country. They're locked into 11-1 and thus, for all intents and purposes, locked into this at large spot as well. Georgia is next in basically the same boat, except they're playing for a conference title. Even with a loss that would knock them down to 11-2, they're probably still in good enough shape to advance as well. After them is where the at large picture starts to get a little watered down. Ohio State is probably the best two loss team in the at large picture at the moment with the metrics to back them up, and even a loss to Wisconsin this weekend shouldn't knock them out. It gets a little dicier as we get to TCU; they're mainly buoyed by high computer rankings since their Playoff Points scores aren't the greatest, but 48 First Degree points is nothing to sneeze at. They're probably in pretty good shape regardless of the Oklahoma game.

Photo by Tony Avelar (AP)

The last spot is the one most debatable. Ultimately I was looking at four teams: Notre Dame, who just fell to 9-3, Stanford, also 9-3 but just beat the Irish and are playing for the Pac 12 title Washington, who is 10-2 and tied for the Pac 12 North title, and 10-1 Memphis, who will play Central Florida for the American Athletic title. Notre Dame has the best metrics and Washington has the better overall record, but Stanford has wins over both, while Memphis has good computer rankings but doesn't have the Playoff Points to match. I'm not thrilled about putting a three loss team in in this one, but I'm also more worried about what happens if chalk reigns in the title games, because that would mean I'm looking at a four loss at large team, and I'm not sure I can justify that. We'll see how the weekend plays out though. Notre Dame is probably my first team out, followed by Washington and then Memphis.

Photo from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (photographer uncredited)

With that all said, let's look at seeding. Wisconsin is an undefeated Power Five tentative champion, and if they beat Ohio State this weekend, they'll have the signature win that will really justify the road to Pasadena running through Madison. The computers like them and they have among the best Playoff Points in the country, so I'm comfortable with it. Clemson slides up to #2 and also gets three home games as the best one loss team in the country with similar Playoff Points and almost as good of computer rankings. Auburn's Iron Bowl win launches them up six spots from last week as our tentative SEC "champion" with wins over a pair of highly seeded playoff teams. It was a tough call for who to give the #4 seed and thus a second home game to between Alabama and Georgia. Georgia has the division title, but Alabama has a win over a current playoff team (Fresno State). That, combined with a slightly higher PP2, gives the Tide the nod.

Photo by Kyle Phillips (Norman Transcript)

Georgia comes in right after them at #5, but with a chance to move up should they win. I have Oklahoma slotting in next, though probably lower than what the College Football Playoff Selection Committee has them at, but the five teams ahead of them all have better metrics. A conference title win will probably push them up a little bit, but it's hard to say exactly how much. I then have UCF moving up a spot to #7 where their undefeated record and strong metrics give them a home game, but not much else. Miami will still hang onto a home game despite their loss, ending their slide as the #8 seed. Again, they could move back up with an ACC title.

Photo by Marvin Fong (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Now we really start to get into the multiple loss field. Ohio State, USC, and TCU are all 10-2 and playing for their respective conference titles, but I had them in this same order last week, and nothing has changed in that regard. Ohio State still has the best metrics of the three, and USC has better numbers than TCU; the computers may like TCU a little more, but it doesn't make up for the huge Playoff Point disparity. That leaves the #12 seed for our last at large team, and that's where Stanford takes up residence.

Photo by Eric Paul Zamora (Fresno Bee)

The remainder of the field is our last four conference champions. Boise State's loss moves pretty much everyone up a spot; Florida Atlantic still has the best numbers of the four remaining teams and thus gets the #13 seed ahead of Toledo. The Rockets have better computer rankings than Fresno State, who beat Boise State in a Mountain West title game preview, which means the Bulldogs slide in at #15 despite three losses ahead of a 9-2 Troy team that has a good win at LSU, but little else to hang its hat on.

I will work through my rationale next week in a similar manner, starting with my at large picks and then going through the seeding process. Another factor not mentioned here is the ideal goal of avoiding rematches. In this mock bracket I'd have Oklahoma and TCU playing a third time, in which case I'd end up moving a couple teams around to avoid this. With them playing this weekend though, this problem will end up sorting itself out for the final version, but it's a factor I will definitely bring into play.

Those of you who made note of my struggle to fill the last at large spot: don't mention Penn State to me. You know how this goes: they are permanently banned from the Death to the BCS Playoffs for being a cult that harbored a pedophile in the name of protecting the image of the football program. I'm just lucky this time around that they aren't playing in the Big Ten title game, because that just created a weird disqualifying situation that probably messed the bracket up.

So tomorrow I'll be back with a look at the automatic bid games (nine of which are simple conference title games, plus the Sun Belt hurting my head). There will be no Week 14 NCSS post, because I think there were only one or two non-conference games this week, plus the Army-Navy game in a couple weeks. There will also be no Week 14 Playoff Points post, because there are only a handful of games that will impact those scores; I don't count conference championship games towards Playoff Points since not every conference has them and it's not fair to every at large team not playing in one. So after the auto bids post, the next college football-related post you'll see from me will be Monday's reveal of the 2017 Death to the BCS Playoff bracket!