2021 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Auto Bid Games and At Large Picture

This is a more recent feature as part of the Death to the BCS Playoff series. Especially since I haven't been doing mock brackets this year, this means this post becomes all the more important.

Championship Weekend is all but upon us. That means ten games to determine ten conference champions, all of whom will get an automatic bid into the Death to the BCS Playoffs. For some, their playoff bid may be a formality, others may need to win that game to ensure they're already in. For still others, this is a game merely for seeding purposes. So many motivations all in play here.

There is one additional game being played this weekend: the makeup of Cal-USC that was postponed due to COVID a few weeks ago. Neither team is in the running for a playoff spot, but that game will have some ancillary effects on playoff contenders (possible additional playoff points).

I'll go into the full playoff criteria when I reveal the playoff field, but to give a general idea of what's going to happen with at large selection, I'm borrowing a process from Division III of the NCAA. They split the country into geographic regions, rank teams in each region, then for at large (what D-III calls "Pool C"), they take the top ranked team from each region that didn't earn an automatic bid and put them "at the table" for selection. They'll pick the best team based on criteria from that group, then the next team up from that region comes to the table. We'll do this for the Death to the BCS Playoffs, except by conference instead of region.

So with that in mind, let's look at the conference title games and what each conference's at large chances are.

2019 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Fast Forward

We're starting to see something of a return to normalcy now. The Stanley Cup Final is complete, the NBA Finals are underway, the MLB Playoffs are about to begin... and football is more or less in full swing. The NFL has gone on with minimal hitches, and the FBS is starting to get back to normal as some conferences are already playing and others are coming back soon.

This would normally be where I'd be announcing the 2020 Death to the BCS Playoffs. Problem is, given the way the schedules are set up, with different conferences starting later, I don't think it's a fair year or a good year to do the Death to the BCS Playoffs. Fortunately, I still have the 2019 bracket to go through!

I built this bracket out way back in December, when the word "pandemic" wasn't on anyone's mind, North Central was coming off a huge upset of Mount Union en route to a national title, and I was in the midst of a long basketball layoff. Teams were not in on my simulator in time to do the playoff in real time like I had for the first few years, but now that they are, and we're in full swing of football, it's time to attack this again.

You can view the official bracket, which will include final scores when we're done, here. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's play some football!

2018 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Fast Forward

I have no idea of the timing of the 2019 Death to the BCS Playoffs, as once again I'm at the mercy of my simulator. But while we're waiting and hoping for that to get started... let's go back in time.

I spent a ton of time waiting for the 2018 teams to pop up as well, and I don't know exactly when they came through, but at some point they did, so I can finally go back and simulate out that postseason.

Like I did last year, instead of doing one post for each round, I'm doing the whole postseason in one go. Higher seeds get home field advantage for the first three rounds, with the title game being played in Pasadena. I will go back and grab weather conditions at kickoff from each location for each game to try and make what would have happened as accurate as possible. With my usual handicapping website that I used for injury updates not helpful for a tournament from a year ago, I'm going to go with standard starting lineups for teams unless I see something on a box score from that team's bowl game from last year that leads me to believe there was an injury at play.

All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's crown a 2018 champion.

2019 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Auto Bid Games and At Large Picture

I'm going to take a break from reveling in an all-time upset to look at the highest level of college football as we approach Championship Week.

The regular season is finally over and we're onto what are essentially play-in games for the College Football Playoff, but also for the Death to the BCS Playoffs, based off the system proposed in the book pictured here. As I'd hoped, I was able to track results over the course of the entire season and logged my metrics here. I've also, over the past couple weeks, been looking at computer rankings to prepare myself. I haven't officially built a mock bracket yet, but I at least kind of know where I'm going. I just want to get it in writing before the games are played, with the knowledge that computer rankings may change and with new factors getting added that things may end up changing.

But the point of this post, as in years prior, is to look at the upcoming games to determine automatic bids. Most of these are pretty straightforward. One piece I am adding in each entry this year is how at large odds look for each conference. The exact selection method will be explained next week when I build the bracket.

2019 MLB Tournament of Champions: Championship

128 teams entered. Over six thousand games later, we're down to just two teams as we renew our quest to find the greatest MLB team of all time as part of the 2019 MLB Tournament of Champions. Every World Series champion got an invitation to the fun, and every franchise without a title got at least one iteration from their history into the festivities. They then went through a grueling 90 game double round robin to build up a significant sample size.

That accounted for 5,760 of the 6000-plus games, but that was just the beginning as I began a single elimination tournament from the top eight teams from each of the groups I'd built out for this tournament. Five rounds later, we have our top two teams left standing. And the fun part for this: we get an old rematch.

On one side was arguably the favorite coming into this whole thing. They were the best team in the 2017 Tournament of Champions, but proceeded to need every possible game to win the Championship of Champions. For a title defense, the 2016 Cubs seemed poised to be a dominant force once again, but ran into some slight hiccups. Despite losing their final four series in group play, the Cubs went 54-36, good for second place in Group H. They swept the 1919 Cincinnati Reds in the opening round of the postseason before needing winner-take-all games at home to finish off the 1972 Oakland Athletics and 1938 New York Yankees. A quarterfinal sweep over the 1944 St. Louis Cardinals, winners of their own group, and a six game victory of the legendary 1927 New York Yankees, have the Cubs back to within four wins of further immortality.

On the other side was a team that, in 2017, tied for the third-best record among my National League representatives, but was relegated to Wild Card status for the postseason. They won the Wild Card series that year before dropping a heartbreaking fifth game on a walk-off homer to... the 2016 Cubs. The 1975 Cincinnati Reds came back two years later placed in a different group, and worked to a 57-33 record... which unfortunately for them was only good for third in their group as they finished just one game behind the co-leaders. But the Reds won their first two series in four games apiece over the 2004 Boston Red Sox and 1912 Boston Red Sox, respectively, before punching their ticket to the quarterfinals with a sweep of the group champion 1924 Washington Senators. Cincinnati followed that up with a six game victory over the 1984 Detroit Tigers to remove the DH from the rest of the tournament, then won a hard-fought seven game series over the 1953 New York Yankees to get one more crack at the team that knocked them off two years ago.

This time around, the Reds will get home field advantage by virtue of their better Group Play record. It's a best of seven series played in a 2-3-2 format, so the Reds will get a little more leeway than the best-of-five they had to play in two years ago. In prior rounds of this postseason I've just gone with results and records. This time, I'm going to do brief writeups of each game in this series. You can view the bracket to date, as well as scores and standings from as far back as group play, here. All simulations for the entire Tournament of Champions are provided by WhatIfSports.com. And so, one final time this year... let's play ball!

2017 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Fast Forward

We interrupt preparations for the 2018 Death to the BCS Playoffs with a blast from the past. So... remember when I said I was cancelling the Death to the BCS Playoffs? I lied.

In early October, I was making my occasional rounds on WhatIfSports to check to see if teams were getting updated. And finally... the 2017 college football teams were there.

This has me encouraged for the upcoming 2018 Death to the BCS Playoffs, but while we wait for that, I wanted to make sure I had some content for the interim. And since the 2017 teams are on there... let's go back in time and resolve the 2017 postseason.

The link above takes you to my post about the 2017 bracket and my rationales for picking who I did, so I'm not going to go too much into the field. But I will go through the process of simulating the playoffs. Normally I go on a week by week basis, but since this should have been played months ago I am simulating the entire postseason in one go.

The simulation process, however, is going to remain largely the same. Higher seeds get home field advantage through the first three rounds, with the title game being played in Pasadena. Weather conditions from the specified game times and dates will be taken into account. In the past, I've used Don Best's handicapping website for making sure injured players aren't in these playoff games, but seeing as we're well past that point his site is useless this season. I will likely just go with the default lineups for this postseason, but I'll try to cross check against bowl game box scores to make sure no one who was out for the year ends up impacting the postseason.

All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com, now that they've finally uploaded this year's teams. So, without any further delay, let's start the Death to the BCS Playoffs.

2018 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Automatic Bid Games

As I promised... the Death to the BCS Playoffs will live on.

I haven't done my two-to-three times a week series of posts on the 2018 college football season because I wasn't sure if my work would end up coming to fruition. But the 2017 college football teams showed up on my simulator, which likely means the 2018 teams are going to be coming as well.

In the interim, I have been continuing to track college football results and update my usual set of metrics. With Conference Championship Weekend approaching, that means the field will soon have its ten automatic bid recipients, and I'll need to pick my six at large teams and seed everyone. But that's getting a little ahead of myself.

As I've done in years past, I will go through the schedule for Week 14, noting that there are some additional games going on based on postponements from the regular season. Those games will get factored into teams' numbers and will obviously impact some things in terms of computer rankings. But the important games... the games that will determine automatic bid winners? Information on those comes after the jump.

2018 NFL Tournament of Champions: Championship

We interrupt our series of NFL season previews for... some more NFL content, as the final step of my project comes to completion.

I wasn't even sure I'd be able to do a project like this with my simulator not getting current teams out. But then in April they released the 2017 NFL teams, and I was able to start running a renewed NFL Tournament of Champions! All 52 Super Bowl champions entered a gauntlet at the beginning of May, playing 12 games apiece to narrow the field down to 24 teams. After four more weeks, we're down to our final two in the quest to find the Champion of Champions.

Playing the role of our visiting team is our number two overall seed and defending Champion of Champions in the 1999 St. Louis Rams. The Rams went 10-2 in group play, losing to a pair of playoff teams but taking the group crown by one game over the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They've followed that up with wins over the 1971 Dallas Cowboys, 1992 Dallas Cowboys, and 2016 New England Patriots, all at home, to reach this stage. But in this title round, they are purely by seeding the underdog.

Our host is the best team from group play and our top overall seed in the 1996 Green Bay Packers. Coming off a quarterfinal appearance in 2014, the Packers were the last remaining undefeated team in group play, winning their first eight games before falling to the 2011 New York Giants, but that was their lone blemish en route to an 11-1 mark and home field advantage throughout the postseason. They've taken advantage of it, knocking off the 2015 Denver Broncos, 1968 New York Jets, and 2000 Baltimore Ravens to reach the pinnacle of sport: a date for immortality and the Championship of Champions.

As the top overall seed, the Packers get to play this game at Lambeau Field. Weather conditions from Green Bay over the weekend will be taken into account. You can view the history of this year's Tournament of Champions, including standings and scores, here. As has been the case all tournament, all simulations have been provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's crown a champion!

2017 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Automatic Bid Games

I started this feature last year, because in Week 14 it's almost all conference championship games, and as such NCSS really won't make any changes. There are a few games where changes will be made, with that said, and you can check my spreadsheet for those updates. A quick survey of my schedule shows that there are all of two games this week that fit that criteria, though I will throw the Army-Navy game in as a feature for this week even though it's a week and a half out. It does count for those metrics.

Speaking of that Army-Navy game, that game won't have any bearing on the playoffs; neither team is in contention for an at-large bid (Navy has five losses, and Army has three without the requisite metrics to overcome them). As such, it thus comes down to a total of twelve games to fill the ten automatic bids. Nine of those are conference title games; I'll go into those games below. The other three are Sun Belt contests, and as the only conference without a championship game, the tiebreakers are once again messy.

MLB Tournament of Champions: Championship

Four and a half months. 1,415 games. That's how long it has taken for the MLB Tournament of Champions to reach its apex. 30 teams entered this tournament with dreams of being the greatest team of all time, one representative from each franchise. We're now down to two, who will do battle for the title of Champion of Champions.

As with every series to date, I will end up going through game by game, because after all this time, these two teams deserve the fullest attention I can give them.

On one side of the battle, we have what many people probably would have considered one of the pre-tournament favorites: the 2016 Chicago Cubs. The team that every Cubs fan was waiting for came into this tournament and largely dominated, winning a tournament-high 59 games to secure home field advantage throughout the playoffs. One could argue they've needed it, though they're 3-4 at Wrigley this postseason. It hasn't mattered, as they've done enough on the road, going 4-1 over two series to reach this point. Problem is, in both series they've needed a winner-take-all game to advance, and they've squeaked by in both, needing a walkoff home run by Ben Zobrist to make the NLCS, and requiring some masterful Game 7 pitching by Jake Arrieta to survive and advance to this round. Arrieta has probably been the best pitcher in the tournament, and the Cubs have gotten timely clutch hits from guys like Zobrist, Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, and even the ageless David Ross. Now, they are just four more wins from another level of immortality.

Standing in their way was a team that was a strike away from winning the World Series in its time: the 2011 Texas Rangers. After dropping heartbreaking Games 6 and 7 six years ago, the Rangers used that defeat to fuel them in the tightest division race in the tournament en route to 53 wins and an AL West title. It ranked them third among American League division winners, meaning they had to start on the road, but it didn't matter. They took the first two games in Boston in the ALDS and knocked off the 2004 Red Sox in four. They also had to start on the road in the ALCS against Cleveland, but took two out of three both there and at home, including the clinching Game 6 to bring them to this title round.

These two titans will play a best of seven series in a 2-3-2 format to determine the Champion of Champions. The Cubs get home field advantage by virtue of the better tournament record, even though they played no interleague games so there are no common opponents to judge these teams by. This means that in Games 1, 2, and if necessary 6 and 7 pitchers will bat for themselves in the National League park. Games 3, 4, and if necessary 5 in Texas will have the benefit of the designated hitter, so both teams will have some lineup tinkering to do here and there. The Rangers had to do it for their three games in Baltimore, but for the most part have had the benefit of the DH all tournament long. For the Cubs, this is new, and unfortunately unlike the 2016 World Series, Kyle Schwarber is not walking through the virtual clubhouse doors.

I have kept stats for the entire postseason portion of the tournament, and you can view those stats both by round and in aggregate here. I will use these stats when all is said and done to pick both a Series MVP and an overarching Tournament MVP. At a later time I will also make a post with some All-Tournament Teams from the entire tournament. For this series, as with all 1,415 games before, all simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's crown a champion.

Super Bowl LI Predictions and Prop Bets

It's become a true tradition unlike any other: Super Bowl weekend, and Adam and I are scratching gambling itches without spending any money... or at least I am.

I don't remember what last year's results on this were, but two years ago I won pretty much solely based on the Gatorade bath taken by Bill Belichick. Hopefully I won't need that this year to win. Like in prior years, we're going to make our picks for the game and enjoy a few prop bets; many are game-based, but we're also going to do some extra curricular ones because those are fun.

But first, here are our Super Bowl LI predictions.

2016 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Championship

It's Tuesday morning, the National Championship Game in the College Football Playoff saw a titan toppled at the last second, but in an alternate reality, the Death to the BCS Playoffs reaches its conclusion tonight as well.

About a month ago, at the conclusion of the regular season, I took the ten conference "champions" (in quotations because Penn State was banned from the Death to the BCS Playoffs, and I cannot tell you how much schadenfreude I got from them losing to USC) and six deserving at large teams entered a tournament to decide a national champion slightly differently from what the College Football Playoff did.

Our first round saw a few upsets, including reality's national champion getting bounced by a #14 seed. The quarterfinals and then the semifinals saw the home teams advance, however, so we got a #1 versus #2 matchup in this year's title game.

Like in prior years, the Death to the BCS Championship Game is played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, so the weather in Pasadena at kickoff time is taken into account. I decided to just simulate this title game as a best of three, with the "clinching" game serving as the official result. Depth chart information for each team will be taken from Don Best's handicapping website. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's crown a champion.

2016 NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions: Championship

Way back in April, I announced that I was going to undergo a major project over the span of about six months. The last 65 NBA champions, along with the nine ABA champions, were going to compete to find the greatest team of all time. I've run this experiment a couple times before coming to the same conclusion: the 1996 Chicago Bulls are the greatest. I wanted to include the ABA teams, however, because to exclude them might cloud things a little bit.

Those 74 teams were narrowed to 72 in June, and the ABA teams played a single round robin amongst themselves to give me a baseline to judge them by. That set the stage for a five week long tournament to narrow the field even further down to 32. And now, just two teams remain.

In one corner, we have a blue blood champion that has had some success in the first two tournaments. The 1997 Chicago Bulls romped through the first three rounds in 2013, losing just two games total before falling in seven to the eventual finalist in the 2005 San Antonio Spurs. 2015 was also kind to Chicago as they won that tournament's Group E with an 11-3 record and had no trouble in the first two rounds before dropping a heartbreaking Game 7 at Oracle Arena to the 2015 Golden State Warriors. After stewing on that loss, they came into the 2016 Tournament of Champions as a contender once again and held their own, going 13-3 and winning Group G. It's been a tough road in the Elimination Stage, but the Bulls have done their damage, knocking off the 2003 Spurs before avenging their elimination to the '05 Spurs. They beat their younger selves from 1992 then got arguably a sweeter revenge, knocking off the '15 Warriors in Game 7 to make up for last year's shortfall. Here stands Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and company: just four wins from immortality.

Standing in their way is a true Cinderella story. The 1985 Los Angeles Lakers easily dispatched their first round opponent in 2013 and got a Game 1 winner at the buzzer from Kurt Rambis in Round 2 before dropping four straight to the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers, including a winnable Game 4 where they blew an 11 point lead in regulation and lost on a buzzer beating dunk in overtime. Los Angeles went 10-4 in Group B last year, good for third place. They pulled a seven game upset in the first round and responded to a Game 1 loss in the next round with four straight wins to advance to the quarterfinals before running into the buzzsaw that was the 1996 Chicago Bulls. The Lakers got put in a tough group this year and managed to sneak into the Elimination Stage with an 8-8 record and overcome the 1993 Bulls thanks to the tiebreaker. They were the second-worst team to advance, but shocked the world by sweeping their group's winner and #2 overall seed in the 1990 Detroit Pistons. They then managed to get by three different iterations of Laker teams, starting with the constantly contending and underrated 1972 team before surviving a seven game war with their 1987 counterparts and knocking off Shaq and Kobe's 2002 team to arrive at the ultimate stage.

These two titans have earned their way here, but they need to win four more games to claim the prize as the greatest team of all time. To determine that, we are once again playing a best of sever series in a 2-2-1-1-1 format. Home court advantage goes to the Bulls by virtue of their winning their group while the Lakers finished in fourth place. All simulations are once again provided by WhatIfSports.com. And now, without further ado, let's crown a champion.

2015 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Championship

In 2011, shortly after I launched Confessions of a Sportscaster, I took the BCS to task, and created an alternate playoff format that included 16 teams. At the time, I hadn't yet completed the Wetzel, Peter, and Passan classic pictured to the left. That original 2011 tournament is the only time through my first few years of blogging that I got the exact same matchup as the on-field national championship game.

Of course, once I finished said book, I had to throw together a playoff bracket in the Wetzel, Peter, and Passan style. That first edition created the ultimate chaos. 2012 brought a reasonable championship matchup that differed from the official, but wasn't surprising. 2013's edition showed that simulations are bullcrap; the team that got spanked in the Rose Bowl won the whole shebang, while the team that destroyed them got upset in the first round. Last year's brought the same four teams to the semifinals as got there (albeit with different matchups), but the teams that made the real national championship game did not make it in the simulated version.

And so for the first time since the old format tournament in 2011, the teams playing for the on-field national championship will also meet in cyberspace for the title. Of course, there's a difference between on-field and online: the Death to the BCS Championship Game is played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena because where else would you play it? Clemson and Alabama will play for real in Glendale, Arizona, which is certainly a great place for a football game, but to me, the Rose Bowl just seems more fitting.

Now because this is a championship game, I need to do a better job of making sure to eliminate luck. As such, this matchup will be simulated as a best of five, instead of a best of three, with the "clinching" game being the official result still. Weather in Pasadena from last night will be taken into account. In addition, I checked Don Best's handicapping website yesterday to try to make sure that any injured or suspended players would not show up in the simulation to the best of my ability. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Will Alabama claim the virtual crown as well as the real crown? Let's find out.

2015 NBA Tournament of Champions: Championship

It's taken over three months, but we're finally here. Several rounds and 619 games later, we've narrowed the field down from the last 64 NBA champions down to two. And with it, Chicagoans have rejoiced.

In one corner, we have an underdog. After making the quarterfinals in 2013 and losing a heartbreaking seventh game to that year's Miami Heat, they had time to plan their revenge. They were the best defensive team in their high-scoring, Celtic-heavy group, but dropped a pair of games by three points total to the 2006 Heat, finishing 9-5 and in second place in the group. In Elimination play, they knocked out another 2013 quarterfinalist in the 1988 Lakers, survived a seven game war with the 1987 Lakers, then knocked out a pair of tournament juggernauts in the 1971 Bucks and, maybe more surprisingly, the 1986 Celtics. Now the 1991 Chicago Bulls are just four wins away from further immortality, but they have a massive challenge ahead.

In the other corner, we have the heavy favorite from before the tournament started. After losing four games total in the 2013 Tournament, the defending champions found themselves in something of a "Group of Death", but went 12-2 and earned the tiebreaker against the aforementioned '71 Bucks thanks to beating them twice to win the group and earn the number four overall seed. They got more than they bargained for in the Elimination round, getting a rematch of their 2013 quarterfinals series with the 1972 Lakers only to see themselves pushed to the brink, but they overcame adversity by winning a pair of elimination games to survive and advance. They erased any doubts in the next round despite a strong performance from Hakeem Olajuwon and the 1994 Rockets. They got a quarterfinal rematch with the third place team from their group, but the 1985 Lakers were no match. Having to cede home court advantage for the first time in their Tournament of Champions history, they weren't fazed by a raucous crowd in Oakland and took care of business against the top-seeded 2015 Warriors. The 1996 Chicago Bulls are back where they belong: in the championship round and just a few wins away from successfully defending their throne.

Like the past 30 series in the Elimination Round, this will be a best of seven played in a 2-2-1-1-1 format. Because they are a group winner, the 1996 Bulls will have home court advantage for the series. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. It is now time to crown a champion.

2014 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Championship

In an ideal world, I would be letting the game in Arlington, Texas Monday night play out on its own to decide this playoff system's champion. However, since home field advantage means a ton apparently, I have to simulate one more matchup. If you wish, consider this sim a third place game.

Last week the top two seeds of the Death to the BCS Playoffs escaped with narrow wins to make it to Arlington. While Ohio State won the real trophy in Arlington last night, Alabama and Florida State will take the virtual field to take up a virtual championship banner.

Since these teams have been dropped from Don Best's handicapping site, I'm using the standard starting lineups given to me. Since AT&T Stadium has a roof, weather is not being taken into account (so basically, 70 degrees, no wind, no precipitation). Since this is the title game, I will simulate this as a best-of-five as opposed to a best-of-three that I've done through the first three rounds. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's crown a "champion".