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.

2021 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 12

The penultimate week of the regular season gets underway tonight, which means it's time to get a quick peek at what's coming up.

We've got MACtion again each of the next two nights, which will help determine one automatic bid recipient, and likely not any at large berths. Most of that will come on Saturday, which is also when the D-III playoffs kick off, something I'm excited for.

There won't be many adjustments this week, though next week's batch of rivalry games certainly will. We'll see just how much that swings the pendulum, but for right now, here's where we're at going into Week 12.

2021 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 11

While I'm back at Merner Fieldhouse tonight straining my vocal cords some more, MACtion will be back in full swing, so it's time to take a look at the upcoming slate of college football action.

I did have a revision that I needed to make to last week's rankings, not knowing what was going on. I missed that the Wake Forest-North Carolina game was technically being considered a non-conference tilt. As such, the Week 10 numbers have been updated giving Wake and UNC both some additional NCSS points. That updated number will be reflected in this week's set of rankings.

So without further ado, let's get to it!

2021 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 10

Happy MACtion month.

I'm making sure I get this done earlier than I have a couple times earlier this season where the NCSS numbers aren't getting updated until way late in the week. But with more Tuesday and Wednesday night games (thanks MAC and ESPN), I'm trying to make sure I'm all caught up here.

Most of the games still from here on out will continue to be in-conference, but given the presence of seven independent teams, plus a rivalry week coming up sooner than we think, these numbers will continue to change.

So without further ado, let's see what's coming up!

2021 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 9

With eight weeks in the books, let's turn our attention to Week 9.

Pretty much everyone has played at least seven games to this point, and several teams are up to eight or even nine. By and large non-conference play is done, but we're here to chart how this is going still.

There's still one more massive shift yet coming in the final week of the regular season, but this week it didn't look like there was a ton. Let's take a look.

2021 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 8

I'm trying to move on quickly as it's time to get a look in at the upcoming schedule for Week 8!

I'm sure we're going to have more byes this week as things start to even out a little bit, but since we're now well into the thick of the conference race, there will be minimal changes in conference scores here.

So below, let's take a look at the games that will change any numbers among the conference for this coming week.

2021 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 7

We're back at it again as we get ready for Week 7. Especially considering Tuesday Night Football is back on the docket... this is kind of important to make sure we're on schedule.

I noticed a bunch of byes this week, which we were definitely due since a majority of the country has played every week to this point. I'm sure we'll see a fair amount more over the next few as we start to get towards the end of the regular season.

So since we're back on schedule, I'm only looking at the games for Week 7 this time around. Let's get to it!

2021 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 6

After missing a week, let's get back on track here.

Fortunately we didn't miss a ton last week as conference play began in full force, but there's still updates that need to be made. So this week, I'm going to look back at the numbers from Week 5, as well as from Week 6.

Ultimately, I don't think we're going to see a ton of changes from here on out, except maybe a bit in the SEC and ACC since there's some cross-conference rivalry games in here. Let's get to it.

2021 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 4

We're about a month into the season, as we move into Week 4 of the campaign and we take a look at the upcoming non-conference slate. 

More and more teams are starting to get into conference play, but we're not quite there yet, so this week and possibly next we're still going to be going a little more in depth about schedules for the week. Obviously, with the seven independent schools, there will still be updates to this on a weekly basis, but eventually the numbers will start to level off here.

So without further ado, here's the numbers for Week 4.

2021 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 3

With two weeks' worth of games in the books and on the sheet, let's look ahead now to Week 3.

There's still a lot of data left to gather given the fact that there's still several weeks of season left to play out, but we're starting to near the end of the bulk of non-conference play. There will still be big jumps for much of the country up to this point.

So as we look at Week 3, we'll add onto the score for Week 2 and compare to where we were just a few days ago.

2021 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 2

I'm running way behind this week between the holiday, a heavy work week, and making sure this year's Pigskin Pick 'Em contest got off the ground. But we're catching up, so let's get back to the college gridiron!

Week 1 is always a fun one because of the massive non-conference games that help kick the season off. And because for almost the entire division this was the first game of the season, I'm skipping the Week 1 Playoff Points post. I'll look into that early next week when the Week 2 games are in the books.

So now that I have a baseline though with a week's worth of games, I'll have a comparison point. Each conference will list what their average score for the week was, followed by their cumulative score for the season to date. I'll also include where that league ranked last week. This is being written from the perspective of the games being upcoming even though it's Sunday night and everything is complete.

2021 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 1

With the NCAA football season beginning with a "Week Zero" starting on Saturday the 28th, it's time to get the posting back into more regularity. There are a handful of games being played that day, but we're going to wrap those games into Week 1 for the sake of not breaking things horribly.

It's been a couple of years since I ran this weekly piece leading up to the Death to the BCS Playoffs, and I figure it's time to get back into the swing of it. I mentioned in my season intro that these rankings are somewhat of a secondary feature; their primary role is my way of making sure who is/isn't playing too many FCS teams, but it's also a nice additional metric to see the way teams are scheduling things.

So in this feature, I rank the conferences based on their average scores cumulatively through the season, though obviously this only factors in one, maybe two games for those who played in Week Zero. Independents are considered their own conference for the purpose of this metric, though they don't get ranked in this feature as every game for those teams is a non-conference game and that skews the standings.

So without further ado, here's how Week 1 shakes out.

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.

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.

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.

2017 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 13

With Nick Saban Is A Coward Week behind us, we can get to the week everybody loves in the regular season: Rivalry Week!

For the most part, these rivalry games are played in conference, but there are a number of games that are played between interconference rivals, and these games need to be accounted for. That, combined with the four independent schools, and the need for this post for one final week this season becomes clear.

You can find a primer on how the NCSS metric works in my season introductory post. Here's the final set of rankings by conference for the 2017 season.

2017 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 12

For those of you who either ignored my warning yesterday afternoon or were intrigued by it, I have one thing to say to you this morning: Happy Nick Saban Is A Coward Week!

To be completely fair to Coach Saban, it's not just him. During last year's Nick Saban Is A Coward Week, five other teams joined in on the cowardice of playing an FCS team the second to last week of the regular season, and all of those coaches are equally as cowardly as Saban. Saban is just the highest profile coach of a team who does this, and thus has the indignity of getting this week named after him.

Also to be fair, there are still other non-conference games that need to be factored into NCSS scores, and with the way the Sun Belt has scheduled out its season, they could finally supplant the MAC atop the conference rankings. But we have to check to find out.

You can find a primer on how the NCSS metric works in my season introductory post. Below are the ten FBS conference ranked by average NCSS.

2017 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 11

We're officially a week away from Nick Saban Is A Coward Week... not my favorite week of the college football season, but one of the more fun ones because of the potshots I get to take.

Last week saw the beginning of full on MACtion, which part of me wishes would take place sooner in the schedule, but once the World Series ends there's not a ton of competition on TV, and it gives every team a chance to get their bye weeks in.

If you need a refresher on how this metric works, you can read that in my season introductory post. Here's what's on tap for Week 11.

2017 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 10

Happy Halloween from Confessions of a Sportscaster! Unfortunately, this morning I don't really have anything scary cooked up for you. Instead, I'm back to looking at college football schedules.

The fun part is that tonight begins the reign of MACtion as we get our middle of the week football fix. Last week had a little MACtion on Thursday night, but not the Tuesday-Wednesday mix of stuff that's fun. There are a handful of Thursday games though to take a look at as well.

If you need a refresher on how this metric works, you can read that in my season introductory post. Let's look at what we've got coming up.

2017 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 9

We only have a few short weeks left before we get to Championship Weekend, but there are still plenty of non-conference games left to be played. As such, it's time to take a look at the schedule again.

Last week saw us settle into what the pecking order basically is in terms of this metric: the Group of Five conference at the top, then the Power Five below them. Of course, some things can change, and they will.

If you need a refresher on how this metric works, you can read that in my season introductory post. Let's look at the schedule!