2016 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 9 Mock Bracket

I guess today you can call me Dr. Frankenstein.

Halloween just happens to fall on a Monday this year, which is when I'm doing my mock college football playoff brackets. And given the carnage that took place over the weekend, the name seems appropriate.

Just five undefeated teams remain at the FBS level, and no more than one in any given conference. The good news is that this helps free up some at large berths. The bad news is that picking out my conference "champions" for the week is going to be difficult, as I have to really look at standings.

As a refresher, the Death to the BCS Playoffs are the format created by Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter, and Jeff Passan in an effort to get rid of the elitism rampant in big time college football. They created a 16 team field filled with all ten conference champions and six at large teams, though their method of filling the bracket was left to a committee. As a committee of one, I look at records and try to fill that in with seven metrics: Non-Conference Schedule Strength (NCSS), First Degree (PP1), Second Degree (PP2), and Adjusted Playoff Points (aPP), and computer rankings by Jeff Sagarin (SAG), the late David Rothman (ROTH), and All My Sports Teams Suck (AMSTS). These kind of organically merge together to seed the field 1-16, with home field advantage going to the higher seeds for the first three rounds. This means the top two seeds get three home games assuming we rock chalk, the top four seeds get two, and a top eight spot earns you a first round home date. So, without further ado, let's check out the latest mock bracket.

2016 NCAA Playoff Points: Week 9

I'm running behind this week, but it was to be expected with North Central College's Homecoming this weekend and my five year college reunion where I saw all of three people I graduated with, one of whom was my wife and the other of whom is a good friend of ours that we see fairly regularly. Though we did get to see the first half of North Central's trouncing of Carroll in my first game back at Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium since the 2010 Quarterfinals against Whitewater.

But while all that was going on, sheer, unadulterated chaos unfolded across the nation at the FBS level, and I need to sort through the madness in order to try and build a playoff bracket again.

You can view last week's rankings here, and can check out my season introductory post for a brief primer on how all of this works.

2016 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 8

It's a little crazy to think we're almost halfway through the NFL season, but here we are.

Our consortium continues to plug along, with Adam still holding onto first place, though his lead is a little tenuous at this point. He had a bit of a down Week 7 as I took three of our five disputed games to narrow the gap between the top and the bottom to eight games, though I've almost caught up to my dad for fourth place. Gotta start somewhere.

You can view a full breakdown of our picks in relation to each other here. We haven't done very well on consensus picks this season, and Adam is largely in the lead thanks to going 5-6 on hero picks thus far.

This week, Adam and I disagree on a whopping eight games out of the 13 being played due to byes. It's a huge chance for me to continue to try to bite into his lead and make things interesting as we approach the second half of our season. Either that, or Adam is a genius and I'll be out of the running. Hopefully the former.

2016 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 9

We have a little over a month of season left, and a lot can yet change in the ranks of college football.

For the most part though, these rankings are reasonably established. Although our Week 7 leader dropped 3 spots last week, everyone else has stayed in a fairly solid order since the first month of the season ended. With conference play firmly in hand, this is to be expected.

However, with four independent teams and other non-conference games still on the slate, this is a measurement I continue to make on a weekly basis. If you need a refresher on how this works of if you're new to Confessions of a Sportscaster and have no idea what NCSS is, you can review my season introduction post for a primer on this metric and what it means. For now, let's look at the non-conference matchups this week.

2016 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 8 Mock Bracket

The loss of a couple undefeated teams is definitely throwing a monkey wrench into things this week. There are officially nine teams left without a blemish on their records, though one of them is ineligible for the Death to the BCS Playoffs this season.

So there are eight eligible undefeated teams who are going to be making an appearance in today's field, which leaves eight spots for other teams to stake a claim to. Conference champions get an automatic bid, but with the number of unbeatens dropping, we're going to have to decide between teams with losses to fill the field.

This is a continuation of the brainchild of Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter, and Jeff Passan, taking their brilliant creation and trying to apply it to the current season. You can view my first mock of the season for something of a primer on how this works. In a nutshell though, berths and seedings are dependent on Non-Conference Schedule Strength (NCSS), First Degree (PP1), Second Degree (PP2), and Adjusted Playoff Points (aPP), and computer rankings by Jeff Sagarin (SAG), the late David Rothman (ROTH), and All My Sports Teams Suck (AMSTS), with myself serving as the selection committee using these rankings to help make an educated decision.

2016 NCAA Playoff Points: Week 8

I'm running a little behind this week due to my being sick yesterday morning, so I took a little longer to get this write up completed than I had intended. However, I did get the numbers updated yesterday.

With this in mind, it's time to take a look by conference and see where everyone is at with regards to their Playoff Points. All of this will help set up my third mock Death to the BCS Playoffs bracket later today.

For comparison's sake, you can view last week's rankings here. For a refresher on how these metrics work, you can check back at my season preview post.

2016 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 7

I had a decent bounceback week in Week 6 of our consortium's picks against the spread, but unfortunately I haven't gained any ground.

Adam and I split our six disputed games last week, leaving us where we were the week before. He has a nine game lead over me and remains in first place, maintaining a three game lead over my cousin Grant. Meanwhile, I'm still in last place, though I picked up a couple games on my dad and Logan to keep everyone reasonably well packed in together.

We've got another two teams on bye this week, leaving us with 15 games to pick. Adam and I disagree on five games on this week's slate. If you want a breakdown of how everyone has picked in comparison to each other, I've got an updated breakdown available here.