Playoff Simulation: Championship week odds
PredictionMachine.com's Director of Research and Analytics, John Ewing, takes a look at what the College Football Playoff could look like through 50,000 simulations of Football Four's most likely four-team Playoff. Follow John on Twitter @JohnEwing for more notes from his analysis and to let him know what else you may like to see with these projections.
Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and TCU — the Football Four and College Football Playoff selection committees agree that these are the four best teams in the nation.
What are the odds that all four teams survive championship week and participate in the first College Football Playoff?
Alabama
Path to the Playoff: The Crimson Tide faces a stout Missouri defense in the SEC Championship game. The Tigers are top five in the SEC in scoring and total defense and lead the conference in sacks. Unfortunately for Mizzou, the Tigers offense is not of the same class ranking and are in the bottom of the SEC in nearly every statistical category.
Alabama is a 14.5-point favorite against Missouri. We project Alabama to win 88% of the time by an average score of 33-17.
Oregon
Path to the Playoff: Revenge. The Ducks have fallen to Arizona in each of the last two seasons, with the Wildcats handing Oregon its lone loss this year (on the road in Eugene). Marcus Mariota has thrown for 3,470 yards, 36 touchdowns with just two interceptions and is the second leading rusher on the team with 636 yards. The junior from Hawaii is a huge 1/10 favorite to win the Heisman per Bovada. Can Arizona stop the Heisman hopeful?
Doubtful.
The Ducks are more than two touchdown favorites Saturday, and we project Oregon to win the Pac-12 Championship 72% of the time by an average score of 44-31.
TCU
Path to the Playoff: The Horned Frogs will enjoy the easiest remaining game of the four potential playoff teams. TCU dismantled Texas on Thanksgiving and is expected to do the same to lowly Iowa State.
The Cyclones have proven to be frisky in the past, upsetting ranked opponents in three of the past five seasons including ending No. 2 Oklahoma State's BCS title dreams in 2011 as a 27.5-point underdogs and shocking No. 15 TCU two years ago.
The Frogs are 34-point favorites at home in the regular season finale and are projected to win 90% of the time by an average score of 47-18.
Florida State
Path to the Playoff: Does Florida State deserve to be in the playoff? Close calls and uninspiring wins against weak competition has caused the defending champions to almost fall out of the top four. When you quantify Florida State's comebacks this season, there is approximately a 1-in-10,000 chance that the Seminoles should still be undefeated.
FSU is less than a touchdown favorite in the ACC Championship Game on Saturday against Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets ended Georgia's Playoff hopes last week before it even began and could do the same to the Seminoles.
Florida State is just 54% likely to win by an average score of 31-29.
Possible Outcomes
Chances that Alabama, Oregon, TCU and Florida State all win: 31%.
Total chaos — chances that all four teams lose: 0.15% or approximately 650-to-1.
How this works
The Predictalator uses current rosters and strength-of-schedule and efficiency-adjusted team and player stats (weighted slightly more toward recent games), to play every game 50,000 times before it's actually played. For this analysis, we are tracking how likely a team is to make it to any level of the College Football Playoffs.
Football Four four-team playoff Summary
With only a 31% chance of all four of the most likely playoff teams winning their respective championship or regular season finale, the actual College Football Playoff field might differ from the penultimate bracket.
Nonetheless, in an Alabama, Oregon, TCU and Florida State playoff, which team would be crowned champion?
Alabama has been No. 1 in our Power Rankings for the last seven weeks. Remember, most including the College Football Playoff committee had Mississippi State and Florida State ranked first and second overall.
The Crimson Tide is the only team ranked in the top 15 in all of our offensive and defensive efficiency metrics.
Alabama would not only be the betting favorite but also our projected favorite against Oregon, TCU and Florida State.
After 50,000 simulations, the most likely national champion is Alabama. Alabama wins 45.4% of all the simulated tournaments. In the most likely national championship game, Alabama defeats Oregon 58% of the time by an average score of 39-33.
Interesting note, Florida State is the fourth seed in this playoff. We have the Seminoles ranked 15th overall. The most fascinating storyline heading into this weekend is not whether or not Florida State will make the playoff but rather if they do, which team will get to face the Seminoles.
Seeding and path to the championship are critical to each team's projected playoff probabilities. Getting to face an easier opponent, in this case Florida State, would dramatically improve Alabama, Oregon or TCU's chances of winning the national championship.
Based on the analysis, here is the projected College Football Playoff bracket.
Semifinals
No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 4 Florida State | Alabama wins 74% of the time by an average score of 36-20.
No. 2 Oregon vs. No. 3 TCU | Oregon wins 51% of the time by an average score of 38-37.
National Championship
No 1. Alabama vs. No. 2 Oregon | Alabama wins 58% of the time by an average score of 39-33.
The likelihoods for each team to win the championship are 45.4% for Alabama, 24.0% for Oregon, 21.7% for TCU and 8.9% for Florida State.