NCAA FOOTBALL 2024 MEGA THREAD - WELCOME TO THE PLAYOFF ERA

1 Oregon
2 Georgia
3 Penn State
4 Ohio State
5 Texas
6 Iowa State
7 Miami
8 LSU
9 Clemson
10 BYU
11 Indiana
12 Tennessee
13 K State
14 Alabama
15 Notre Dame
16 ATM
17 SMU
18 Boise
19 Wazzu
20 Pitt
21 Ole Miss
22 Mizzou
23 Illinois
24 Navy
25 Syracuse

Is this you or what you think the committee will do

Rourke expected to miss at least one game. Next week IU hosts Washington. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Pretty sure that’s the ap poll

Edit. Nevermind it’s not. But it’s close

no respect for helping military academies on a roll until they start sisyphussing about and quit trying to push another rock up the next hamburger hill

Have you seen Rourke?

yes, and i also saw what the offense did after he left the game yesterday
they should be able to stall for uw and have him come back healthy the week after

tulane was +5 on turnovers vs rice yesterday but only managed 24 total pts. granted one was an INT in the closing seconds to end the game. still, for a team that had been rolling like tulane 24 pts. seems low....

Oh, upon watching I figured it out; runGSU has really gotten their "Air Raid that runs a lot" offense in a high gear and JMU couldn't figure out a way to play both at the same time. That plus runGSU can defend the pass. The 4 TOs included a pick 6 and 2 other picks inside their own territory, so they pretty much dominated on both sides of the ball.

Also I've never seen it before, but they ran two flea flickers in a row. No, neither were a flea-flicker screen pass even though the second one seems like the perfect time for it, y'know.

Old Dominion was a bit more fortunate in beating Texas State; Won the turnover battle 2-1 and McCloud really made a habit of missing targets. It was also a 3 point game (ODU's usual) until TxSt pulled a "let them score" with a minute left and no timeout from like the 30.

ODU's -2 hosting them Thursday on short rest and I basically think the wrong team is favored. It's not 3 but at least it's on the positive side and if it ever makes it to 3 I'll be so pissed off that I double down.

Yeah I stayed away from this game because Tulane's offense had looked unstoppable the last 3 games. Even though two of those were against terrible defenses, they'd also totally overwhelmed South Florida who theoretically is not. Meanwhile, if you throw out the Army game (which I do), Rice's defense has actually been consistent at holding opponents' success rate marginally under what they'd expect against an average defense, implying they are, in fact, an above average defense so long as you don't run the triple option against them. It's their offense that's been just awful. SP+ has the Rice defense as #100, PFF says #22. Both of those are insane, BUT...if you average them (and bonus a little for consistency) it's not half bad.

Watching the replay, Rice kept getting stops after the turnovers only giving up an initial fg until a scoop & score with 2:00 left (one play before the final pick). So really the Tulane offense only managed 17 points which does imply they have a problem with above average defenses.

Tulane does not have to worry about that "above average defense problem" moving forward though, especially against North Texas!

Bama +110 to playoff is interesting

They have wins over Georgia, South Carolina, @ Wisconsin and either LSU or Mizzou (or both, if they lose to somebody else)

Plus Oklahoma and Auburn

I have them at 32% to win out and 47% to finish 9-3 so you'd need them to go 33% of the time they finish 9-3

I think that's a pretty compelling resume, but if they lose to LSU (which is by far the most likely 9-3 scenario) then they'd have h2h losses to Tennessee and LSU

So it'd be Georgia, Texas and likely Tenn and LSU ahead of them (barring an implosion) so they'd try to be the 5th SEC team. I would have them ahead of 10-2 (at best) mizzou who Bama would beat h2h, but ATM could snipe them at 10-2. Worst case scenario is LSU goes 9-3 with a loss to ATM and ATM goes 10-2. So both are in over Bama

(Also the SEC could just get six teams in)

If they SEC already has 5 in and it's 9-3 bama vs 11-1 Wazzu or 11-2 BYU or 11-2 Clemson, who goes?

We also now have a 12% chance of dealing with something like 10-2 Illinois with two road losses to top-5 teams and zero wins against the top-30.

I have no idea how that will get treated

I think Vegas is underrating the odds of BYU getting in if they go 11-1, play in the B12CG and then lose in the chip to finish 11-2

People aren't treating that win on the road at SMU, who will likley finish 10-2, with enough respect. And they already own a win over K State so they have two top-25 wins which is a lot!

TUESDAY
19:30:00 Sam Houston -5.5
19:30:00 Florida International 5.5

20:00:00 UTEP 7.5
20:00:00 Louisiana Tech -7

WEDNESDAY
19:00:00 Liberty -23.5
19:00:00 Kennesaw State 24.5

19:30:00 Middle Tenn. St 21.5
19:30:00 Jacksonville State -21

THURSDAY
19:00:00 Georgia Southern 1.5
19:00:00 Old Dominion -1.5
With JMU losing again, that side of the SBC is wide open. GSU is 3-0, ODU is 2-1, winner will be in great shape

19:30:00 Syracuse 5.5
19:30:00 Pittsburgh -5.5
Cuse is very quietly 5-1, McCord is second in the nation in passing YPG behind Cam Ward. Their resume already includes a win at UNLV, and a road win over a ranked Pitt team here could put them in good shape. They'd be 16% to finish 10-2 or better if they pull the upset here (2% if they don't). Pitt's schedule is lighter, although that win over Cincy is looking pretty decent. They have games @ SMU and vs Clemson still on deck, so they really control their own destiny.

FRIDAY
19:30:00 Louisville -6.5
19:30:00 Boston College 7

22:30:00 Boise State -3
22:30:00 UNLV 3
It's not clear to me how much this game means, as these teams are very likely to meet again in the MWCCG. I still think a 11-2 MWC winner is ahead of most AAC winners, but if the AAC winner hits a heater, that could easily be wrong.

23:00:00 Rutgers 14.5
23:00:00 USC -13.5

SATURDAY
12:00:00 UNC Charlotte 19.5
12:00:00 Memphis -18.5

12:00:00 Notre Dame -12
12:00:00 Navy 12
Navy is ranked and has a win over a pretty good Memphis team. ND is feeling good with ATM looking better and their schedule getting lighter. A loss probably boots ND from the playoffs though, as USC has crumbled their opportunity for a second marquee win.

12:00:00 Tulane -8
12:00:00 North Texas 8
UNT lost an absolute shootout against Memphis, while Vegas is super in love with Tulane. Tulane can afford a loss and still win the AAC, but playoff dreams would disappear.

12:00:00 Oklahoma 20.5
12:00:00 Mississippi -20.5
OU has scored 5 TDs in 4 games and was losing 32-3 at half against USCe last week. Ole Miss is on life support and likely needs to win out to get a playoff bid.

12:00:00 Buffalo 6.5
12:00:00 Ohio -6.5

12:00:00 Georgia Tech 10.5
12:00:00 Virginia Tech -9.5

12:00:00 North Carolina 5.5
12:00:00 Virginia -4.5

12:00:00 Washington 6.5
12:00:00 Indiana -6.5
Washington is probably the most underrated team in the country, as their metrics say they're a top-25 team even though they keep losing. Indiana is fresh off one of the biggest wins in school history and faces three mediums in a row before their road trip to Ohio State. Seems like Rourke will miss this game with an injury to his throwing hand.

12:00:00 Nebraska 25
12:00:00 Ohio State -25

12:45:00 Arkansas -7
12:45:00 Mississippi State 7

13:00:00 Georgia State 8
13:00:00 Appalachian State -7.5

14:00:00 Temple 7.5
14:00:00 East Carolina -6.5

14:00:00 Central Michigan 12
14:00:00 Miami (OH) -11.5

15:30:00 Rice 6.5
15:30:00 UConn -6.5

15:30:00 UTSA -8
15:30:00 Tulsa 8

15:30:00 Missouri 14
15:30:00 Alabama -14
Alabama is reeling. Six teams in the SEC are 6-1 and the Tide are not one of them. I think they often get in at 9-3 but it would be unwise to test that theory. Meanwhile, even though Mizzou is 6-1, they've struggled against an incredibly weak schedule. If they lose this one, I think they are often left out of the playoffs at 10-2. A win here probably gets them in the playoffs with the same 10-2 record.

15:30:00 Southern Miss 24.5
15:30:00 James Madison -24.5

15:30:00 BYU -2
15:30:00 Central Florida 2
Incredible heroics from BYJew last week to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against an undermanned OK State team. UCF was a playoff dark horse, but is now out of the game. How will they respond?

15:30:00 Texas Tech 7
15:30:00 TCU -6.5

15:30:00 Oklahoma State 6.5
15:30:00 Baylor -6.5
1
5:30:00 Eastern Michigan -3
15:30:00 Akron 3.5
1
5:30:00 Northern Illinois -11.5
15:30:00 Ball State 12

15:30:00 Bowling Green 3.5
15:30:00 Toledo -2.5

15:30:00 Kent 17.5
15:30:00 Western Michigan -17

15:30:00 Wake Forest -2.5
15:30:00 Stanford 3

15:30:00 Illinois 21.5
15:30:00 Oregon -21.5
Illinois is ranked, coming off a rousing win over Michigan at home in the Red Grange unis. Oregon seems to have engaged Juggernaut Mode after demolishing the same Purdue team that took Illinois to OT the week prior. This game means a lot more to Illinois than it does to Oregon, but I'm not sure that matters.

15:30:00 Northwestern 13
15:30:00 Iowa -13

15:30:00 Maryland 4.5
15:30:00 Minnesota -4

16:00:00 Oregon State 10.5
16:00:00 California -9.5

16:15:00 Texas -18
16:15:00 Vanderbilt 18.5
Vanderbilt is RANKED! Their six non-Alcorn games have been decided by 7, 4, 3, 5, 7 and 10 points. That includes games against Alabama, @ Mizzou, Va Tech and @ Kentucky... as well as game against Georgia State and Ball State. Texas ends with five games where they should be a big favorite needing only to go 4-1.

17:00:00 New Mexico 6.5
17:00:00 Colorado State -6

17:00:00 Louisiana-Monroe 7.5
17:00:00 South Alabama -7.5

19:00:00 Utah State 2.5
19:00:00 Wyoming -2

19:00:00 Troy 7.5
19:00:00 Arkansas State -6.5

19:00:00 West Virginia 3.5
19:00:00 Arizona -2.5

19:00:00 Utah -3.5
19:00:00 Houston 3.5

19:00:00 Florida State 21.5
19:00:00 Miami -21
Florida State is a 21 point dog and is about to go to 1-7. That makes me happy, until I remember what the "1" is.

19:30:00 LSU 3.5
19:30:00 Texas A&M -3
Huge playoff odds swing on this one! LSU is 68% to finish 10-2 or better with a win and 23% with a loss. ATM is 52% to finish 10-2+ with a win and 13% with a loss

19:30:00 Michigan State 5.5
19:30:00 Michigan -5.5
Sparty looks like they're starting to put it together. Probably too little, too late, but there's still a lot on the line here in a rivalry game.

19:30:00 Penn State -6.5
19:30:00 Wisconsin 6.5
Wisconsin has two non-embarassing losses and home games against Penn State and Oregon. If they win both of those, they're in the playoffs even if they drop another one. If they win 1 of 2, I think they're slightly live if there's a ton of chaos. Penn State really wants to win here to take some pressure off their home game against OSU next week.

19:45:00 Auburn 2.5
19:45:00 Kentucky -2.5

20:00:00 San Jose State 5.5
20:00:00 Fresno State -5

20:00:00 Kansas 10
20:00:00 Kansas State -10
Kansas is in the "pretty good teams that have run really bad" category, while K-State (and the big-12) need the wildcats to keep winning.

20:00:00 SMU -11
20:00:00 Duke 11.5
Duke is 6-1 (against an absolute joke of a schedule) and faces SMU this week and @ Miami next week. After those two weeks they'll either have come back down to earth, or they'll have cemented themselves as a dark-horse ACC contender. Also very interested in this game: BYU, who is leaning on SMU as a huge, differentiating victory.

22:15:00 Cincinnati 4.5
22:15:00 Colorado -4.5
Sorry haters! Colorado is now 5-2 with five totally winnable games in front of them. Cincy is also 5-2, with both of those losses coming by a TOTAL of four points. Both these teams are 2-1 in B12 play, so the winner is in great dark-horse position. Colorado has an easier slate, while Cincy's is much tougher (@ ISU, @ KSU) but they also have the ability to knock out other front-runners.

22:30:00 Washington State -14
22:30:00 San Diego State 14
Wazzu is now 45% (!!!) to finish 11-1. How will the committee treat them? They'll have wins over Washington, Texas Tech, Oregon State, Fresno State and San Jose State. How does that stack up against 9-3 SEC teams or 10-2 B-12 teams? It would be so great if teams held the last week of the season open for an on-the fly matchup that got scheduled in week 8, so teams that look like they might be "really close" can schedule another high intensity game to try and put themselves over the top. Teams like Memphis or Mizzou or Wazzu or Liberty or Illinois that could really use a bit of extra beef on their schedule would love to play each other

0:00:00 Nevada -2.5
0:00:00 Hawaii 2.5

Speaking of big turnover games:

Starting with the first play of their second drive (down 14-0) Charlotte managed 3 turnovers in 5 plays; 2 interceptions on Max Brown's first two passes, sandwiched around a fumble. 31-0 Navy still in the first quarter. Then just for S's and G's the backup qb (Ivey not Purdie for some speculated injury reason) comes in and leads a 6 play drive culminating in a pick 6. 38-0 Navy 20 minutes into the game. Later Brown came back in and threw another pick 6.

Not that the turnovers skewed the results much though; Navy faced just 3 third downs in getting those first 38 points, converting two and kicking the figgie on the other. T'was my first viewing of the new Navy offense but it sure looked like they dialed down the crap ton of alignments and presnap motions after that (I'm not even sure some of them are legal so much as the refs get confused too). I'll be fascinated to watch Notre Dame defend it. I suggest covering the receivers and tackling the guy who winds up with the ball.

I'd say Clemson usually and that could include 11-1 with no CCG. Kinda weird Clemson, Miami, and SMU don't play each other but I *assume* similar to SEC's where a ~4th or 5th tiebreaker of "MOV against common opponents" or "Total conference point differential" would be in play.

Clemson has clearly adopted "cover the spread" into their plan to help bulk up their resume. This week instead of Dabo-esque handoffs up the middle, Klubnik threw a bomb for a td on first down near the 2:00 mark to go up by 24 and cover. Sure UVA hit their own bomb on the next series (god ****ing dammit!) but Old Dabs wouldn't have wanted to risk a pick 6 and two onsides kicks in that situation (Remember the time he opted not to kick a short figgie and make it a 2 score game but instead an as-expected TOD to give Auburn the ball down 1 score with 2:00 left, saying, "Didn't want to risk a blocked fg returned for a touchdown", lol?)

The +110 on Bama seems bad to me. I think your 32% to win out figure is generous in the first place but, even assuming the best remaining case of the 3rd loss was @ LSU, I then make it a good deal lower than 47% to go 3-0 specifically against Mizzu, @Oklahoma, and Auburn and avoid getting 4 losses or more. Granted I'm a few points off market this week, but then again I have been the last 3 games as well and how has that worked out? I mean, even on postgame win expectancy Bama has lost the spread by 6, 10, and 15 points those games, and their SP+ rating has dropped 5 points as a result. At this point it seems more likely than not that they lose not in a wild fluke but deservedly and drop their rating some more, further reducing their chances. So if we take 32% to win out and call it 32% to go 9-3 (47% to win out the other 68% of the time) that means we'll actually need 9-3 Bama to get in about 50% of the time to reach the ~48% breakeven.

I can't get there, but devil's advocate;
* 7 open spots (figure UGA wins SEC)
* I doubt fewer than 2 get filled by B1g nonchamps
* Figure 3 at large SEC ahead of them; Texas, Tennessee, LSU

Leaving two open slots.
* Would be in if exist; 11-1 ND (Sorry), Clemson/Miami with just CCGL plus 11-1 Clemson who doesn't make the CCG
* Unlikely; Something weird like Indiana wins B1g, SMU wins ACC, or 12-1 Iowa State in dramatic fashion could take up another slot
* Weaksauce 11-1s; SMU, Indiana, etc.
* Another SEC/B1g team gets 10-2 pole position like TAMU or Wisconsin (sorry but could be ND)
* Milroe breaks his leg in the last game

I think as long as less than 2 of those happen (except for the one special one) then 9-3 Bama should be a favorite to get in that 32% of the time. But I'm not about to bet against the committee bending over backwards to put what should be SOL Bama in just because they want to.

Don't see many 3 Loss teams getting in outside of bama and maybe ole Miss. Thought about being on South Carolina but don't feels like way too many people have 0 or 1 loss

Lot's of rivalry games this week. A few should have been around Thanksgiving.

Georgia has an excellent at 9-3, which I think happens about 13% of the time

Best case scenario is losing to Florida and Tennessee

They'd have wins over:
top-10 Clemson
AT top-10 Texas
AT top-15/20 Ole Miss

and the three losses would be to @ Bama, n Florida and v Top-5 Tennessee.

They'd KO Ole Miss (9-3 UGA > 10-2 Ole Miss with H2H) which helps

South Carolina only has about a 3% chance to win out, but if they do, they're an interesting case. All 3 losses to playoff teams, and 2/3 excruciatingly close
They'd KO ATM and Mizzou and KO Clemson as well if they don't win the ACC. Mostly will be interesting to see how committee treats close losses

If Washington somehow wins out with wins @ Oregon, @ Penn State, @ Indiana, vs. UCLA and vs. USC then they'd have to be in. Ohio State winning out would help them, would make PSU and Indiana both 10-2 at best. How can a 10-2 team with no top-25 wins get in over a 9-3 team with 3 top-25 wins that beat them at home? Two of their three losses were total flukes as well

Same sort of deal with Wisconsin if they lose @ Iowa but beat both Penn State and Oregon (they get both at home)

Also, of course you have a 2% chance Virginia Tech wins the ACC, but I assume you're not counting that

UTEP and LaTech in quite a faceoff for "worst play design and execution".

And this may be hard to believe but yes, FIU's backups are much worse than this guy.

They just called an unsportsmanlike against a LaTech defender for the shirt-lifting thing? That's...brandishing a weapon? WTF hasn't it been called the other 1,000 annoying times I've seen it this year?

I'd always assumed they were pointing out their abs...

man how quickly things change

miami was +14.5 in this game last year

I am finalizing my playoff odds for all teams, and I think a good heuristic is 11-1 you're in (although 11-1 then lose CCG is dicey in some spots), 10-2 with one top-25 win you're in, 9-3 with two or three really good wins you've got a great shot. 10-2 with no top-25 wins I think you have a strong chance of being the first team left out.

I am very bearish the chances of teams like 10-2 Illinois (assuming their second loss is Oregon) and 10-2 Ole Miss (assuming their second loss is Georgia) and 10-2 Mizzou (assuming their loss is to Alabama). Neither is likely to have a top-25 win. All three are likely locks if they lose to a DIFFERENT team but then pick up a win against Oregon/UGA/Bama. 10-2 Indiana is drawing dead.

Do you think there’s a chance that any ACC team earns an at-large bid?

Say undefeated Mia loses to 1 loss Clem in the ACCCG.

I’m guessing SMU and Pitt would probably both need to win the ACCCG, unless Pitt got there undefeated then lost to Mia. But 1 loss Pitt probably doesn’t get in on name value alone.

The conference sucks and the schedules for the top teams suck. Mia doesn’t have 1 current top 25 team on their schedule lol. Dook and Cuse are right outside.