Projecting the playoffs

I've said since the offseason that filling out the playoff bracket is ultimately not going to be very difficult. Now we're approaching the conference title games, how do things look?

Alright, less than a week out with just a few big games left on the docket, how are the playoffs going to shake out?

I’ve chided colleagues, readers, and friends for weeks when they’ve fretted over the weekly rankings and projections. Every year we do this, people complain about some midseason ranking and projection and how poorly it sets up the bracket only for the final form of the playoffs to look pretty good and make sense once all the games have resolved.

My running theory is that the committee just plays around with different things every week to sell excitement for the playoffs before a TV executive comes in at the last minute when all the data is input and tells them the right answer. I knew the morning of the playoff selections last year what they’d decide because it was plainly the right answer in terms of creating the best possible entertainment product without destroying the competitive architecture of the sport.

You have to remember that college football has become a television product and is oriented as such. The “committee” wants to make an exciting playoff bracket that will draw in tons of fans from around the country while doing as little harm as possible to the sense of fairness in the competitive architecture of the sport.

That’s always the balance. The selections need to jibe with a sense of justice and “what did we play those regular season/conference championship games for then?” while sending through the teams most likely to create great games with high ratings. It’s like the fight promotion business.

The current rules which dictate who gets in also simplify a lot whereas in the past there was always a question of how to balance the Power Five conferences against each other. There are complications which have been created by this format though we’ll get into in a moment.

I’m not going to talk about last night’s rankings, they’re meaningless. Here’s how I think they’ll shake out.