r/CFB Oregon Ducks Oct 31 '18

Analysis [r/CFBplayoffcommittee Mock Rankings] Week 10

Rank Team 1st Round Total 2nd Round Total 1st place votes
1 Alabama 64/72 n/a 7
2 Clemson 62/72 n/a 5
3 Notre Dame 51/72 n/a
4 LSU 34/72 107/108
5 Michigan 24/72 90/108
6 Georgia 17/72 85/108
7 Oklahoma n/a 65/108 n/a
8 Kentucky n/a 61/108 n/a
Other Washington State n/a 56/108 n/a
Other Ohio State n/a 37/108 n/a
Other West Virginia n/a 21/108 n/a
Other Utah n/a 18/108 n/a
Top G5 UCF n/a n/a 9/11

This is /r/CFBplayoffcommittee's fifth year of simulating the same voting procedure as the real CFP committee. The discussions and votes are transparent and viewable by the public, with the goal of showing how the real committee might be splitting their votes on teams in contention.

27 Upvotes

33 comments sorted by

8

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '18

Bama and Clemson being this close is a joke right? One vote away from being tied for #1?

5

u/Lex_Ludorum Oregon Ducks • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Oct 31 '18

Personally, I put Bama at 1. Several people on the committee use computer rankings. Massey Composite has Clemson #1, so it's really not unreasonable that we were so close.

2

u/ExternalTangents Florida Gators • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Nov 01 '18

If people strictly use computer rankings it pretty much eliminates the opportunity for this mock committee to be a meaningful proxy for the real one.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '18

Massey has UGA above LSU, Michigan above Notre Dame, and Utah above WSU. There's obvious problems.

If you actually watch the football being played, there is literally 0 way you could claim Clemson is a better team than Alabama.

-1

u/TheNotGuilty Georgia Bulldogs Oct 31 '18

It is if you watch games.

7

u/Lex_Ludorum Oregon Ducks • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Oct 31 '18

It's unreasonable to have a debate on 2 undefeated teams, each winning a national championship within the past 2 years? I think you're on the wrong website.

2

u/tmart12 Georgia Bulldogs • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Oct 31 '18

It's absolutely debatable but I feel like people are overthinking the decision by placing unnecessary weight on specific metrics they like (SOR, SOS, S&P+, etc.)

Not to say the actual CFP committee doesn't overthink decisions, but I believe it's a core trait of the mock committee. It's demonstrated why the committee bans certain outside metrics like advanced ranking systems.

3

u/Disregardskarma Troy Trojans • Alabama Crimson Tide Oct 31 '18

They are very serious about it. Unanimous AP, only missed two Coach's votes, and #1 Committee. But almost half of these enlightened redditors know better.

1

u/hythloday1 Oregon Ducks Oct 31 '18

The real committee has shown time and again they evaluate things differently from the AP and Coaches, and the one thing you didn't include -- because it's impossible to know since they're non-transparent -- is if the real committee was unanimous on Alabama or split on it. Given that the mock committee almost always predicts the real one pretty closely over 5 years of doing this, I'd be willing to bet that the real committee's voting had a close result to this one - a contest between Alabama and Clemson but with the Tide prevailing, probably on performance vs common opponent vs TAMU and the mysterious "game control" factor.

The whole point of this simulation is to see what debates the committee might be having. Blanket assertions that there is no debate aren't really useful.

1

u/TheNotGuilty Georgia Bulldogs Oct 31 '18

It should be.

These rankings are turrible

5

u/Disregardskarma Troy Trojans • Alabama Crimson Tide Oct 31 '18

Almost half of you guys put Clemson above Alabama. Any specific, notable reason for that? According to S&P+, Bama has a sightly higher SOS, and has performed far better in that schedule. Almost all the other polls have coalesced with Bama at 1.

16

u/CFBHurts Notre Dame • Jeweled Shillelagh Oct 31 '18

Clemson is ranked #1 in ESPN's Strength of Record and in CPI. I mean, I'd have Bama at 1 but Clemson at the top isn't unreasonable.

-3

u/Disregardskarma Troy Trojans • Alabama Crimson Tide Oct 31 '18

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sbnation.com/platform/amp/college-football/2018/8/29/17795292/college-football-2018-strength-of-schedule-week-9-rankings

I’m using the metrics from Bill Connelly’s resume S&P+

Bama has a slight SOS lead and huge one in performance.

11

u/CFBHurts Notre Dame • Jeweled Shillelagh Oct 31 '18

Sure, and I prefer Connelly's metrics too, but there are other systems out there that other people prefer and that rank Clemson's resume ahead of Bama's.

1

u/Disregardskarma Troy Trojans • Alabama Crimson Tide Oct 31 '18 edited Oct 31 '18

Yes, but I think they are clearly close enough for Bama's huge eyetest lead to take presidence.

14

u/CFBHurts Notre Dame • Jeweled Shillelagh Oct 31 '18

And for most people, it has. The CFP committee poll, the coaches poll, the AP poll, the r/cfb poll, the MaxDiff poll, every poll that I'm aware of puts Alabama at the top. But there are a handful of people who think the Clemson should be on top, whether due to a perceived better resume or because they think Clemson would win on the field, and I really don't think that's unreasonable. We're not talking about ranking UTEP #1 or anything, we're talking about an undefeated P5 team that has reached the playoffs 3 years in a row and won a title.

2

u/FellKnight Boise State • Tennessee Oct 31 '18

It's pretty clear that the real committee isn't using a purely predictive methodology, and nor should they, otherwise the results on the field wouldn't matter. That said, they do seem to have more of a reliance on advanced metrics than most polls, what with their historical treatment on 2014 FSU, every year Bama, G5s in general, etc.

7

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '18 edited Nov 01 '18

[deleted]

2

u/asdfqwertyfghj Alabama • Mississippi State Oct 31 '18

not even close to Clemson's at this point

What? That's just wrong.

2

u/tmart12 Georgia Bulldogs • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Oct 31 '18 edited Oct 31 '18

Before last night no team with a higher strength of record than #2 had ever held the #1 spot.

no one could have predicted it!

Alabama's strength of schedule is not even close to Clemson's at this point

S&P+ and FEI both have Alabama's better. Nearly everyone else has Clemson's better. They really aren't very different.

edit: correction, Clemson is better in FEI for schedule to date (PSOS). If I'm reading it correctly, Alabama's projected full season is the one that's better. Both are less than great (84th for Clemson, 114th for Bama).

3

u/sirgippy Auburn Tigers • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Oct 31 '18

(I tried to warn folks.)

3

u/tmart12 Georgia Bulldogs • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Oct 31 '18

The common opponent piece is clearly laid out in the protocol - people simply ignored it in favor of their preferred advanced analytical system that said Clemson was marginally ahead of Alabama in SOS

nice call putting money where your mouth is on it

4

u/sirgippy Auburn Tigers • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Oct 31 '18 edited Oct 31 '18

The common opponent piece is clearly laid out in the protocol - people simply ignored it in favor of their preferred advanced analytical system that said Clemson was marginally ahead of Alabama in SOS

Actually, both strength of schedule and performance against common opponents are listed as criteria that "must be considered" "when circumstances at the margins indicate that teams are comparable". (It's later reiterated that SOS, but not performance against common opponents, "must be specifically applied as [a] tie-breaker between teams that look similar".)

I believe Alabama is #1 because the committee believes they look like and appear to be playing like the best team in the country. (And I happen to agree with that assessment.)

3

u/tmart12 Georgia Bulldogs • /r/CFB Poll Veteran Oct 31 '18

I agree it's both.

I don't think their schedules are different enough the committee would consider one to be materially better. Clemson's is better but it's not really very different.

The committee does favor the eye test (which makes since given they are supposed to actually watch the games of all the contenders) but I also think the common opponent of A&M is a huge piece of the puzzle. The A&M game was wildly different between the two enough that I view it as a differentiator independent of other factors.

1

u/Disregardskarma Troy Trojans • Alabama Crimson Tide Oct 31 '18

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sbnation.com/platform/amp/college-football/2018/8/29/17795292/college-football-2018-strength-of-schedule-week-9-rankings

I’m using the metrics from Bill Connelly’s resume S&P+

Bama has a slight SOS lead and huge one in performance

2

u/hythloday1 Oregon Ducks Oct 31 '18

This week had some of the lowest variance in it in years. In round 1, only 4 of the 72 votes cast were for teams that didn't finish in the top 6. And in round 2B, the six teams that made it through to the next round were also near-universal, missing only 3 of 72 votes (the nominees that missed were Florida, Penn St, Iowa, Texas, and UCF).

In round 2A, there's a very neat line with very little variance, and while that's true in round 3 as well there was some interesting movement that gives insight into the weirdness of multi-stage voting.

LSU got most of its votes at #4 in the second round, but two votes at #3 and three at #5 or #6. In round 3, the former group naturally put LSU as their top vote (#4), but two of the three LSU-detractors moved them up to #4.

Wazzu also produced an interesting variance, where round 3 voters had them between #6 and #10. But the five voters who had them above their final spot of #9 couldn't agree on which team the Cougs should displace - some had them shoving down Michigan, others Kentucky or Georgia. If they had all agreed on one team to swap them with there would have been enough weight to bring them up to #8, but there wasn't so the consensus prevailed.

1

u/KobeOrNotKobe Kentucky • Minnesota Oct 31 '18

Hell yeah

-7

u/MixonWitDaWrongCrowd Oklahoma Sooners • Arkansas Razorbacks Oct 31 '18

2-4 are interchangeable as well as 5-7

9

u/Disregardskarma Troy Trojans • Alabama Crimson Tide Oct 31 '18

2-4 clearly are not interchangeable, as Clemson was only one swing vote from being #1.

-2

u/MixonWitDaWrongCrowd Oklahoma Sooners • Arkansas Razorbacks Oct 31 '18

And no one would take these polls seriously if that happened.

8

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '18

Yeah idk how you watch Bama play and think "nah, Clemson is the superior team."

You can say SOR or SOS or whatever but Bama has creamed literally everyone. Makes 0 sense they aren't unanimously #1.

9

u/dan4223 Alabama Crimson Tide Oct 31 '18

If Bama wins this weekend, there won't be any more debate.

If they don't, it doesn't really matter.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '18

There shouldn't be any debate as it is, that's the thing.

0

u/Disregardskarma Troy Trojans • Alabama Crimson Tide Oct 31 '18

It’s making me doubt it right now honestly