Ascending Tide: Updated College Football Playoff Predictions (Week 10)

Are you still riding the excitement from Saturday’s college football games? (After that crazy Arkansas 4th-and-25 lateral, how could you not be?) If so, then you probably can’t bear to wait until Tuesday to see how the College Football Playoff committee will rejigger its rankings. So FiveThirtyEight has you covered. On Sunday, after each week’s games, we will cook up some fresh predictions from our model. (These numbers will change again on Tuesday night after the new committee rankings are released.) Here’s a breakdown of how this week’s games affected the model:

The Tide rolled over No. 2 LSU on Saturday night, 30 to 16, giving them the best Elo rating and a top-four mark, according to the Football Power Index. Our model now says No. 4 Alabama’s chances of making the playoff rose from 41 percent to 54 percent, while LSU’s odds fell from 30 percent to 19 percent.

TCU suffered the biggest blow to its playoff hopes, falling from 31 percent to 10 percent, after the Horned Frogs were walloped by Oklahoma State, which moved up to 16 percent.

No. 1 Clemson, after grinding out a 23-13 win over Florida State, surpassed Ohio State with the best odds to make the playoff: 61 percent. Clemson and Ohio State are now tied as the best bets to win the national title. The Nebraska Cornhuskers, with four wins and six losses, are nowhere to be found on this table, but their effect sure is: after they upset Michigan State, 39-38, the Spartans’ playoff chances fell from 22 percent to 10 percent.

			Ranking				Probability of …
	Team		CFP	Elo	FPI		Conf. Title	Playoff	Nat. Title
	Clemson		1	3	6		68%	61%	16%
	Ohio State		3	2	5		46%	59%	16%
	Alabama		4	1	4		35%	54%	14%
	Notre Dame		5	6	9		—	35%	8%
	Baylor		6	7	2		35%	29%	11%
	Stanford		11	5	11		52%	27%	6%
	LSU		2	9	8		14%	19%	5%
	Oklahoma		15	14	1		19%	18%	7%
	Oklahoma St.		14	4	13		37%	16%	3%
	Florida		10	10	14		38%	16%	3%
	Michigan State		7	8	22		12%	10%	1%
	Utah		12	11	21		22%	10%	1%
	TCU		8	12	3		9%	10%	3%
	Iowa		9	13	29		27%	8%	<1%
	Michigan		17	20	16		13%	8%	1%
	Mississippi St.		20	16	15		3%	6%	<1%
	USC		—	19	7		18%	4%	1%
	UCLA		23	21	18		7%	3%	<1%
	Houston		25	22	36		33%	2%	<1%
	North Carolina		—	18	20		30%	2%	<1%
	Navy		—	15	53		18%	<1%	<1%
	Mississippi		18	26	10		9%	<1%	<1%
	Oregon		—	23	32		<1%	<1%	<1%
	Temple		22	28	39		43%	<1%	<1%
	Florida State		16	24	17		0%	<1%	<1%
	Wisconsin		—	17	24		3%	<1%	<1%
	Arkansas		—	25	26		<1%	<1%	<1%
	Memphis		13	30	44		3%	<1%	<1%
	Northwestern		21	29	60		<1%	<1%	<1%
	Toledo		24	39	52		10%	<1%	<1%
	Texas A&M		19	48	23		<1%	<1%	<1%