Bucks2TigerFan

You may not like this, but the committee looks at a lot of things, here is a short summary of why Wisconsin might be higher than Florida in their eyes.

Florida beat #11 Auburn, 24-13, lost at #2 LSU, 28-42, and to #4 Georgia, 17-24, so they are 1-2 (.333) against ranked teams, played 2 FCS teams, which is a negative, and beat 3 teams with a winning record.

Wisconsin beat #14 Michigan, 35-14, #16 Iowa, 24-22, and at #18 Minnesota, 38-17, lost at #1 Ohio State, 7-38, at unranked 6-6 Illinois, 23-24, so they are 3-1 (.750) against ranked teams, played no FCS teams, which is a positive, beat 4 teams with a winning record.

Overall Wisconsin’s resume comes out ahead on those facts. But the committee looks at far more.

The committee uses the SportSource Analytics Rankings Tool to compare teams, which you can do at https://sportsourceanalytics.com/rankingtool/

I started a thread that shows how you can play around and look at different things with that tool at:
https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/more-sports/how-the-playoff-committee-uses-data-to-place-teams/87166480/

First off, let me say I hate that the committee has no firm, fixed, transparent criteria that one can easily judge and see how they got what they got. I would prefer a list of the criteria, even it was 100 items long, with a weighting that would require a computer to keep track of it all, but at least all would know and could figure out what is going on, but that’s not what we have.

The CFP committee uses a company called SportSource Analytics to provide them with data to compare and rank the teams. If you have ever looked up college football team stats on https://cfbstats.com/, you are using their data.

One could compare two teams, say Wisconsin and Florida just using the data at that website.

Their standard data sheet for Florida is at this link: https://cfbstats.com/2019/team/235/index.html
and here’s the one for Wisconsin: https://cfbstats.com/2019/team/796/index.html

You could look at the two of them side by side, and if you did so, you’d see that Wisconsin is better in more rows than Florida.

But that’s tedious just for two teams, and almost impossible for 25, so instead go straight to the SportSource Analytics Rankings Tool (at least the free one open to the public, I’m sure the committee’s version has more bells and whistles) and compare for yourself at https://sportsourceanalytics.com/rankingtool/

In the base ranking there are 13 attributes that can be weighted however you want. In the advanced setting there are 19.

Here is what their default advanced comparison looks like with all 19 sliders at the default 50%


Notice Wisconsin is #4 and Florida is #11 using this advanced base ranking.

But the committee does not just look at this, they play around with settings and look at many different things.

For instance, what is strength of schedule? it comes out WI #9, FL #36 (set all sliders to 0, put SoS at 100)

If you just hit reset to go back to the unadvanced base comparison (all 13 sliders at 50), it’s WI #5, FL #18.

You can do this for any one, or any number of parameters and see what the committee sees.

Say you want to look at just the 4 opponent adjusted rankings (Opp. Adj. Scoring Offense/ Defense & Total Offense/Total Defense) in their advance set, set all the other 15 sliders to 0, the result is WI #3, FL #5

You can play around all day long and Wisconsin beats Flotida more often than not on their ranking tool. That’s why, with the exact same 10-2 record, Wisconsin ends up ranked one spot ahead of Florida.

This is the paint by numbers comparison approach they use, we just never know what sure what numbers they value more than others and how consistent they are.

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WTF how many times are we gonna have to play OSU

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It's Groundhog Day until you finally win it.

Obviously, the final Top 8 after this weekend will look different than this Top 8, but even just using just this week’s ranking, who wouldn't want to see this playoff bracket?

More teams get a chance to have to win it on the field, not in the committee room, and that’s a plus to me.

There are some great match ups here right now, and even though changes will happen, this week's 8 team bracket is still an improvement over the 4 team bracket.

Having the 1st round games at the home stadiums of the Top 4 is a big reward for making the Top 4.

After next weekend, this bracket will be the 5 Power 5 conference champs and 3 at large teams, which is what many really want to see.

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The reason he looks like a fish out of water is that the spread doesn't require a coach to be a great tactician. If your receiver is better than his defender you win, regardless of scheme. Saban has yet to find the answer for winning 1 on 1 matchups more consistently.

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AN elite spread offense is Saban's kryptonite, he consistently loses to elite spread offense teams, from Oklahoma in 2013, Ohio State in 2014, Clemson in 2016 and 2018, and LSU in 2019. To say those teams didn't need or have great coaches is quite a stretch.

Also, many years Bama has been at or near the top in recruiting rankings, so surely lacking talented defenders weren't his only problem in those loses.

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I believe one of those wins was at LSU.

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Yep, you are right, I looked it up, LSU was #2, UNLV was #1, and St. John's was #25 and Kansas beat them all in a six day period.

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Michigan going from unranked to 4th is wild. Has that ever happened before?

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According to MLive.com, Kansas was unranked to start the 1989-90 season but jumped to No. 4 after starting 4-0 with wins over three then-ranked teams, including Nos. 1 and 2, so it's happened once before.

LINK

FPI is is just mental masturbation for math and statistics geeks.

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I promise you OSU doesn't want to play Clemson in the semi-finals.

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Exactly, playing Clemson should be tougher than playing Oklahoma, and all it takes is for the committee to seed Clemson at #4 according to their ranked wins resume, not the eye test.

This is always a fun series to watch. I also like the Gavitt Games with the Big East as well.

I added the Kenpom Ranking numbers to your list. It looks like many of the games, even the lesser ones, will be close and interesting.

Monday 12/2

KP#88 Miami @ KP#41 Illinois (7:00 pm)
KP#70 Clemson @ KP#77 Minnesota (9:00 pm)

Tuesday 12/3

KP#107 Northwestern @ KP#130 Boston College (7:00 pm)
KP#48 Iowa @ KP#54 Syracuse (7:00 pm)
KP#10 Michigan @ KP#2 Louisville (7:30 pm)
KP#15 Florida St @ KP#25 Indiana (9:00 pm)
KP#75 Pitt @ KP#71 Rutgers (9:00 pm)
KP#5 Duke @ KP#10 Michigan St (9:30 pm)

Wednesday 12/4

KP#143 Nebraska @ KP#72 Georgia Tech (7:15 pm)
KP#3 Virginia @ KP#13 Purdue (7:15 pm)
KP#52 Notre Dame @ KP#8 Maryland (7:30 pm)
KP#57 Wisconsin @ KP#44 NC State (9:15 pm)
KP#86 Wake Forest @ KP#24 Penn St (9:15 pm)
KP#4 Ohio State @ KP#12 North Carolina (9:15 pm)