College Football Playoff Rankings

It is that time again; when the country starts to debate on one of the most important topics. Who should make it to the College Football Playoffs?

The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout tournament to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level of college football competition in the United States. Till a few years ago, polls or computer rankings were used to select the participants for the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), the title system used in FBS from 1998 to 2013. That clearly made everybody’s blood pressure go up. So a new system was devised. A 13-member committee selects and seeds the four teams to take part in the CFP. The Four teams play in two semifinal games, and the winner of each semifinal advances to the College Football Playoff National Championship game. Yay! So much simpler and debate free. Lol! Of course none of it actually matters because this is not even an officially sanctioned championship event by the NCAA, the sport’s governing body. It is purely for keeping football crazy fans engaged for a few more weeks and making a gazillion more dollars.

From my bio, you know I like to mix art and science and the CFP is clearly a great candidate for mixing the two. So here is my logical attempt.

To get you all to read the rest of my article (or not if you agree completely) here are my results.

Rank	Team	Conference	Points	Win	Loss
1	Alabama	SEC	124.001	13	0
2	Oklahoma	Big 12	117.316	12	1
3	Clemson	ACC	113.869	13	0
4	Notre Dame	Independent	111.044	12	0
5	Ohio State	Big Ten	110.629	12	1
6	Central Florida	American	107.280	14	0
7	Georgia	SEC	105.450	11	2
8	Michigan	Big Ten	102.100	10	2
9	Fresno State	MWC	100.570	11	2
10	Washington	Pac 12	98.550	12	3
11	Louisiana State	SEC	97.050	9	3
12	Washington State	Pac 12	95.050	10	2
13	Utah State	MWC	94.600	10	2
14	Florida	SEC	93.450	9	3
15	West Virginia	Big 12	92.600	8	3
16	Kentucky	SEC	92.550	9	3
17	Penn State	Big Ten	92.350	9	3
18	Appalachian State	Sun Belt	91.721	12	2
19	Texas	Big 12	90.950	9	4
20	Boise State	MWC	90.950	10	3
21	Missouri	SEC	88.900	8	4
22	Syracuse	ACC	87.900	9	3
23	Cincinnati	American	87.100	10	2
24	Mississippi State	SEC	87.100	8	4
25	North Carolina State	ACC	84.650	9	3
26	Texas A&M	SEC	84.450	8	4
27	Iowa	Big Ten	83.600	8	4
28	Army	Independent	83.550	10	2
29	Stanford	Pac 12	83.036	8	4
30	Iowa State	Big 12	82.900	8	4

Alabama is no debate. My point scale goes to 130 and Alabama was nearly at the top of all my categories. As you can see Oklahoma, in my analysis, is a clear 2nd place. The fight for 3rd and 4th is closer between Clemson, Notre Dame and Ohio State but I think Ohio State suffered terribly for the loss against Purdue and overall just wasn’t a convincing winner of its games. The championship game against Northwestern was a good attempt for making a strong case to get into the final four but it was a tad too late.

My methodology

I had 4 big criteria.

Win games. Win against whoever you played.
Win big against strong teams.
If you lose, lose close against strong teams.
Win your championship.

Criteria 1: Win games.

This was straightforward. Win percentage. Calculated as games won divided by total games played.

Criteria 2: Win big against strong teams

This was a 3-step process. First, I calculated the point margin of victory for each game. This was then multiplied by the strength of the team they won against. Strength of a team is calculated by dividing the total number of games won by the total number of games lost. Third, this was multiplied by the strength of the conference the losing team belonged to. For the calculation of the strength of the conference see further below.

Criteria 3: If you lose, lose close against strong teams

Similar to above, but I reversed it (games lost/games won) * points margin * strength of conference of winning team. This was so that the lower the number the better. Just worked easier for my math.

Criteria 4: Win your championship

Easy enough. Get to the championship and win your game. If you did you got 130 points but multiplied by the strength of the conference.

Strength of Conference