Saturday Blitz College Football Playoff Projections Week 8
Welcome to our inaugural College Football Playoff projections. Eight weeks into the season, we feel safe with a pretty good idea of what the college football playoff is shaping up to be, but note that it could change quickly.
Right now there are three undefeated teams, two from the same conference, and another 15 1-loss teams all from Power Five conferences. There are also two 1-loss non-Power Five teams, and then there is Marshall, who is an undefeated non-Power Five team that may think it has an insanely crazy off-chance of reaching the playoff if all the chips fall the right way. Simply put, these projections could change in a heartbeat.
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As we get set to bring you our post-Week 8 College Football Playoff projections, the first of the year for us, understand a couple of things. First, these are not our Top 25 rankings. Those are based on resume and body of work. Second, these are not power rankings. That’s where we add to the Top 25 formula with who generally appears to be playing better at the time. Finally, these have no bearing on our single-game predictions, which are based simply on how we think each team will perform that day.
These projections take our Top 25 rankings into account along with what is left on each team’s schedule, factoring in what their resumes could and will most likely look like at the end of the year if they keep the pace they are at now. For instance, our Top 25 has four SEC teams in the Top 5. However, we are not going to put anymore than one team from a conference in our College Football Playoff this early out because inevitably one of those SEC teams will have 2 losses and it’s likely multiple 1-loss teams in the conference will have at least 2 losses.
That makes it inevitable that these rankings are not going to look the way they look at the end of the year, and we are basing these projections on the end of the year. That does not mean we are basing them on what we think will happen to each team, though.
So, without further ado, here is our first College Football Playoff projection. On different slides, we will seed the teams, pair them up in games, bring you our teams who were left out but control their own destiny, and then give you teams that still have a chance to get in.
Top Four In: Mississippi State, Florida State, Notre Dame, and Baylor