If I Ran the College Football Play-offs, version 2.0

The criteria used to pick the eight teams would still be wins and losses (W/L), strength of schedule (SOS), and conference championship participation (CCP).  As stated in my first blog, the W/L of a team are easy to determine.  And, the SOS is still determined by wins and losses of opponents and the opponents of a team's opponents.  

However, one issue to be resolved, in developing a more accurate SOS rating going forward, is accounting for games against Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) teams.  I’d use a system that I read about online:  take that season’s cumulative win/loss record of all the FCS teams vs. Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams, and multiple it by 0.1.  For example, if that cumulative record was 28-76, then a record of 2.8 wins and 7.6 loses would be assigned to every FCS team that a FBS team played.

Then, as before, you take a team’s SOS ranking, multiple it by 0.1, add it to their losses, and then subtract it from their wins.  Now, here’s the major change from my first ranking system:  in every conference that has a championship game, the conference runner-up gets an additional 1.5.  Otherwise, the runner-up would end up with a lower play-off rating (PR) as a result of winning their division, but losing the conference title game.  The conference champion gets an additional 0.5, instead of 1.0 also. 

All that being said, here is my revised bracket, using the predictionmachine.com SOS rankings, effective Dec. 19^th, 2014:

Eight Team Play-off

#1 Alabama (11.1 PR) vs. T-#8 Arizona (5.5 PR)

#2 FSU (9.9 PR) vs. #7 TCU (5.6 PR)

#3 Oregon (8.1 PR) vs. #6 Miss. State (6.1 PR)

#4 Mizzou (7.3 PR) vs. #5 Ohio State (6.2 PR)

T-#8 Ole Miss (5.5 PR) is out under the 2^nd tie-breaker - division or conference winner.  (1st - head to head; 3^rd - SOS)  And, 10-3, SEC runner-up, Mizzou, is ranked ahead of 12-1, Big 10 champion, Ohio State, because of OSU’s relatively weak SOS.  At 53^rd, OSU’s SOS has the same weight as 5.3 losses.  Also, with a SOS at 58^th, and no conference championship game, 11-1, Big 12 co-champion, Baylor, ends up at #12, with a 4.2 PR.  That puts them behind #10 Georgia Tech (5.0 PR), and #11 UGA (4.5 PR).