So far in this year's math-driven college football preview, we have reviewed the results from 2023, taken a close look at the schedule for the Michigan State Spartans, and analyzed several scenarios in the Big Ten race.
In this year's new 12-team college football playoff the four highest ranked conference champions will all earn a first-round bye. While not guaranteed, the eventual Big Ten Champion will most likely earn one of those byes. The other three byes are expected to go to the champions of the SEC, the Big 12, and the ACC.
In today's installment, let's take a quick look at the races in those three other conference and make some predictions as to which teams automatically advance to the quarterfinal round of the new playoff.
SEC Overview and Prediction
Similar to the analysis done for the Big Ten, Table 1 below shows the detailed results of my preseason simulation of the SEC race, including the consensus preseason rank of each team, two sets of projected final records, strength of schedule data, and the odds for each team to make and win the SEC Championship Game and to make and win the new 12-team playoff.
|
Table 1 shows that there are five consensus preseason top 10 teams (No. 1 Georgia, No. 4 Texas, No. 5 Alabama, No. 7 Mississippi, and No. 10 Missouri) and four additional SEC teams ranked between No. 12 and No. 16 (No. 12 Oklahoma, No. 13 LSU, No. 15 Tennessee, and No. 16 Texas A&M).
The simulation result says that there is a 69% chance that one of the five top 10 teams will win the SEC title and a 25% chance that one of other top 20 teams wins the conference. But which two teams will ultimately play for the SEC crown?
According to the Table 1 above, preseason No. 1 Georgia does have the best overall odds to win the SEC, but the other data in the table paints a more complicated picture. Texas actually has slightly better odds to reach the SEC Championship Game (32% to 28%). In addition, Alabama (25%) and Mississippi (25%) are just a few percentage points behind.
A closer look at the strength of schedule data in Table 1 helps to explain what is going on. Similar to the challenges that Ohio State will have in the Big Ten, Georgia draws the No. 5 most difficult schedule nationally and the No. 7 most difficult SEC conference schedule.
All of the other SEC contenders listed above have schedules at the very bottom in conference difficultly. The lone exception is Oklahoma which drew the No. 2 toughest schedule is the country and the toughest conference schedule.
Georgia has a brutal road schedule featuring games at Alabama (-1), at Texas (-2), and at Mississippi (pick'em). Alabama also has a challenging road schedule featuring games at Tennessee (+2), LSU (+1), and Oklahoma (+0.5) in addition to the home game against Georgia.
Based on these gauntlets, it is tough to pick either the Bulldogs or the Crimson Tide to return to the SEC Championship game. Instead, the Texas Longhorns appear to have the inside track due to their high ranking and manageable schedule.
Within the group of top nine SEC teams, Texas only plays Georgia (+2), at Texas A&M (+3), and Oklahoma (+6.5). The Longhorns project to be favored in all eight conference games and thus project to go 8-0 in the "most likely" scenario shown in Table 1. In the "disruptive" scenario, where I added a historically reasonable number of road upsets, the Longhorns lose at rival Texas A&M but still finish at 7-1.
Regarding the second team in the SEC Championship, the most likely scenario has Alabama barely edging the four toughest opponents on the schedule to also finish at 8-0. But I think it is unlikely for the post-Saban-era Crimson Tide to be able to pull off that feat. In the disruptive scenario, Alabama take three losses to finish at 5-3.
Instead, the disruptive scenario projects Mississippi to edge Georgia (pick'em) in Oxford to finish at 7-1 to claim the second spot in the SEC Championship Game. Even if the Rebels fall to the Bulldogs, they could still finish at 7-1 win a road win over LSU (pick'em), as the next most difficult games on the schedule are a home game against Oklahoma (+6.5) and a road game at Florida (+6.5).
On a neutral field, Texas projects to be a 2-point favorite over Mississippi and as such the Longhorns are my pick to win the SEC in their first year in the league.
One other team to keep an eye one is Texas A&M. The Aggie project to be favored in their first seven conference games until the regular season finale against Texas. They are my dark horse pick to make the SEC title game.
Big 12 Overview and Prediction
Table 2 below provides the same set of data for the Big 12 as Table 1.
Table 2: Summary of the preseason projections for the Big 12 conference, based on the consensus preseason rankings and a 150,000 cycle Monte Carlo simulation of the full college football season. |
The data for the Big 12 is remarkably similar to the SEC except that instead of nine teams ranked in the top 16, the Big 12 has 10 teams ranked between No. 17 and No. 41. The odds distribution is very similar with no team have odd better than 32% to make the Championship Game and over 18% to win the conference title.
While No. 17 Utah has a slight edge in odds, the Big 12 looks to be a toss-up between the Utes, No. 19 Oklahoma State, No. 20 Kansas, and No. 24 Arizona. With the expectation of Oklahoma State, the other five primary contenders happen to own the four easiest conference schedules.
The list of secondary contenders includes No. 31 Iowa State, No. 33 West Virginia, No. 36 TCU, No. 40 UCF, and No. 41 Texas Tech, but the combination of being projected as weaker teams with tougher schedules makes it hard to pick any of these schools to make the Big 12 Championship game.
In the most likely scenario, Kansas State runs the table and earns a spot in the Big 12 Championship game. The Wildcats are a good bet in general as they avoid Utah and face Oklahoma State and Kansas at home. Even if Kansas State were to lose on the road at West Virginia or at Iowa State (as predicted in the disruptive scenario) the Wildcats are in a strong position based on head-to-head tiebreakers.
In the other Big 12 Championship game slot, I will go with Utah, as the Utes finish 8-1 in both scenarios with a sole conference loss at Oklahoma State. The second most difficult conference game on Utah's schedule is at UCF (+5.5) which seems manageable.
Based on their preseason rank, Utah projects as a slight favorite over Kansas State on a neutral field.
However, I should note that my analysis of the 2023 season suggested that Utah (+1.31 games of luck), Oklahoma State (+2.47), and Kansas (+0.75) were all on the lucky side last year, while Kansas State (-1.71) and Arizona (-0.67) were both unlucky.
With this in mind and despite a tough road games at Utah (-7), UCF (-2), and TCU (-1) I like Arizona my dark horse Big 12 pick. Ultimately, Kansas State is my pick for the Big 12 crown.
ACC Overview and Prediction
Table 3: Summary of the preseason projections for the ACC conference, based on the consensus preseason rankings and a 150,000 cycle Monte Carlo simulation of the full college football season. |
- 9/21: NC State at Clemson (-9.5)
- 9/28: Florida State at SMU (+3.5)
- 9/28; Virginia Tech at Miami (-8)
- 10/5: Clemson at Florida State (-5)
- 10/5: SMU at Louisville (-5)
- 10/26: Florida State at Miami (pick’em)
- 10/19: Miami at Louisville (-2)
- 11/2: Louisville at Clemson (-7.5)
- 11/9: Clemson at Virginia Tech (+3)
- 11/30: NC State at North Carolina (+2)
Comments
Post a Comment