ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight gives 5 SEC teams’ chances of making, winning CFP
By Andrew Olson
Published:
The latest Election 2016 forecast isn’t the only reason to be clicking on the FiveThirtyEight blog this November. The ESPN site is also looking at which teams have a chance of making and winning the College Football Playoff.
FiveThirtyEight published a list of 25 teams, including five from the SEC, that have at least a 0.1 percent chance of winning the playoff.
The SEC teams with a chance are:
- Alabama (58 percent chance of winning SEC, 76 percent chance of making the playoff, 31 percent chance of winning the national title)
- Texas A&M (3, 20, 4)
- Auburn (11, 11, 2)
- LSU (7, 6, 2)
- Florida (17, 4, less than 1)
The site offers the following explanation for how the percentages are calculated:
Our forecast is based on 10,000 simulations of the season and updates after every game and College Football Playoff selection committee (CFP) ranking. Our model combines ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI), an Elo rating-based ranking and the weekly CFP rankings to calculate teams’ chances of winning their conference and advancing to and through the playoffs. The teams included above made the playoff in at least 10 of our simulations (0.1 percent).
The full list in graphic form can be viewed here.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
