Predicting the College Football Playoff: ESPN round-by-round predictions to the title

ESPN’s SP+ has been one of the most useful predictive measures in college football since its inception in 2008, offering a forward-looking glimpse at how teams can be expected to perform using a data-driven approach. Naturally, what it says about this year’s College Football Playoff is fascinating.

Bill Connelly, the creator of the SP+, broke down that this year’s playoff field is as wide open as ever if you go by his metrics.

Today, On3 stops to take a look at how the SP+ pegs the chances for each team to advance in each round of the College Football Playoffs. ESPN has broken it down by round to make it easier to digest.

But the gist is simple: Anything can happen in this year’s edition of the College Football Playoff.

Let’s start diving into the round-by-round predictions from the ESPN SP+.

First Round

Connelly notes that of the first-round matchups, three of the four are projected to be decided by six points or fewer. That would certainly make for some compelling viewing in the opening stage of the College Football Playoff.

Below is the listing of each of the games, as well as the corresponding win probability for the favorite.

12. Clemson at 5. Texas: Texas 79.7% win probability
11. SMU at 6. Penn State: Penn State 62.3% win probability
10. Indiana at 7. Notre Dame: Notre Dame 61.8% win probability
9. Tennessee at 8. Ohio State: Ohio State 63.8% win probability

Quarterfinals

The SP+ doesn’t provide exact matchups in the quarterfinal round, yielding a somewhat different-looking projection as the first round of the College Football Playoffs.

Instead of game-by-game win probabilities, we instead get an overall probability to advance to the next round from ESPN. So here is probability of each team advancing to the semifinals.

5. Texas 66.6%
2. Georgia 53.8%
1. Oregon 51.9%
6. Penn State 47.2%
8. Ohio State 32.0%
7. Notre Dame 29.8%
11. SMU 26.5%
3. Boise State 26.3%
4. Arizona State 20.1%
10. Indiana 16.4%
9. Tennessee 16.1%
12. Clemson 13.3%

Semifinals

The semifinals see the probabilities of advancing shifting up in large part due to the way the bracket shakes out. Some teams will have a harder path than others through to the semifinals, so here’s what the SP+ spit out for the right to advance to the final four teams in the College Football Playoff.

2. Georgia 34.1%
1. Oregon 33.1%
5. Texas 31.0%
6. Penn State 21.8%
8. Ohio State 20.6%
7. Notre Dame 18.8%
11. SMU 10.4%
10. Indiana 9.4%
9. Tennessee 9.2%
3. Boise State 5.5%
12. Clemson 3.1%
4. Arizona State 2.9%

College Football Playoff Final

What’s wildly interesting about the projections from the SP+ is how low the actual probabilities for any one team winning the title are. Oregon leads the way but has only a 20.4% chance to win it all.

As Connelly puts it, “when half the field has between an 8.9% and 20.4% title chance and no one is higher, we’re in for some serious chaos.” Here are the odds to win it all.

1. Oregon 20.4%
5. Texas 17.2%
2. Georgia 16.6%
8. Ohio State 12.5%
7. Notre Dame 9.0%
6. Penn State 8.9%
9. Tennessee 5.1%
10. Indiana 4.1%
11. SMU 3.7%
3. Boise State 1.1%
12. Clemson 0.8%
4. Arizona State 0.6%