Weekly Analysis

Here we provide a weekly description of the thought process behind any playoff eliminations.

Week 7

Old Dominion, Louisiana Tech, Fresno State

(3 Teams Eliminated, 77 Teams Remain)

Three more Group of Five teams are eliminated this week. Only nine Group of Five teams remain in the CFP hunt: Tulane, South Florida, North Texas, Navy, Memphis (AAC), Western Kentucky (CUSA), San Diego State, UNLV (MWC), and James Madison (SBC).

Week 6

Boise State, Delaware, UL Monroe, New Mexico, Texas State

(5 Teams Eliminated, 80 Teams Remain)

We’re down five more Group of Five teams this week. I admit that I hesitated a bit on Boise State. Would a two-loss Boise that beats (likely) UNLV twice and wins the Mountain West be able to sneak into the CFP as the fifth best conference champion? Possibly. The same scenario nearly played out last year with UNLV (had they beaten Boise in the MWC Championship Game).

Week 5

Appalachian State, New Mexico State, Rice, Utah State

(4 Teams Eliminated, 85 Teams Remain)

It was a relatively quiet week this week that saw the elimination of four more Group of Five teams. We inch closer to eliminating Power Four conference teams that are starting to rack up losses.

Week 4

Air Force, Army, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Colorado State, East Carolina, Florida International, Hawaii, Northern Illinois, Oregon State, Southern Miss, Temple, Toledo, UAB, Washington State, Wyoming

(16 Teams Eliminated, 89 Teams Remain)

More of our Group of Five friends head to the exit as they are eliminated from CFP contention. We also bid farewell to the lone holdouts from the former Pac-12 (Oregon State and Washington State). There are several Power Four conference teams that are in deep trouble (here’s looking at you Clemson, Virginia Tech, etc.). They’ll hold on for a little bit longer.

Week 3

Tulsa, Florida Atlantic, Jacksonville State, Liberty, Missouri State, UTEP, UConn, Kent State, Central Michigan, Ohio, Nevada, Coastal Carolina, Arkansas State, Louisiana, South Alabama, Troy

(16 Teams Eliminated, 105 Teams Remain)

Another rough week for our friends in Group of Five conferences as we say say “Goodbye” to 15 G5 teams. We’re almost done to under 100 teams with some (even very small) shot at CFP participation. We are getting really close to several Power Four conference teams joining this infamous list.

Week 2

Charlotte, UTSA, Kennesaw State, Middle Tennessee, Ball State, Eastern Michigan, Massachusetts, Miami (OH), Western Michigan, San José State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Marshall

(15 Teams Eliminated, 121 Teams Remain)

This week we bid farewell to the CFP hopes of 13 more teams. All of these teams are teams are Group of Five conference teams that picked up their second losses (and project to likely pick up many more). We are down to 121 teams with at least a glimmer of hope for a path to the CFP. A quick note on Oregon State and Washington State: These two teams are (until next season) the last holdouts from the Pac-12 Conference. Practically speaking, they are more like “Independent” teams than they are members of a real conference. I’ll be treating them as teams that have a status somewhere between Notre Dame (treated as a Power Four team) and the Group of Five conference teams. Oregon State’s two bad losses to start 2025 puts them in a particularly precarious situation. One more loss should be enough to eliminate them.

Weeks 0 and 1

Sam Houston
(2 Teams Eliminated, 134 Teams Remain)

Sam Houston State takes the honor of being the first team in the FBS with two losses and joins Akron. Further eliminations will commence in Week 2.

Preseason 2025

Akron
(1 Team Eliminated, 135 Teams Remain)

Each week we’ll update the graphic on the home page to reflect the “elimination” of teams from the College Football Playoff (CFP) race. Akron is ineligible for the postseason due to a low Academic Progress Rate. So we start the season with 135 teams in the CFP race.

I was ready to eliminate Delaware and Missouri State (the newest members of the Football Bowl Subdivision) as new teams are typically ineligible for the postseason (with some exceptions) due to their transition period. However, Delaware and Missouri State are bowl-eligible if there are not enough teams available to fill the available bowl slots. The problem is that both teams are not eligible to win the Conference USA title. This precludes them from being a potential automatic CFP qualifier.

Recall that CFP spots are available to the five highest-ranked conference champions. Presumably, this will be the four power conference champions (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC) plus the highest ranked Group of Five champion. This means that Delaware and Missouri State’s only path (highly implausible, but not completely impossible) is to be selected as one of the seven at-large teams. We’ll these teams as “not eliminated” team for the moment, but a single loss will be enough to remove them from contention. In short, I’ll eat the laptop I’m typing this on if either of these teams makes the CFP.