Weekly Analysis

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

Final

North Texas, Virginia, BYU, Notre Dame

(4 Teams Eliminated, 12 Teams Remain)

Well, here we are! The College Football Playoff bracket has been announced and we’ve performed our final eliminations. I’ll leave it to the pundits to hash out the “fairness” and/or “correctness” of the final bracket. Check out our new article on the Articles page to see how the bracket would have looked under the BCS, the four team CFP, and hypothetical 16 and 24 team brackets.

Week 14

Arizona State, Georgia Tech, Michigan, Pittsburgh, San Diego State, SMU, Texas, Utah, Vanderbilt, Navy, USC

(11 Teams Eliminated, 16 Teams Remain)

With the release of this week’s CFP rankings we have some clarity as to the playoff field. Realistically Georgia, Indiana, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Oregon, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech are effectively locks for the playoff regardless of the results of this week’s conference championship games. That leaves eight teams fighting for the last four spots. Alabama should feel pretty good about its situation and is likely “in” barring a disaster against Georgia. There is potential for some “chaos” if Duke wins the ACC Championship. This would open the door for two Group of Five conference champions to enter the field.

Week 13

Cincinnati, Houston

(2 Teams Eliminated, 27 Teams Remain)

A consequence of our new reality of large conferences is scheduling that doesn’t necessarily involve the top teams in a conference playing each other each season. This can lead to tricky tiebreakers at the end of the season. That’s where find ourselves, particularly in the ACC. We’ll have a lot more clarity after this weekend.

Week 12

South Florida, Baylor, Arizona, California, Duke, Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Louisville, LSU, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nebraska, NC State, Northwestern, Tennessee, TCU, Wake Forest, Washington

(19 Teams Eliminated, 2 Teams Restored, 29 Teams Remain)

South Florida’s stay in the land of the restored teams did not last long. A loss to Navy eliminates USF again. The CFP committee’s rankings for this week give Tulane the Group of Five spot, so we’ll restore them from prior elimination. We’ll also restore Navy as it looks like the Group of Five race is down to four teams: Tulane, North Texas, James Madison, and Navy. It’s also possible that San Diego State is lurking just on the fringes. JMU is the only 1-loss team in this group, but has yet to be ranked by the CFP committee. On the Power Four front, we are at a place where we start to eliminate teams even if they win. For example, Arizona won this week, but is eliminated from Big 12 Championship contention.

Week 11

Florida State, Kansas, Maryland, Memphis, Mississippi State, Navy, UCF

(7 Teams Eliminated, 1 Team Restored, 46 Teams Remain)

It’s my goal to never have to “restore” an eliminated team, but here we are. Welcome back to South Florida. Their spot in this week’s CFP rankings is enough to raise them from the dead. For others, the news is less happy. Memphis is eliminated just one week after appearing in the projected CFP field.

Week 10

Auburn, Clemson, Florida, Kansas State, Penn State, Rutgers, South Florida, Tulane, UNLV

(9 Teams Eliminated, 52 Teams Remain)

More Power Four conference teams picked up their fifth loss this week. We also lost three more Group of Five teams. Memphis is the driver’s seat for the Group of Five CFP bid, but several others remain in the hunt. See our new “Bracket” page for a look at the “current” bracket based on the most recent CFP Rankings.

Week 9

Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan State, North Carolina, South Carolina, Stanford, Syracuse, UCLA

(8 Teams Eliminated, 61 Teams Remain)

The culling of bottom-of-the-barrel Power Four conference teams continues this week. At this moment, five losses is enough to condemn these teams even if they were to miraculously win their conference. At that point, it’s quite likely that two Group of Five conference champions would rank above them.

Week 8

Arkansas, Boston College, Oklahoma State, Purdue, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Western Kentucky

(8 Teams Eliminated, 69 Teams Remain)

It’s time. Several Power Four conference teams have accumulated enough losses that they are eliminated from CFP contention. These teams have been eliminated from at-large selection for several weeks, but now they are in positions where, even if they won their conference title, they would likely not be in the top five conference champions.

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.