Simulating the 2024 NCAA Football Playoff — Round 2
The simulator correctly predicted all four Round 1 games.
Opinion polls are just that: opinions, subjective value carrying little worth. Each week, this system identifies the Top FBS college football programs in terms of objective performance against strength of schedule (PASS), scoring tempo (sTem), and a true win percentage (tWin%). To learn more, check out the season kickoff, and last year’s primer. As the 2024 season progresses I’ll compare these objective ranks against the biased opinions of the College Football Playoff committee. And Follow me over at BlueSky!
This bowl season has been full of fantastic plotlines and close games. It’s also been full of scorned coaches, scorned broadcasters, and scorned fanbases. And yet, all of that pales in the face of the the expanded playoff. While there haven’t been any astounding playoff upsets, the bracket has produced some very intriguing statistical matchups and Round 2 continues that storyline.
The PASS Top 25
Non-playoff bowl games are excluded from these latest changes in PASS rankings. These low-stakes/no-stakes games often include notable players sitting out, coaching staff changes, and rosters that do not reflect the same qualities as they did throughout the season. Their inclusion could taint the overall data pool for the playoff teams and their performance.
After the National Championship has concluded, I’ll run PASS one more time including all bowl game data, then review the final rankings of the conferences.
The biggest playoff outlier at #25, Tennessee was obliterated from the rankings just as easily as they were in the first quarter of their game with Ohio State. Interestingly enough, it’s a lesser talked about SEC team in Florida that’s risen up to take the Vols’ vacancy. The other winners and losers are moving as you’d expect, while SMU and Penn State have flip-flopped.
It’s tempting to want to declare SMU overrated and PSU underrated. The simulation’s prediction of a very close game last week may look off the mark; a closer look reveals some eye-opening facts. The Nittany Lions were the only playoff team who won their game while underperforming in terms of offensive averages on the season. In terms of PASS, this was the one game where the lower ranked team won. Three of the four higher-ranked teams securing victory is in line with PASS’ general 72% accuracy of predicting outcomes (Historical accuracy across all regular season games).
The tWin% Top 25
If you prefer wins taking precedence over performance, True Win Percentage ranks all teams by their wins over FBS teams. Here are the following moves following Playoff Round 1.
Army really feels like the team that was left on the outside looking in. While some of the loudmouth types erroneously lambasted Indiana (A team still inside the top 12 even after being handled by Notre Dame), it’s Clemson who has dropped out of the tWin% Top 25. Perhaps not the best look for a playoff; one of the selected teams is no longer within the Top 25 at all in win percentage following the loss. As assumbed by PASS and tWin%, Clemson and Tennessee weren’t ready for the stage — garbage time aside, their games were well-settled before the first half was even over.
The sTem Top 25
The sTem Top 25 grades teams’ offenses and defenses on a per-play basis, to see how efficiently they score and prevent scoring.
There aren’t a whole lot of moves here, but SMU took an appropriately large step down the ladder after their previously efficient team looked anything but, posting a season-low 10 points while allowing 38. Indiana fell, but not by as much as you’d expect — their season was exceptionally strong, and they still find themselves trailing only Notre Dame and Ohio State, who appropriately are also the PASS #1 and #2.
The Playoff Games — Round 1 Results
The simulator did extremely well in predicting the last round’s results. After getting all four games correct and outperforming even the PASS metric above, let’s take a look at how each team performed versus their expected scoring curves. Each graph seen last week now has a dot added to its curve for their actual score.
Clemson at Texas could be considered the most entertaining game of Round 1. Both the Longhorns and Tigers performed ahead of the peak of their Point Total Likelihood, although the expected margin of victory ended up being even larger for Texas. The Longhorns looked great, although were just the 3rd best team in terms of placement ahead on their performance curve.
Notre Dame performed exactly as expected while Indiana underperformed, likely a testament to the Fighting Irish defense being stronger than what they were used to in the majority of Big Ten play. The simulator predicted a close matchup and while not a terribly close game, this was the tightest result of the round.
Tennessee (Sadly) performed exactly as expected. A rally from the playoff’s weakest team was only good enough to reach the average simulator performance. Ohio State, meanwhile, was the biggest over-performer of Round 1 and had the least likely performance among the eight teams.
And then there’s the game that was a near coin-flip, with Penn State holding just the slightest of edges. If only offense mattered, that prediction may have held up. Instead, the drive-killing turnovers that were created led to the widest margin in the opening round as SMU turned in the worst performance along their curve.
The Playoff Games — Round 2
Here we go again. Will the simulator remain perfect, or take its first lumps as competition intensifies?
Each game is simulated using a head to head matchup of their PASS / sTem data on both sides of the ball. Five hundred simulations of each game reveal an average score, points ceiling & floor, and projected yards, as well as tracking scoring likelihood. Vegas odds for comparison are as of 1:00AM EST on Dec. 30th.
Fiesta Bowl: Boise State VS Penn State
PASS: #7 Boise State 35.471 // #9 Penn State 32.141
sTem: #12 Boise State 0.229 // #7 Penn State 0.257
Avg. Score/Total: Boise State 27 Penn State 28 // Total 55
Ceiling/Floor: Boise State 53 | 0 // Penn State 55 | 0
Projected Yds: Boise State 359 // Penn State 429
Vegas says: Penn State (-9.5)
Simulation odds: Boise State 45.0% // Penn State 55.0%
Some non-power conference haters and ACC lovers may be eager to see Boise State outclassed by Penn State. While the simulator doesn’t think this matchup is as close as Penn State/SMU was, the two teams have incredibly similar scoring trends in the simulator. The Nittany Lions’ momentum and recent upticks in overall performance push them into a slightly more efficient scoring space, with over 71% of their simulated scores coming in between 21 and 40 points.
Don’t write the Broncos off completely. They’ve still won 45% of these simulations along a very, very slight disadvantage in trendline. Another factor that will likely feel surprising: Boise State actually has a stronger oSoS (Objective Strength of Schedule) than Penn State: #80 over #95. That might not be enough to swing a victory, but a spread this large could be in question. This is also the closest game of Playoff round 2 in terms of simulation win percentage.
Peach Bowl: Arizona State VS Texas
PASS: #16 Arizona State 23.062 // #6 Texas 42.228
sTem: #25 Arizona State 0.165 // #6 Texas 0.262
Avg. Score/Total: Arizona State 21 Texas 28 // Total 49
Ceiling/Floor: Arizona State 42 | 4 // Texas 59 | 9
Projected Yds: Arizona State 302 // Texas 402
Vegas says: Texas (-13.5)
Simulation odds: Arizona State 24.4% // Texas 75.6%
Will this game get ugly quick? One thing is for sure — this is the first simulated game where neither team ever scored zero. That could signal a higher-scoring affair than expected. Arizona State’s chances to score over 30 are very, very slim, with most of their scores coming between 15 and 26. Texas meanwhile looks likely to score between 20 and 36 points. That
ASU has a lot of pressure as the now-worst team remaining in the field. They’ve also closed the year with perhaps the most surprising performance in a Conference Championship game, the latest in a string of moments that have shocked more than a couple opponents and most pundits. Being 24.4% likely to win makes for some rough odds in terms of coming away with a victory, but this is a huge spread that might not hold up.
Rose Bowl: Oregon VS Ohio State
PASS: #3 Oregon 52.767 // #2 Ohio State 57.163
sTem: #10 Oregon 0.237 // #2 Ohio State 0.385
Avg. Score/Total: Oregon 22 Ohio State 28 // Total 50
Ceiling/Floor: Oregon 52 | 0 // Ohio State 58 | 0
Projected Yds: Oregon 331 // Ohio State 379
Vegas says: Ohio State (-2.5)
Simulation odds: Oregon 32.2% // Ohio State 67.8%
Ohio State has a noticeable, but not totally dominant edge in each of the metrics we’re tracking. This should be — and hopefully will be — a much more competitive game than the one against objective imposter Tennessee. Oregon looks most likely poised to score between 15 and 25 points while the Buckeyes’ largest share occur in the 18 to 32 point range.
The Ducks’ outlier scores are more extreme, both in being shut out and in posting the highest simulation score. These teams are unique this round in that they have already played this season. A narrow win for Oregon, normally dominant at home, could bode well for Ohio State now that the teams are playing in a neutral, non-Nike money facility.
Sugar Bowl: Georgia VS Notre Dame
PASS: #4 Georgia 48.817 // #1 Notre Dame 63.274
sTem: #21 Georgia 0.179 // #1 Notre Dame 0.402
Avg. Score/Total: Georgia 22 Notre Dame 31 // Total 53
Ceiling/Floor: Georgia 44 | 0 // Notre Dame 68 | 0
Projected Yds: Georgia 345 // Notre Dame 382
Vegas says: Georgia (-1.5)
Simulation odds: Georgia 23.0% // Notre Dame 77.0%
After #2 versus #3 above, now we have #1 versus #4 — are we sure the old playoff format is dead?? After a chaotic season with eleven lead changes at #1, Notre Dame has been the reigning leader for four straight weeks. This is the biggest gap yet between the simulator and what Vegas thinks will happen. An edge for the Dawgs could be their strength of schedule. While PASS doesn’t think their performance was better than Notre Dame’s against that schedule, Georgia played a much stronger objective strength of schedule (The #4 oSoS).
The simulator believes Notre Dame has a much better chance to post a high-flying score than Georgia, but the Fighting Irish also had a much wider spread of performances across all simulations. UGA peaked around scoring 20 points, with the largest sum of their simulations producing 15 to 25 points. The Fighting Irish look more likely to score between 22 and 36. The intersection point here is right at 33 points — if the game were going to overtime (Which happened in 2% of simulations), that’s right about where you’d expect the score to be.
Will PASS again get three-of-four matchups correct? Will the simulator continue to dominate the predictive field? And will these games prove to be closer contests than those of Round 1? Here’s hoping the entertainment value of these games will produce even more exciting narratives as we move on to the semi-finals. Enjoy the games, good luck to your teams and on any wagers, and may you have a great time cheersing in the New Year.
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