FiveThirtyEightSports Gives Playoff-Bound Sooners Best Chance to Win It All
By Chip Rouse
FiveThirtyEightSports has come out with projections on the College Football Playoff and which team has the best chance of winning it all this season. You might be surprised to learn that the Sooners are tracking higher than their current Playoff seed.
At this time of the season, most of the attention in college football turns to the four teams fortunate enough to play for the national championship, and this season that includes the Oklahoma Sooners.
FiveThirtyEight.com is a website that uses statistical analysis to tell compelling stories on a myriad of subjects, including sports.
One of the sports topics the folks at FiveThirtyEight have been following closely lately is the College Football Playoff and the teams that are in contention for the top four spots that will vie for the FBS national championship in college football this season.
Nov 28, 2015; Stillwater, OK, USA; Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Baker Mayfield (6) celebrates with fans following the game against the Oklahoma State Cowboys at Boone Pickens Stadium. The Sooners defeated the Cowboys 58-23. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
With just one more week to go before the Playoff rankings will become final, the Playoff picture is still fluid but very close to becoming fixed in place.
Oklahoma remained as the third seed in the ranking that were revealed on Tuesday night. In fact, all four Playoff spots remained the same as they were the previous week, with Clemson holding on to the top seed, followed by Alabama, the Sooners and Iowa.
If things stay as they are after the conference championship games in the ACC, SEC and Big Ten this weekend, each of those conferences, along with the Big 12, will be represented in this season’s Playoff bracket. Last season, the Big 12 failed to get a tem into the Playoff. This season, if everything remains status quo, the Pac-12 would be the odd man out among the Power 5 conferences.
FiveThirtyEightSports is projecting that the Playoff teams will remain the same except for the Big Ten representative. The website projects that Michigan State will defeat Iowa in the conference championship game and jump the Hawkeyes, taking over the final playoff spot. They give the Spartans a 61 percent chance of making the Playoff (contrasted with 41 percent for Iowa), but only a 7 percent chance of winning the national crown.
According to the most recent projections by the brain trusts at FiveThirtyEightSports, Oklahoma has the best chance of hoisting the national championship trophy on Jan. 11 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. The Sooners are projected at 41 percent probability of winning the national championship. Alabama is next at 25 percent, followed by Clemson at 14 percent and Michigan State.
Good to see that someone other than Sooner Nation is pulling for the Sooners in the postseason.