There’s one more football game to be played this winter: it’s Super Bowl LX, and it’s at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Let’s look at the ratings and make a prediction.

Some are describing the Seahawks and Patriots as an unexpected matchup, but that requires some context. The Lions and Ravens might have been considered the favorites at the start of the season, but both missed the playoffs. The NFC North looked like the best division in the conference, and it’s not surprising that the Packers were a playoff team. But the Bears weren’t expected to win the division and actually appeared to be the weakest team in the division. The Bears turned out to be much better than expected, winning the division and nearly knocking the Rams out of the playoffs. Instead of the expected NFC North dominance, the NFC West was the strongest division, with the Seahawks, Rams, and 49ers all reaching the playoffs. As the season went along, my ratings moved the Rams and Seahawks to the top of the ratings, and they appeared to be the most likely candidates to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl at the end of the regular season. The Seahawks weren’t the most likely candidate at the start of the season to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, but they were at the top of the ratings when the playoffs started.

In October, I wrote about the Patriots and their chances of winning the AFC East. The Bills looked like the preseason favorite to win the division while the ratings placed the Patriots toward the bottom of the NFL. But the Patriots kept winning, and although they never moved to the top of the ratings, their computer rating improved over the course of the season. The most likely Super Bowl teams from the AFC at the end of the regular season appeared to be the AFC South duo of the Jaguars and Texans. As I wrote just a few weeks ago, however, the Patriots had improved during the season, and their rating doesn’t necessarily reflect the strength of the Patriots right now. No, the Patriots weren’t the favorite to reach the Super Bowl when the regular season ended, but this also isn’t as unlikely as it might seem. The real surprise in the AFC is the Ravens, who opened the season as my favorite to win the Super Bowl but missed the playoffs.

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With that said, let’s take a look at the computer ratings.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 2.02 points
Mean score: 22.42 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      13.76  -0.12  Seattle Seahawks      6.87    6.87   
   2      11.28  -0.01  Los Angeles Rams      7.88    3.42   
   3      8.02   -0.07  Houston Texans        1.13    6.89   
   4      7.72   +0.02  Jacksonville Jaguars  4.64    3.07   
   5      6.74   +0.16  New England Patriots  2.83    3.93   
   6      4.90   +0.01  Buffalo Bills         5.39    -0.51  
   7      4.78   +0.02  San Francisco 49ers   3.18    1.59   
   8      4.18   +0.01  Indianapolis Colts    5.40    -1.22  
   9      4.04   -0.02  Detroit Lions         5.16    -1.11  
  10      3.51   -0.11  Denver Broncos        -0.15   3.68   
  11      2.53   +0.04  Philadelphia Eagles   -2.00   4.54   
  12      1.67   -0.06  Kansas City Chiefs    -1.85   3.53   
  13      1.49   +0.04  Baltimore Ravens      1.88    -0.41  
  14      1.17   +0.01  Chicago Bears         2.32    -1.13  
  15      1.17   +0.03  Green Bay Packers     -0.17   1.34   
  16      0.93   +0.01  Minnesota Vikings     -3.09   4.03   
  17      0.33   -0.05  Los Angeles Chargers  -1.76   2.08   
  18      -0.30  +0.01  Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.33   0.04   
  19      -1.16  -0.04  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  0.19    -1.32  
  20      -2.16  +0.05  Atlanta Falcons       -1.83   -0.34  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21      -3.05  +0.06  Carolina Panthers     -4.06   1.04   
  22      -3.56  -0.01  New York Giants       -0.61   -2.94  
  23      -3.90  -0.03  Dallas Cowboys        4.65    -8.58  
  24      -4.65  +0.01  New Orleans Saints    -5.00   0.36   
  25      -4.72  +0.01  Cincinnati Bengals    1.71    -6.40  
  26      -4.77  -0.04  Arizona Cardinals     -1.44   -3.31  
  27      -5.88  -0.02  Washington Commanders -2.10   -3.76  
  28      -6.40  -0.00  Miami Dolphins        -3.70   -2.67  
  29      -7.51  +0.01  Cleveland Browns      -7.81   0.28   
  30      -7.87  -0.00  Tennessee Titans      -3.92   -3.95  
  31      -10.70 -0.01  Las Vegas Raiders     -7.90   -2.81  
  32      -11.78 -0.03  New York Jets         -5.49   -6.29  

And here’s the prediction for Super Bowl LX based on these ratings.

#1: Seattle Seahawks (7.02, 69.87%) vs. New England Patriots (-7.02, 30.13%)
Estimated score: 25.36 - 18.38, Total: 43.74
Quality: 91.26%, Team quality: 92.75%, Competitiveness: 88.35%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 27.01%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.36%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 19.58%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 22.66%

I agree with the consensus that the Seahawks are the favorite, but there a couple of reasons why the Patriots might have better than a 30% chance of winning. First is that these ratings are based on the assumption that margins of victory are normally distributed. I’ve suggested that this might not be the best distribution, and that I might switch to a logistic distribution in the future. That would increase the Patriots’ win probability a bit.

Both the Patriots and Seahawks have improved significantly during the season, but the Patriots have improved a bit more by my calculations. I calculated this by using a team’s current rating as a baseline and then determining of the team underperformed or outperformed their prediction each week. I standardized the x-axis so that it doesn’t depend on how many games each team has played. then I did a linear regression and used the slope of the best fit line as my measure of improvement. Here are the updated numbers through the conference championship games for the overall, offense, and defense ratings.

Overall Trend
Rank Trend Team                  Rating     
   1 +5.10 New England Patriots  6.74 (5)   
   2 +5.02 Cincinnati Bengals    -4.72 (25) 
   3 +4.19 Jacksonville Jaguars  7.72 (4)   
   4 +4.17 Chicago Bears         1.17 (14)  
   5 +3.96 Seattle Seahawks      13.76 (1)  
   6 +3.66 New York Giants       -3.56 (22) 
   7 +3.26 New Orleans Saints    -4.65 (24) 
   8 +2.96 Minnesota Vikings     0.93 (16)  
   9 +2.19 Baltimore Ravens      1.49 (13)  
  10 +1.59 Carolina Panthers     -3.05 (21) 
  11 +1.55 Cleveland Browns      -7.51 (29) 
  12 +1.41 Atlanta Falcons       -2.16 (20) 
  13 +1.11 Buffalo Bills         4.90 (6)   
  14 +0.92 Tennessee Titans      -7.87 (30) 
  15 +0.57 Los Angeles Chargers  0.33 (17)  
  16 +0.36 Denver Broncos        3.51 (10)  
  17 -0.67 Miami Dolphins        -6.40 (28) 
  18 -0.71 Houston Texans        8.02 (3)   
  19 -0.82 San Francisco 49ers   4.78 (7)   
  20 -0.98 Los Angeles Rams      11.28 (2)  
Rank Trend Team                  Rating     
  21 -1.33 Philadelphia Eagles   2.53 (11)  
  22 -1.69 Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.30 (18) 
  23 -1.87 Las Vegas Raiders     -10.70 (31)
  24 -2.47 Washington Commanders -5.88 (27) 
  25 -2.57 Dallas Cowboys        -3.90 (23) 
  26 -2.69 Green Bay Packers     1.17 (15)  
  27 -3.88 Detroit Lions         4.04 (9)   
  28 -3.97 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  -1.16 (19) 
  29 -5.15 New York Jets         -11.78 (32)
  30 -5.31 Indianapolis Colts    4.18 (8)   
  31 -5.92 Arizona Cardinals     -4.77 (26) 
  32 -6.35 Kansas City Chiefs    1.67 (12)  

Offense Trend
Rank Trend Team                  Offense   
   1 +2.64 Jacksonville Jaguars  4.64 (7)  
   2 +2.58 Tennessee Titans      -3.92 (27)
   3 +2.37 Los Angeles Rams      7.88 (1)  
   4 +2.27 Houston Texans        1.13 (13) 
   5 +2.09 Atlanta Falcons       -1.83 (21)
   6 +1.98 Cincinnati Bengals    1.71 (12) 
   7 +1.69 New Orleans Saints    -5.00 (29)
   8 +1.62 New York Giants       -0.61 (18)
   9 +1.52 San Francisco 49ers   3.18 (8)  
  10 +1.21 Carolina Panthers     -4.06 (28)
  11 +1.12 New England Patriots  2.83 (9)  
  12 +1.01 Seattle Seahawks      6.87 (2)  
  13 +0.89 Chicago Bears         2.32 (10) 
  14 +0.27 Denver Broncos        -0.15 (15)
  15 +0.06 Buffalo Bills         5.39 (4)  
  16 +0.04 Cleveland Browns      -7.81 (31)
  17 -0.42 Green Bay Packers     -0.17 (16)
  18 -1.02 Las Vegas Raiders     -7.90 (32)
  19 -1.23 Arizona Cardinals     -1.44 (19)
  20 -1.26 Miami Dolphins        -3.70 (26)
Rank Trend Team                  Offense   
  21 -1.48 Washington Commanders -2.10 (24)
  22 -1.68 Baltimore Ravens      1.88 (11) 
  23 -2.00 Minnesota Vikings     -3.09 (25)
  24 -2.13 Los Angeles Chargers  -1.76 (20)
  25 -2.26 Indianapolis Colts    5.40 (3)  
  26 -2.30 Dallas Cowboys        4.65 (6)  
  27 -2.54 Philadelphia Eagles   -2.00 (23)
  28 -2.82 Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.33 (17)
  29 -2.83 New York Jets         -5.49 (30)
  30 -3.11 Detroit Lions         5.16 (5)  
  31 -3.53 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  0.19 (14) 
  32 -5.24 Kansas City Chiefs    -1.85 (22)

Defense Trend
Rank Trend Team                  Defense   
   1 +4.96 Minnesota Vikings     4.03 (4)  
   2 +3.98 New England Patriots  3.93 (5)  
   3 +3.87 Baltimore Ravens      -0.41 (18)
   4 +3.28 Chicago Bears         -1.13 (21)
   5 +3.04 Cincinnati Bengals    -6.40 (31)
   6 +2.95 Seattle Seahawks      6.87 (2)  
   7 +2.69 Los Angeles Chargers  2.08 (10) 
   8 +2.04 New York Giants       -2.94 (26)
   9 +1.57 New Orleans Saints    0.36 (14) 
  10 +1.55 Jacksonville Jaguars  3.07 (9)  
  11 +1.51 Cleveland Browns      0.28 (15) 
  12 +1.21 Philadelphia Eagles   4.54 (3)  
  13 +1.12 Pittsburgh Steelers   0.04 (16) 
  14 +1.06 Buffalo Bills         -0.51 (19)
  15 +0.60 Miami Dolphins        -2.67 (24)
  16 +0.38 Carolina Panthers     1.04 (13) 
  17 +0.09 Denver Broncos        3.68 (6)  
  18 -0.27 Dallas Cowboys        -8.58 (32)
  19 -0.43 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  -1.32 (23)
  20 -0.69 Atlanta Falcons       -0.34 (17)
Rank Trend Team                  Defense   
  21 -0.76 Detroit Lions         -1.11 (20)
  22 -0.86 Las Vegas Raiders     -2.81 (25)
  23 -0.99 Washington Commanders -3.76 (28)
  24 -1.11 Kansas City Chiefs    3.53 (7)  
  25 -1.66 Tennessee Titans      -3.95 (29)
  26 -2.27 Green Bay Packers     1.34 (12) 
  27 -2.33 New York Jets         -6.29 (30)
  28 -2.34 San Francisco 49ers   1.59 (11) 
  29 -2.98 Houston Texans        6.89 (1)  
  30 -3.05 Indianapolis Colts    -1.22 (22)
  31 -3.35 Los Angeles Rams      3.42 (8)  
  32 -4.69 Arizona Cardinals     -3.31 (27)

What does it all mean? My ratings have the Seahawks as favored by roughly a touchdown and with around a 70% chance of winning. Accounting for the relative improvement of the Patriots and Seahawks during the season would lower that spread to a bit under six points. Then using a logistic distribution for the range of outcomes would move it even closer to an even matchup. Although I haven’t done the exact math, my intuition is that the Seahawks have somewhere around a 60-65% chance of winning. The Seahawks are favored, but Super Bowl LX is a closer matchup than it initially appears.

Somewhere amid the commercials and the long halftime show, there’s a football game to be played today. And it’s an intriguing game that’s more even and less unexpected than many of the pundits are saying. I’m still picking the Seahawks, but I can’t help but think back 24 years ago to Super Bowl XXXVI. That season, the Saint Louis Rams appeared dominant against a New England team that finished in last place one year prior and appeared to be a clear underdog. But those Patriots had improved considerably over the 2001 season, second only to Washington by my calculations, and they upset the Rams to start a dynasty. Accounting for how those two teams trended during the season, it was probably more even than Super Bowl LX. But it’s a cautionary tale that although the Seahawks are the favorite, don’t count the Patriots out.

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This article uses ratings based on data acquired from Pro Football Reference.

Lumen Field in Seattle is the site of the NFC championship game this afternoon between the Seahawks and Rams. My ratings give the Seahawks an edge due to the Seahawks being rated higher and having the home advantage. The Patriots will need to win on the road against the Broncos if they’re going to advance to the Super Bowl. My ratings give the Patriots a slight edge with this being a road game, but the model might be slightly underestimating the Patriots’ chances today. In my previous ratings article, I posted stats showing how much team improved or regressed during the season, and the Patriots were among the teams that improved most. Because the ratings represent the quality of teams over the entire season, the Patriots might actually be better right now than their predictive rating indicates.

It’s a tiny sample size, so take it for what it’s worth, but I suggested that the Bears and Patriots might outperform the prediction for their games. Although the Bears ultimately lost in overtime, both teams did play better than their predictions last week. It will be interesting to see if that holds up this week, and if the Patriots win a bit more decisively than the slight edge given to them in the predictions.

At this point of the postseason, there’s little movement in the ratings, so I’ll just post a quick update to the ratings and then have the probabilities for today’s games.

Predictive Ratings

These are the predictive ratings you’ve been used to seeing all season, updated through the divisional round games. Again, there’s little movement among the teams just because there aren’t many games to change the ratings.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 2.01 points
Mean score: 22.43 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      13.88  +0.92  Seattle Seahawks      6.71    7.16   
   2      11.29  -0.45  Los Angeles Rams      7.67    3.62   
   3      8.09   -0.77  Houston Texans        1.09    6.97   
   4      7.70   -0.19  Jacksonville Jaguars  4.59    3.14   
   5   +1 6.58   +0.76  New England Patriots  3.51    3.08   
   6   +1 4.89   -0.11  Buffalo Bills         5.29    -0.39  
   7   -2 4.76   -1.15  San Francisco 49ers   3.19    1.56   
   8      4.17   -0.25  Indianapolis Colts    5.38    -1.21  
   9      4.06   +0.03  Detroit Lions         5.18    -1.09  
  10      3.62   +0.16  Denver Broncos        0.65    2.94   
  11      2.49   -0.14  Philadelphia Eagles   -2.06   4.56   
  12      1.73   -0.05  Kansas City Chiefs    -1.90   3.61   
  13      1.45   -0.00  Baltimore Ravens      1.86    -0.36  
  14   +1 1.16   +0.28  Chicago Bears         2.34    -1.20  
  15   -1 1.14   +0.06  Green Bay Packers     -0.21   1.36   
  16      0.92   +0.21  Minnesota Vikings     -3.04   3.99   
  17      0.38   +0.05  Los Angeles Chargers  -1.81   2.20   
  18      -0.31  +0.11  Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.37   0.06   
  19      -1.12  +0.10  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  0.16    -1.29  
  20      -2.21  -0.04  Atlanta Falcons       -1.88   -0.35  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21      -3.11  -0.01  Carolina Panthers     -4.10   1.00   
  22      -3.55  +0.02  New York Giants       -0.74   -2.83  
  23      -3.88  +0.12  Dallas Cowboys        4.59    -8.51  
  24   +1 -4.67  +0.02  New Orleans Saints    -5.07   0.37   
  25   +1 -4.73  +0.09  Cincinnati Bengals    1.62    -6.33  
  26   -2 -4.73  -0.09  Arizona Cardinals     -1.42   -3.32  
  27      -5.85  +0.14  Washington Commanders -2.12   -3.76  
  28      -6.40  +0.05  Miami Dolphins        -3.78   -2.63  
  29      -7.52  +0.03  Cleveland Browns      -7.84   0.33   
  30      -7.86  -0.12  Tennessee Titans      -3.99   -3.90  
  31      -10.68 +0.01  Las Vegas Raiders     -8.00   -2.68  
  32      -11.75 +0.14  New York Jets         -5.55   -6.20  

Conference Championship Predictions

Let’s get to the game predictions. There are no ties in the postseason, so the predictions look slightly different than during the regular season. As I suggested, the ratings might be underestimating the Patriots’ chances against Denver because the ratings represent a team’s overall quality throughout the season, but the Patriots have improved over the course of the season.

#1: Los Angeles Rams (-4.60, 36.64%) at Seattle Seahawks (4.60, 63.36%)
Estimated score: 21.94 - 26.53, Total: 48.46
Quality: 96.59%, Team quality: 97.49%, Competitiveness: 94.82%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.73%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.61%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 29.87%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 13.93%

#2: New England Patriots (0.96, 52.83%) at Denver Broncos (-0.96, 47.17%)
Estimated score: 21.99 - 21.01, Total: 43.00
Quality: 86.21%, Team quality: 80.14%, Competitiveness: 99.77%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.27%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.58%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 18.11%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 24.18%

Thanks for reading!

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This article uses data from Pro Football Reference to calculate the ratings.

It’s the second weekend of the NFL playoffs, and that means it’s time to post some updated predictions for this weekend’s games.

Many of the tables you’re used to seeing during the regular season won’t be posted here because they’re not all that relevant at this point of the year. Instead, I’ll post the predictive ratings that you’re used to seeing, and then I’ll post a new product intending to show if each team improved or regressed during the season. And then I’ll get to predictions for this weekend’s games.

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Predictive Ratings

Alright, so here are the forward looking predictive ratings you’re used to seeing.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 1.90 points
Mean score: 22.42 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      12.95  +0.00  Seattle Seahawks      6.27    6.70   
   2      11.74  -0.38  Los Angeles Rams      8.40    3.33   
   3   +1 8.86   +0.97  Houston Texans        1.42    7.45   
   4   -1 7.89   -0.45  Jacksonville Jaguars  4.71    3.15   
   5      5.90   +0.31  San Francisco 49ers   3.71    2.20   
   6      5.82   +0.35  New England Patriots  3.07    2.77   
   7      5.00   +0.56  Buffalo Bills         4.98    0.02   
   8      4.42   +0.03  Indianapolis Colts    5.52    -1.12  
   9      4.03   -0.16  Detroit Lions         5.06    -1.04  
  10      3.46   -0.07  Denver Broncos        0.12    3.33   
  11      2.63   -0.30  Philadelphia Eagles   -2.01   4.62   
  12      1.78   -0.06  Kansas City Chiefs    -1.81   3.60   
  13      1.46   -0.01  Baltimore Ravens      1.79    -0.37  
  14      1.09   -0.13  Green Bay Packers     -0.29   1.37   
  15      0.88   -0.04  Chicago Bears         2.68    -1.81  
  16      0.71   -0.14  Minnesota Vikings     -3.20   3.90   
  17      0.34   -0.46  Los Angeles Chargers  -1.83   2.16   
  18      -0.42  -0.91  Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.45   0.03   
  19      -1.21  +0.17  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  0.13    -1.34  
  20      -2.17  +0.10  Atlanta Falcons       -1.86   -0.32  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21      -3.10  +0.46  Carolina Panthers     -4.12   1.05   
  22      -3.57  +0.00  New York Giants       -0.71   -2.88  
  23      -4.00  -0.07  Dallas Cowboys        4.58    -8.57  
  24      -4.64  +0.05  Arizona Cardinals     -1.38   -3.29  
  25   +1 -4.69  +0.14  New Orleans Saints    -5.11   0.40   
  26   -1 -4.82  -0.05  Cincinnati Bengals    1.57    -6.39  
  27      -5.99  -0.11  Washington Commanders -2.18   -3.82  
  28      -6.44  +0.11  Miami Dolphins        -3.76   -2.72  
  29      -7.54  -0.06  Cleveland Browns      -7.88   0.34   
  30      -7.75  +0.03  Tennessee Titans      -3.94   -3.82  
  31      -10.69 +0.02  Las Vegas Raiders     -8.00   -2.67  
  32      -11.89 +0.14  New York Jets         -5.56   -6.32  

They haven’t changed that much since last weekend, and there weren’t as many games to move teams up or down. Yes, it’s possible for teams that haven’t played to move up or down in the ratings based on what opponents they played earlier in the season did last weekend. It’s possible that the Panthers’ strong performance against the Rams was impressive enough that it indirectly boosted the ratings of other teams that played the Panthers. And that could be why the Saints moved up a spot from last weekend.

Regular Season Trends

Unlike the predictive ratings in the previous season, the regular season trends are only based on data during the regular season. These are intended to show which teams improved or regressed the most from the beginning to the end of the regular season. The predictive ratings measure how well a team outscores its opponents over the entire season. But if a team outscores its opponents by large margins at the start of the season, then just narrowly wins their games at the end of the season, it’s a sign that the team might have regressed during the season. Or a team that gets outscored at the beginning of the season but starts winning at the end of the season has probably improved. These trends get averaged out in the predictive ratings, but they might be useful to show which teams are playing better or worse right now than their predictive rating indicates. I’ll get into more detail about this in a future article, where I’ll explain how these are calculated.

When testing out a new product, I always look to see if the data matches what I intuitively assume it should show. The Patriots, Bears, and Jaguars were three teams that seemed to get better as the season went on. Early in the season, I commented on how the Chiefs had a strong scoring margin, but that it hadn’t translated into wins. That margin went down later in the season, and they finished out of the playoffs. Intuitively, it makes sense that they’re at the bottom of the list. All of the NFC West teams appeared to be at least as good as the league average at the start of the season. Considering how the Cardinals finished the season, it’s not surprising to see them near the bottom. It’s also not too surprising to see the Colts and Lions near the bottom based on how strong those teams looked back in September and October, then missing the playoffs.

Overall Trend
Rank Trend Team                  Rating     
   1 +5.63 Jacksonville Jaguars  8.34 (3)   
   2 +4.92 New England Patriots  5.47 (6)   
   3 +4.91 Cincinnati Bengals    -4.77 (25) 
   4 +4.46 Chicago Bears         0.91 (15)  
   5 +3.55 New York Giants       -3.57 (22) 
   6 +3.23 New Orleans Saints    -4.83 (26) 
   7 +2.91 Minnesota Vikings     0.85 (16)  
   8 +2.39 Seattle Seahawks      12.95 (1)  
   9 +2.20 Baltimore Ravens      1.47 (13)  
  10 +1.58 Cleveland Browns      -7.49 (29) 
  11 +1.47 Atlanta Falcons       -2.27 (20) 
  12 +1.39 San Francisco 49ers   5.59 (5)   
  13 +1.15 Los Angeles Chargers  0.80 (17)  
  14 +0.98 Tennessee Titans      -7.78 (30) 
  15 +0.94 Buffalo Bills         4.44 (7)   
  16 +0.77 Carolina Panthers     -3.56 (21) 
  17 +0.43 Denver Broncos        3.53 (10)  
  18 +0.13 Pittsburgh Steelers   0.48 (18)  
  19 +0.11 Los Angeles Rams      12.12 (2)  
  20 -0.64 Miami Dolphins        -6.56 (28) 
Rank Trend Team                  Rating     
  21 -1.17 Philadelphia Eagles   2.93 (11)  
  22 -1.34 Houston Texans        7.89 (4)   
  23 -1.74 Las Vegas Raiders     -10.70 (31)
  24 -2.42 Washington Commanders -5.88 (27) 
  25 -2.51 Dallas Cowboys        -3.93 (23) 
  26 -2.90 Green Bay Packers     1.21 (14)  
  27 -3.78 Detroit Lions         4.19 (9)   
  28 -4.03 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  -1.38 (19) 
  29 -5.30 Indianapolis Colts    4.39 (8)   
  30 -5.32 New York Jets         -12.02 (32)
  31 -5.77 Arizona Cardinals     -4.69 (24) 
  32 -6.42 Kansas City Chiefs    1.84 (12)  

And I’ve also repeated this for the offense and defense ratings. A positive offense trend means that a team generally scored more points as the season went on. And a positive defense trend means that a team allowed fewer points toward the end of the season. Of interest is that this nearly balances out for the Rams, with a +0.11 overall trend, but they’re at the top of the offense trends and near the bottom of the defense trends. These ratings are not efficiencies, meaning that they aren’t adjusted for pace of play. I don’t intend them to measure the quality of a team’s offense or defense, just the tendency to score or prevent the other team from scoring, respectively. So this doesn’t necessarily mean that the Rams’ offense has improved while their defense has become a liability. It just means that the Rams have been involved in more high scoring games toward the end of the season, and their actual results during the season seem to support that.

Offense Trend
Rank Trend Team                  Offense   
   1 +3.61 Los Angeles Rams      8.08 (1)  
   2 +3.48 Jacksonville Jaguars  4.98 (5)  
   3 +3.09 San Francisco 49ers   3.62 (9)  
   4 +2.99 New England Patriots  3.63 (8)  
   5 +2.65 Tennessee Titans      -4.01 (27)
   6 +2.47 Houston Texans        0.98 (13) 
   7 +2.11 Atlanta Falcons       -1.86 (23)
   8 +1.92 Cincinnati Bengals    1.56 (12) 
   9 +1.76 New Orleans Saints    -5.16 (29)
  10 +1.55 New York Giants       -0.79 (18)
  11 +1.28 Chicago Bears         2.46 (10) 
  12 +0.92 Denver Broncos        0.15 (14) 
  13 +0.07 Cleveland Browns      -7.91 (31)
  14 -0.10 Carolina Panthers     -4.90 (28)
  15 -0.37 Seattle Seahawks      6.32 (2)  
  16 -0.75 Las Vegas Raiders     -8.12 (32)
  17 -0.91 Buffalo Bills         4.77 (6)  
  18 -0.98 Los Angeles Chargers  -0.94 (19)
  19 -1.03 Green Bay Packers     -0.40 (17)
  20 -1.18 Arizona Cardinals     -1.34 (20)
Rank Trend Team                  Offense   
  21 -1.30 Miami Dolphins        -3.90 (26)
  22 -1.46 Washington Commanders -2.09 (24)
  23 -1.81 Baltimore Ravens      1.85 (11) 
  24 -1.87 Pittsburgh Steelers   0.10 (15) 
  25 -1.95 Minnesota Vikings     -3.17 (25)
  26 -2.24 Indianapolis Colts    5.50 (3)  
  27 -2.33 Dallas Cowboys        4.65 (7)  
  28 -2.74 Philadelphia Eagles   -1.85 (21)
  29 -3.05 New York Jets         -5.70 (30)
  30 -3.08 Detroit Lions         5.22 (4)  
  31 -3.48 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  0.09 (16) 
  32 -5.27 Kansas City Chiefs    -1.85 (22)

And here’s the same data, except for defense instead of offense.

Defense Trend
Rank Trend Team                  Defense   
   1 +4.86 Minnesota Vikings     4.01 (5)  
   2 +4.01 Baltimore Ravens      -0.37 (18)
   3 +3.17 Chicago Bears         -1.54 (23)
   4 +2.99 Cincinnati Bengals    -6.34 (31)
   5 +2.76 Seattle Seahawks      6.65 (2)  
   6 +2.14 Jacksonville Jaguars  3.34 (8)  
   7 +2.13 Los Angeles Chargers  1.69 (11) 
   8 +2.00 New York Giants       -2.80 (26)
   9 +1.99 Pittsburgh Steelers   0.39 (15) 
  10 +1.93 New England Patriots  1.85 (10) 
  11 +1.86 Buffalo Bills         -0.32 (17)
  12 +1.56 Philadelphia Eagles   4.78 (3)  
  13 +1.51 Cleveland Browns      0.42 (14) 
  14 +1.48 New Orleans Saints    0.28 (16) 
  15 +0.88 Carolina Panthers     1.35 (13) 
  16 +0.66 Miami Dolphins        -2.66 (25)
  17 -0.19 Dallas Cowboys        -8.57 (32)
  18 -0.49 Denver Broncos        3.38 (7)  
  19 -0.56 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  -1.45 (22)
  20 -0.64 Atlanta Falcons       -0.42 (19)
Rank Trend Team                  Defense   
  21 -0.69 Detroit Lions         -1.03 (20)
  22 -0.96 Washington Commanders -3.78 (29)
  23 -0.99 Las Vegas Raiders     -2.60 (24)
  24 -1.15 Kansas City Chiefs    3.69 (6)  
  25 -1.68 Tennessee Titans      -3.78 (28)
  26 -1.69 San Francisco 49ers   1.95 (9)  
  27 -1.87 Green Bay Packers     1.62 (12) 
  28 -2.28 New York Jets         -6.32 (30)
  29 -3.06 Indianapolis Colts    -1.09 (21)
  30 -3.50 Los Angeles Rams      4.05 (4)  
  31 -3.82 Houston Texans        6.93 (1)  
  32 -4.58 Arizona Cardinals     -3.37 (27)

The interpretation of these trends is clearer for teams like the Bears and Patriots, where they’ve both scored more points and allowed fewer points over the course of the season. For those teams, changes in the pace of play wouldn’t really explain the trends, and it’s more likely to be the result of real improvements on offense and defense. Will that translate into playoff success and outperforming the predictions? The playoffs are a small sample size, but I’ll be watching the outcomes on Sunday anyway.

Divisional Round Predictions

Alright, let’s get to the game predictions. There are no ties in the postseason, so the predictions look slightly different than during the regular season. Again, I’m intrigued by Sunday’s games, especially the Rams-Bears game, as tests of how much it matters that some of the playoff teams improved considerably during the season.

Games on Saturday, January 17, 2026

#1: San Francisco 49ers (-8.95, 25.39%) at Seattle Seahawks (8.95, 74.61%)
Estimated score: 18.48 - 27.44, Total: 45.92
Quality: 86.31%, Team quality: 88.65%, Competitiveness: 81.83%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 30.56%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 14.08%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 24.06%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 18.35%

#2: Buffalo Bills (-0.35, 48.95%) at Denver Broncos (0.35, 51.05%)
Estimated score: 23.13 - 23.46, Total: 46.59
Quality: 83.14%, Team quality: 75.83%, Competitiveness: 99.97%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.20%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.61%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 25.55%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 17.12%


Games on Sunday, January 18, 2026

#1: Houston Texans (1.14, 53.37%) at New England Patriots (-1.14, 46.63%)
Estimated score: 20.12 - 18.98, Total: 39.10
Quality: 92.22%, Team quality: 88.70%, Competitiveness: 99.67%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.34%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.55%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 11.89%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 33.51%

#2: Los Angeles Rams (8.97, 74.65%) at Chicago Bears (-8.97, 25.35%)
Estimated score: 31.68 - 22.71, Total: 54.39
Quality: 78.70%, Team quality: 77.21%, Competitiveness: 81.77%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 30.59%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 14.07%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 45.53%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 6.76%

I’ll post another article soon explaining how I calculate these trends and examining them in more detail. For now, enjoy the playoff games. And if you’re like me and enjoy motorsports, you might also be glad that there’s racing this weekend at Daytona International Speedway, and the Rolex 24 is next weekend. In the central United States where I am, this is the coldest time of year. The cold and snowy weather doesn’t make it feel like spring is coming, but at least there are a few glimmers that we’re not too far away.

Thanks for reading!

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This article uses data from Pro Football Reference in calculating the ratings.

The NFL regular season is over, and it’s the NFL wild card weekend. There are no more simulations of the season at this point, and I plan to work on that tool so it better implements tiebreakers and gives more accurate playoff probabilities at the end of the season. The final regular season ratings are in, and they’re dominated by the NFC west. This is the last weekend that I’ll post schedule strength just because I’m not sure there’s a lot of value updating it during the playoffs.

The most lopsided of the games this weekend is the Rams-Panthers game, but I suspect that the predictions again underestimate the chances of the Panthers winning. They already played once this season, and the Panthers won that game, also in Charlotte. The Rams should again be the favorite, but I don’t think the Panthers’ chances are as low as the rating system suggests. I’ll probably switch to using the logistic distribution in future seasons, and that would certainly give the Panthers a better chance of winning this game. The Rams are correctly favored, but it would not be a huge surprise to me if the Panthers won this weekend. I’ve been talking a lot about the Panthers the past few weekends, but if there’s another surprise this season, it’s that the Patriots are not only in the playoffs, but they’re division champs and favored by a significant margin to advance. And although I generally agree with the teams that the computer ratings favor to win this weekend’s games, I suspect the probabilities are a bit more even than what you see here.

After 18 weeks, let’s get to the final regular season ratings.

Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points. They don’t factor in wins and losses, only the margin of victory. The ratings don’t explicitly calculate the strength of schedule, though I calculate this afterwards. However, because of how the ratings are calculated, the quality of opponents does influence the ratings.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

While I call these forward looking ratings, they’re a good measure of a team’s quality as well. This can be viewed as the final assessment of the quality of the NFL teams that have no more games to play this season.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 1.95 points
Mean score: 22.42 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      12.95  +0.81  Seattle Seahawks      6.32    6.65   
   2      12.12  +0.15  Los Angeles Rams      8.08    4.05   
   3   +1 8.34   +1.07  Jacksonville Jaguars  4.98    3.34   
   4   -1 7.89   +0.43  Houston Texans        0.98    6.93   
   5      5.59   +0.01  San Francisco 49ers   3.62    1.95   
   6      5.47   +0.61  New England Patriots  3.63    1.85   
   7   +1 4.44   +0.27  Buffalo Bills         4.77    -0.32  
   8   -1 4.39   -0.05  Indianapolis Colts    5.50    -1.09  
   9      4.19   +0.14  Detroit Lions         5.22    -1.03  
  10   +1 3.53   +0.52  Denver Broncos        0.15    3.38   
  11   -1 2.93   -0.93  Philadelphia Eagles   -1.85   4.78   
  12      1.84   -0.62  Kansas City Chiefs    -1.85   3.69   
  13   +1 1.47   -0.18  Baltimore Ravens      1.85    -0.37  
  14   -1 1.21   -0.52  Green Bay Packers     -0.40   1.62   
  15   +1 0.91   -0.13  Chicago Bears         2.46    -1.54  
  16   +2 0.85   +0.57  Minnesota Vikings     -3.17   4.01   
  17   -2 0.80   -0.57  Los Angeles Chargers  -0.94   1.69   
  18   -1 0.48   -0.02  Pittsburgh Steelers   0.10    0.39   
  19      -1.38  -0.09  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  0.09    -1.45  
  20      -2.27  -0.11  Atlanta Falcons       -1.86   -0.42  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21   +1 -3.56  +0.07  Carolina Panthers     -4.90   1.35   
  22   +1 -3.57  +0.75  New York Giants       -0.79   -2.80  
  23   -2 -3.93  -0.90  Dallas Cowboys        4.65    -8.57  
  24   +1 -4.69  +0.14  Arizona Cardinals     -1.34   -3.37  
  25   -1 -4.77  -0.37  Cincinnati Bengals    1.56    -6.34  
  26      -4.83  +0.20  New Orleans Saints    -5.16   0.28   
  27   +1 -5.88  +0.65  Washington Commanders -2.09   -3.78  
  28   -1 -6.56  -1.12  Miami Dolphins        -3.90   -2.66  
  29   +1 -7.49  +0.02  Cleveland Browns      -7.91   0.42   
  30   -1 -7.78  -0.75  Tennessee Titans      -4.01   -3.78  
  31   +1 -10.70 +0.62  Las Vegas Raiders     -8.12   -2.60  
  32   -1 -12.02 -0.72  New York Jets         -5.70   -6.32  

Overachievers and Underachievers

A few weeks ago, I calculated each team’s expected winning percentage based on their rating and schedule, then I compared it to their actual winning percentage. It’s a lot like the strength of record ratings I use in college football, but I use each team’s actual rating as the benchmark instead of a hypothetical team with a rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. Because it’s so similar to strength of record, the column name is TeamSOR.

This statistic shows which teams have overachieved or underachieved the most based on their rating and schedule. Because of how this is calculated, a team’s rating really needs to be well above or below zero for it to be significant. I suggest a threshold of around +.100 to consider a team as overachieving and -.100 to consider a team an underachiever.

Strength of Record for Each Team's Rating
Rank TeamSOR Team                  Win%  Predictive 
   1 .185    Denver Broncos        .824  3.53 (10)  
   2 .112    San Francisco 49ers   .706  5.59 (5)   
   3 .102    Los Angeles Chargers  .647  0.80 (17)  
   4 .096    Chicago Bears         .647  0.91 (15)  
   5 .074    Carolina Panthers     .471  -3.56 (21) 
   6 .074    New England Patriots  .824  5.47 (6)   
   7 .073    Jacksonville Jaguars  .765  8.34 (3)   
   8 .065    Pittsburgh Steelers   .588  0.48 (18)  
   9 .059    Houston Texans        .706  7.89 (4)   
  10 .058    Philadelphia Eagles   .647  2.93 (11)  
  11 .044    Seattle Seahawks      .824  12.95 (1)  
  12 .040    Miami Dolphins        .412  -6.56 (28) 
  13 .032    Buffalo Bills         .706  4.44 (7)   
  14 .027    Atlanta Falcons       .471  -2.27 (20) 
  15 .023    Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .471  -1.38 (19) 
  16 .012    Minnesota Vikings     .529  0.85 (16)  
  17 .005    Green Bay Packers     .559  1.21 (14)  
  18 .003    Dallas Cowboys        .441  -3.93 (23) 
  19 -.028   Cincinnati Bengals    .353  -4.77 (25) 
  20 -.035   New Orleans Saints    .353  -4.83 (26) 
Rank TeamSOR Team                  Win%  Predictive 
  21 -.039   Los Angeles Rams      .706  12.12 (2)  
  22 -.041   New York Jets         .176  -12.02 (32)
  23 -.041   Cleveland Browns      .294  -7.49 (29) 
  24 -.044   Las Vegas Raiders     .176  -10.70 (31)
  25 -.048   Washington Commanders .294  -5.88 (27) 
  26 -.055   Tennessee Titans      .176  -7.78 (30) 
  27 -.074   Baltimore Ravens      .471  1.47 (13)  
  28 -.087   Detroit Lions         .529  4.19 (9)   
  29 -.096   Indianapolis Colts    .471  4.39 (8)   
  30 -.126   Arizona Cardinals     .176  -4.69 (24) 
  31 -.171   New York Giants       .235  -3.57 (22) 
  32 -.198   Kansas City Chiefs    .353  1.84 (12)  

Schedule Strength

The first column is the expected losing percentage (1 minus winning percentage) for a hypothetical average NFL team in each team’s games played to date. Larger numbers mean a tougher schedule. The second column is the same thing, just for future games instead of past games.

The third column is the average opponent rating, with an adjustment for the site of games, for previously played games. The fourth column is the average opponent rating for the future games that each team will play. These two columns are the same schedule strength metrics from my previous NFL articles.

In college football, the two approaches to schedule strength would differ more just because the approach used in the first two columns limits the influence of truly lopsided blowout games. In the NFL, there just aren’t that many blowouts, and the teams are more evenly balanced. Therefore, there’s just not too much of a difference in the two approaches to measuring schedule strength.

Schedule Strength for an Average Team
Home advantage: 1.95 points
Mean score: 22.42 points
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
   1 Seattle Seahawks      .535 (7)  ---       1.43 (7)   ---       
   2 Los Angeles Rams      .560 (3)  .452 (12) 2.30 (3)   -1.62 (12)
   3 Jacksonville Jaguars  .514 (10) .573 (8)  0.48 (10)  2.49 (8)  
   4 Houston Texans        .553 (4)  .571 (9)  2.00 (4)   2.43 (9)  
   5 San Francisco 49ers   .546 (5)  .641 (5)  1.96 (5)   4.87 (5)  
   6 New England Patriots  .381 (32) .466 (11) -4.39 (32) -1.15 (11)
   7 Buffalo Bills         .440 (31) .776 (1)  -2.23 (31) 10.29 (1) 
   8 Indianapolis Colts    .542 (6)  ---       1.65 (6)   ---       
   9 Detroit Lions         .497 (15) ---       -0.02 (13) ---       
  10 Denver Broncos        .451 (30) ---       -1.84 (30) ---       
  11 Philadelphia Eagles   .490 (20) .607 (6)  -0.41 (21) 3.65 (6)  
  12 Kansas City Chiefs    .498 (14) ---       -0.13 (16) ---       
  13 Baltimore Ravens      .495 (18) ---       -0.30 (18) ---       
  14 Green Bay Packers     .481 (24) .584 (7)  -0.68 (24) 2.86 (7)  
  15 Chicago Bears         .474 (26) .478 (10) -0.96 (26) -0.73 (10)
  16 Minnesota Vikings     .506 (12) ---       0.31 (12)  ---       
  17 Los Angeles Chargers  .476 (25) .708 (3)  -0.91 (25) 7.42 (3)  
  18 Pittsburgh Steelers   .489 (21) .670 (4)  -0.41 (20) 5.95 (4)  
  19 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .517 (9)  ---       0.76 (8)   ---       
  20 Atlanta Falcons       .497 (16) ---       -0.06 (15) ---       
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
  21 Carolina Panthers     .511 (11) .774 (2)  0.46 (11)  10.17 (2) 
  22 New York Giants       .496 (17) ---       -0.17 (17) ---       
  23 Dallas Cowboys        .453 (29) ---       -1.69 (28) ---       
  24 Arizona Cardinals     .585 (2)  ---       3.33 (1)   ---       
  25 Cincinnati Bengals    .492 (19) ---       -0.43 (22) ---       
  26 New Orleans Saints    .487 (22) ---       -0.33 (19) ---       
  27 Washington Commanders .501 (13) ---       -0.03 (14) ---       
  28 Miami Dolphins        .455 (28) ---       -1.72 (29) ---       
  29 Cleveland Browns      .466 (27) ---       -1.29 (27) ---       
  30 Tennessee Titans      .587 (1)  ---       3.17 (2)   ---       
  31 Las Vegas Raiders     .520 (8)  ---       0.69 (9)   ---       
  32 New York Jets         .484 (23) ---       -0.57 (23) ---       

Wild Card Weekend Predictions

The thresholds for close games, blowouts, and high and low scoring games are different in the NFL than in college football. That’s because NFL teams are balanced enough in talent to usually avoid truly lopsided scores and there’s just less scoring overall.

Games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL for many of the same reasons I just mentioned. This is just for predicting which NFL games are most and least compelling each weekend.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. In the event that a margin is larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score, that’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a forecast of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This isn’t even close to possible with the current NFL ratings, even with the weakest offense against the strongest defense, but it does occur once in awhile in college football. A negative score is impossible, of course, so the score would be set to zero in those instances. However, there’s no upper limit on how many points a team can be projected to score. But with more parity between NFL teams, even the highest scoring predictions aren’t going to be nearly as crazy as what is possible with the college football ratings.

Games on Saturday, January 10, 2026

#1: Green Bay Packers (-1.65, 45.14%) at Chicago Bears (1.65, 54.86%)
Estimated score: 22.58 - 24.23, Total: 46.81
Quality: 68.35%, Team quality: 56.70%, Competitiveness: 99.32%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.57%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.46%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 26.06%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 16.76%

#2: Los Angeles Rams (13.73, 84.40%) at Carolina Panthers (-13.73, 15.60%)
Estimated score: 28.18 - 14.44, Total: 42.62
Quality: 58.68%, Team quality: 56.83%, Competitiveness: 62.56%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 41.82%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 10.43%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 17.51%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 25.10%


Games on Sunday, January 11, 2026

#1: Buffalo Bills (-5.85, 33.26%) at Jacksonville Jaguars (5.85, 66.74%)
Estimated score: 22.87 - 28.69, Total: 51.56
Quality: 85.19%, Team quality: 82.06%, Competitiveness: 91.81%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 25.35%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.99%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 37.84%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 9.75%

#2: San Francisco 49ers (0.72, 52.13%) at Philadelphia Eagles (-0.72, 47.87%)
Estimated score: 20.28 - 19.59, Total: 39.87
Quality: 83.20%, Team quality: 75.95%, Competitiveness: 99.87%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.30%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.57%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 13.01%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 31.58%

#3: Los Angeles Chargers (-6.62, 31.21%) at New England Patriots (6.62, 68.79%)
Estimated score: 18.66 - 25.33, Total: 43.98
Quality: 72.12%, Team quality: 64.70%, Competitiveness: 89.62%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 26.48%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.56%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 20.08%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 22.16%


Games on Monday, January 12, 2026

#1: Houston Texans (5.46, 65.71%) at Pittsburgh Steelers (-5.46, 34.29%)
Estimated score: 22.03 - 16.57, Total: 38.60
Quality: 78.47%, Team quality: 72.16%, Competitiveness: 92.80%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 24.84%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.18%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 11.23%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 34.78%

Yes, I’m a bit late getting this posted. That’s due to working on other projects during the week, then realizing right before posting the article that I needed to make an adjustment for the postseason. To date, my rating system has been set up to make predictions for the regular season, where ties are possible, and there’s usually just under a 0.5% chance of any game ending in a tie. In the postseason, there are no ties, and that required making a last minute change to my code that took longer than I planned. It happens. I’m actually less concerned with the actual predictions or being a pundit and doing analysis, though both of those can be interesting at times. The biggest reason I do these is because I’m interested in the science of how to make accurate ratings and predictions.

But sometimes those predictions turn out more accurate than I ever expected. For many weeks, my rating system put Indiana atop the college football ratings, and they showed yet again they belong with a dominant win over Oregon. I’ll have a couple more articles about college football before winding that down for the winter, but Indiana will absolutely be the favorite over Ole Miss.

Thanks for reading!

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This article uses data from Pro Football Reference to calculate the ratings.

Happy new year! In the next few days, I’ll post about some of the new projects I’m working on this year related to sports, science, and some other topics of interest to me. For the moment, let’s talk about week 18 of the NFL season.

Last week, I discussed four races with teams still looking to clinch playoff bids. Two of those have been decided, and two will be determined by games played this weekend. Due to the simplified nature of the tiebreakers in my NFL simulator, the probabilities in those two races are not accurate this late in the season. Let’s go through both races, both of which are much simpler than my discussion last week.

For the Ravens, it’s easy. Win and you’re in. Anything else and the Steelers reach the playoffs while the Ravens go home. My predictions give the Ravens a 47.96% chance of winning, and that’s also their chance of reaching the playoffs. For the Steelers, they need a win or a tie, and they have a 52.04% chance of one of these results. If this game was in Baltimore, my prediction system would give the edge to the Ravens. But the Steelers are slight favorites to win the game and the AFC North.

The scenario in the NFC South is a bit more complicated, with the Buccaneers and Panthers competing to win the division and reach the playoffs. The Panthers can reach the playoffs with a win or a tie, and they have a 38.27% chance of this according to my system. However, if the Panthers lose, they can still reach the playoffs with a win by the Falcons over the Saints. The probability of a Buccaneers win is 61.73%, and the probability of a Falcons win is 63.22%. The combination of these two events should happen 39.03% of the time, assuming the outcome of the Panthers-Buccaneers game is independent of the Saints-Falcons game. Add this to the 38.27% chance of the Panthers winning their game and the division outright, and their overall playoff chance is 77.30%. That means the Buccaneers have a 22.70% chance of reaching the playoffs according to my ratings and projections.

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Overachievers and Underachievers

A few weeks ago, I calculated each team’s expected winning percentage based on their rating and schedule, then I compared it to their actual winning percentage. It’s a lot like the strength of record ratings I use in college football, but I use each team’s actual rating as the benchmark instead of a hypothetical team with a rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. Because it’s so similar to strength of record, the column name is TeamSOR.

This statistic shows which teams have overachieved or underachieved the most based on their rating and schedule. Because of how this is calculated, a team’s rating really needs to be well above or below zero for it to be significant. I suggest a threshold of around +.100 to consider a team as overachieving and -.100 to consider a team an underachiever. Subjectively, I view the Panthers as the biggest overachiever this season because they began last in the ratings, and my simulator gave them very little chance to make the playoffs. But that’s not where they rank in my table.

Strength of Record for Each Team's Rating
Rank TeamSOR Team                  Win%  Predictive 
   1 .189    Denver Broncos        .812  3.01 (11)  
   2 .135    San Francisco 49ers   .750  5.59 (5)   
   3 .127    Chicago Bears         .688  1.04 (16)  
   4 .116    Los Angeles Chargers  .688  1.37 (15)  
   5 .106    Carolina Panthers     .500  -3.63 (22) 
   6 .096    Jacksonville Jaguars  .750  7.27 (4)   
   7 .084    Philadelphia Eagles   .688  3.85 (10)  
   8 .084    New England Patriots  .812  4.86 (6)   
   9 .048    Houston Texans        .688  7.47 (3)   
  10 .041    Pittsburgh Steelers   .562  0.50 (17)  
  11 .040    Buffalo Bills         .688  4.17 (8)   
  12 .036    Seattle Seahawks      .812  12.14 (1)  
  13 .026    Miami Dolphins        .438  -5.44 (27) 
  14 .019    Green Bay Packers     .594  1.73 (13)  
  15 .006    Dallas Cowboys        .469  -3.03 (21) 
  16 .002    Minnesota Vikings     .500  0.28 (18)  
  17 .001    Cincinnati Bengals    .375  -4.40 (24) 
  18 .001    Atlanta Falcons       .438  -2.16 (20) 
  19 -.001   Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .438  -1.29 (19) 
  20 -.008   New Orleans Saints    .375  -5.03 (26) 
Rank TeamSOR Team                  Win%  Predictive 
  21 -.048   Los Angeles Rams      .688  11.96 (2)  
  22 -.049   New York Jets         .188  -11.30 (31)
  23 -.052   Baltimore Ravens      .500  1.64 (14)  
  24 -.071   Tennessee Titans      .188  -7.03 (29) 
  25 -.078   Cleveland Browns      .250  -7.51 (30) 
  26 -.080   Washington Commanders .250  -6.53 (28) 
  27 -.082   Las Vegas Raiders     .125  -11.32 (32)
  28 -.084   Indianapolis Colts    .500  4.45 (7)   
  29 -.115   Detroit Lions         .500  4.05 (9)   
  30 -.123   Arizona Cardinals     .188  -4.83 (25) 
  31 -.179   Kansas City Chiefs    .375  2.46 (12)  
  32 -.187   New York Giants       .188  -4.33 (23) 

The numbers in this table measure something a bit different than my subjective concept of underachieving and overachieving, instead estimating which teams have records that are better or worse than their current predictive ratings would suggest. And although the Panthers have overachieved, they’re not at the top. That title goes to the Broncos, and it’s not really that close with a 13-3 record despite being ranked #11 according to the predictive ratings. At the other end of the ratings are two major disappointments, the Lions and the Chiefs. The Lions looked like one of the best teams in the league at the start of the season, and they’re still ranked #9 in the predictive ratings. But the Chiefs are perhaps more interesting, having overachieved the past two seasons with outstanding records and mediocre point differentials. I wrote in the preseason that I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chiefs missed the playoffs, but then they actually had a good point differential for most of the season. Even now, it’s +36 despite their 6-10 record. It’s a complete reversal from the previous two seasons.

The Colts have also underachieved, having a +62 point differential against one of the toughest schedules in the league, but going just 8-8 through the first 17 weeks of the season. At one point earlier in the season, the Colts and Texans had the two highest predictive ratings in the NFL, and the Texans looked like one of the most underachieving teams with a good point differential and lackluster record. At the time, I wondered if the Texans were for real, but I expected the Colts to win their division. Instead, the Texans went on an eight game winning streak and continued to play outstanding defense while the Colts lost six straight and collapsed.

Anyway, let’s get to the predictive and schedule strength ratings.

Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points. They don’t factor in wins and losses, only the margin of victory. The ratings don’t explicitly calculate the strength of schedule, though I calculate this afterwards. However, because of how the ratings are calculated, the quality of opponents does influence the ratings.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 1.76 points
Mean score: 22.49 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1   +1 12.14  -0.28  Seattle Seahawks      6.62    5.51   
   2   -1 11.96  -1.24  Los Angeles Rams      7.63    4.32   
   3      7.47   -0.54  Houston Texans        0.02    7.44   
   4      7.27   -0.05  Jacksonville Jaguars  4.25    3.00   
   5      5.59   -0.26  San Francisco 49ers   4.38    1.20   
   6   +4 4.86   +1.33  New England Patriots  3.11    1.74   
   7   -1 4.45   -0.57  Indianapolis Colts    4.72    -0.27  
   8      4.17   +0.19  Buffalo Bills         4.69    -0.54  
   9   -2 4.05   -0.75  Detroit Lions         5.56    -1.48  
  10   -1 3.85   +0.13  Philadelphia Eagles   -1.60   5.44   
  11   +2 3.01   +0.33  Denver Broncos        0.31    2.74   
  12   -1 2.46   -0.38  Kansas City Chiefs    -1.36   3.79   
  13   -1 1.73   -0.97  Green Bay Packers     0.16    1.57   
  14   +3 1.64   +1.38  Baltimore Ravens      1.63    0.00   
  15   -1 1.37   -0.07  Los Angeles Chargers  -0.17   1.56   
  16      1.04   +0.26  Chicago Bears         2.88    -1.80  
  17   -2 0.50   -0.33  Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.25   0.73   
  18      0.28   +1.10  Minnesota Vikings     -3.14   3.42   
  19      -1.29  -0.35  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  0.27    -1.57  
  20      -2.16  +0.90  Atlanta Falcons       -1.94   -0.24  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21   +2 -3.03  +0.24  Dallas Cowboys        4.95    -7.95  
  22      -3.63  -0.40  Carolina Panthers     -4.79   1.15   
  23   +2 -4.33  +1.35  New York Giants       -1.20   -3.12  
  24   +2 -4.40  +1.52  Cincinnati Bengals    1.73    -6.13  
  25   -4 -4.83  -1.77  Arizona Cardinals     -1.77   -3.09  
  26   -2 -5.03  +0.49  New Orleans Saints    -5.35   0.32   
  27      -5.44  +0.63  Miami Dolphins        -3.45   -2.04  
  28   +1 -6.53  -0.16  Washington Commanders -2.80   -3.74  
  29   -1 -7.03  -0.72  Tennessee Titans      -3.74   -3.27  
  30      -7.51  +0.93  Cleveland Browns      -7.83   0.30   
  31   +1 -11.30 -0.67  New York Jets         -5.25   -6.02  
  32   -1 -11.32 -1.37  Las Vegas Raiders     -8.27   -3.07  

Schedule Strength

The first column is the expected losing percentage (1 minus winning percentage) for a hypothetical average NFL team in each team’s games played to date. Larger numbers mean a tougher schedule. The second column is the same thing, just for future games instead of past games.

The third column is the average opponent rating, with an adjustment for the site of games, for previously played games. The fourth column is the average opponent rating for the future games that each team will play. These two columns are the same schedule strength metrics from my previous NFL articles.

In college football, the two approaches to schedule strength would differ more just because the approach used in the first two columns limits the influence of truly lopsided blowout games. In the NFL, there just aren’t that many blowouts, and the teams are more evenly balanced. Therefore, there’s just not too much of a difference in the two approaches to measuring schedule strength.

Schedule Strength for an Average Team
Home advantage: 1.76 points
Mean score: 22.49 points
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future     
   1 Seattle Seahawks      .520 (10) .707 (5)  0.88 (9)   7.34 (5)   
   2 Los Angeles Rams      .573 (1)  .313 (25) 2.73 (1)   -6.58 (25) 
   3 Houston Texans        .550 (4)  .579 (11) 1.86 (4)   2.69 (11)  
   4 Jacksonville Jaguars  .532 (5)  .258 (29) 1.11 (7)   -8.79 (29) 
   5 San Francisco 49ers   .526 (8)  .779 (2)  1.20 (5)   10.38 (2)  
   6 New England Patriots  .391 (32) .297 (27) -4.02 (32) -7.20 (27) 
   7 Indianapolis Colts    .529 (6)  .753 (3)  1.11 (8)   9.22 (3)   
   8 Buffalo Bills         .463 (28) .168 (32) -1.29 (27) -13.06 (32)
   9 Detroit Lions         .495 (19) .582 (10) -0.10 (18) 2.80 (10)  
  10 Philadelphia Eagles   .501 (17) .270 (28) -0.02 (17) -8.28 (28) 
  11 Denver Broncos        .454 (30) .489 (19) -1.76 (30) -0.39 (19) 
  12 Kansas City Chiefs    .513 (11) .239 (31) 0.37 (13)  -9.57 (31) 
  13 Green Bay Packers     .474 (23) .560 (14) -0.92 (23) 2.03 (14)  
  14 Baltimore Ravens      .493 (20) .567 (13) -0.35 (22) 2.26 (13)  
  15 Los Angeles Chargers  .466 (27) .638 (9)  -1.30 (28) 4.76 (9)   
  16 Chicago Bears         .467 (26) .568 (12) -1.19 (26) 2.29 (12)  
  17 Pittsburgh Steelers   .492 (21) .497 (18) -0.30 (20) -0.11 (18) 
  18 Minnesota Vikings     .510 (13) .499 (17) 0.44 (12)  -0.02 (17) 
  19 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .528 (7)  .345 (24) 1.12 (6)   -5.39 (24) 
  20 Atlanta Falcons       .506 (16) .307 (26) 0.25 (14)  -6.79 (26) 
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future     
  21 Dallas Cowboys        .454 (29) .424 (21) -1.68 (29) -2.57 (21) 
  22 Carolina Panthers     .511 (12) .514 (16) 0.47 (11)  0.46 (16)  
  23 New York Giants       .507 (14) .361 (23) 0.20 (15)  -4.78 (23) 
  24 Cincinnati Bengals    .506 (15) .246 (30) 0.10 (16)  -9.27 (30) 
  25 Arizona Cardinals     .569 (3)  .844 (1)  2.61 (2)   13.72 (1)  
  26 New Orleans Saints    .487 (22) .488 (20) -0.32 (21) -0.41 (20) 
  27 Miami Dolphins        .440 (31) .688 (6)  -2.22 (31) 6.62 (6)   
  28 Washington Commanders .495 (18) .661 (8)  -0.23 (19) 5.61 (8)   
  29 Tennessee Titans      .570 (2)  .748 (4)  2.52 (3)   9.03 (4)   
  30 Cleveland Browns      .472 (25) .422 (22) -1.06 (25) -2.64 (22) 
  31 New York Jets         .473 (24) .670 (7)  -0.95 (24) 5.92 (7)   
  32 Las Vegas Raiders     .522 (9)  .521 (15) 0.73 (10)  0.70 (15)  

Simulating the NFL Season

I debated whether to include the simulation results in this article because the simplified tiebreakers mean that the playoff chances for the remaining races aren’t especially accurate. Still, the predicted final records and the predictions for the postseason have enough value to justify posting the simulation results. However, if you want to know which teams are likely to reach the playoffs in the remaining two races, look to the first section of this article instead of the simulation results.

This season simulation is based on games and computer ratings through December 29, 2025. The season was simulated 20,000 times, and the results of the simulations have been aggregated to predict final records and playoff chances. Tiebreakers for making the postseason are simplified, and the simulations don’t factor in potential issues like injuries, but this is still useful for making an educated guess about the standings at the end of the regular season.

Projected Standings

First up is the projected won-loss records, points scored, and points allowed for each team. The rating column is the team’s overall rating, included as a measure of team strength.

AFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
New England Patriots  13.80 3.20  0.00  .812  480.57  326.55  4.86  
Buffalo Bills         11.88 5.12  0.00  .699  480.11  374.23  4.17  
Miami Dolphins        7.20  9.80  0.00  .423  353.55  414.57  -5.44 
New York Jets         3.12  13.88 0.00  .183  309.23  502.11  -11.30

AFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Pittsburgh Steelers   9.52  7.48  0.00  .560  394.16  385.49  0.50  
Baltimore Ravens      8.48  8.52  0.00  .499  422.49  395.16  1.64  
Cincinnati Bengals    6.63  10.36 0.00  .390  420.86  491.94  -4.40 
Cleveland Browns      4.36  12.63 0.00  .257  278.94  385.86  -7.51 

AFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Houston Texans        11.63 5.36  0.00  .684  389.81  283.99  7.47  
Jacksonville Jaguars  12.87 4.13  0.00  .757  464.06  344.24  7.27  
Indianapolis Colts    8.36  8.63  0.00  .492  454.99  397.81  4.45  
Tennessee Titans      3.13  13.87 0.00  .184  292.24  468.06  -7.03 

AFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Denver Broncos        13.60 3.40  0.00  .800  404.22  326.80  3.01  
Los Angeles Chargers  11.40 5.60  0.00  .671  383.80  343.22  1.37  
Kansas City Chiefs    6.80  10.20 0.01  .400  373.34  325.98  2.46  
Las Vegas Raiders     2.20  14.80 0.01  .129  238.98  443.34  -11.32

NFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Philadelphia Eagles   11.80 5.20  0.00  .694  387.53  314.88  3.85  
Dallas Cowboys        7.49  8.50  1.00  .470  483.77  507.00  -3.03 
New York Giants       3.50  13.49 0.00  .206  377.00  451.77  -4.33 
Washington Commanders 4.20  12.80 0.00  .247  345.88  459.53  -6.53 

NFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Green Bay Packers     9.49  6.50  1.01  .588  406.62  362.82  1.73  
Chicago Bears         11.46 5.53  0.00  .674  452.71  424.93  1.04  
Detroit Lions         8.53  8.46  0.00  .502  490.93  424.71  4.05  
Minnesota Vikings     8.50  8.49  0.01  .500  346.82  348.62  0.28  

NFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  7.61  9.38  0.01  .448  386.59  415.52  -1.29 
Carolina Panthers     8.38  8.61  0.01  .493  315.52  386.59  -3.63 
Atlanta Falcons       7.62  9.38  0.01  .448  355.09  400.72  -2.16 
New Orleans Saints    6.38  10.62 0.01  .375  305.72  385.09  -5.03 

NFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Seattle Seahawks      13.63 3.37  0.00  .802  497.09  311.31  12.14 
Los Angeles Rams      11.90 5.10  0.00  .700  515.06  341.81  11.96 
San Francisco 49ers   12.37 4.63  0.00  .728  456.31  385.09  5.59  
Arizona Cardinals     3.10  13.90 0.00  .182  350.81  485.06  -4.83 

Playoff Chances

The next table shows each team’s chances of making the playoffs, winning their division, and having the best record in the conference. The mean playoff seed is an average that uses only the seasons when each team made the playoffs. Div% and Conf% are the probabilities of a team having the best record in their division and conference, respectively. For the remaining playoff races, the simplified tiebreakers make the probabilities unreliable.

AFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
New England Patriots  4.86    .812  100.00% 100.00%  81.31%     1.29
Buffalo Bills         4.17    .699  100.00%   0.00%   0.00%     5.72
Miami Dolphins        -5.44   .423    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
New York Jets         -11.30  .183    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Pittsburgh Steelers   0.50    .560   65.30%  65.30%   0.00%     4.00
Baltimore Ravens      1.64    .499   34.71%  34.71%   0.00%     4.00
Cincinnati Bengals    -4.40   .390    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Cleveland Browns      -7.51   .257    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Houston Texans        7.47    .684  100.00%   8.33%   0.00%     5.31
Jacksonville Jaguars  7.27    .757  100.00%  91.67%   7.07%     2.65
Indianapolis Colts    4.45    .492    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Tennessee Titans      -7.03   .184    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Denver Broncos        3.01    .800  100.00% 100.00%  11.62%     2.23
Los Angeles Chargers  1.37    .671  100.00%   0.00%   0.00%     6.80
Kansas City Chiefs    2.46    .400    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Las Vegas Raiders     -11.32  .129    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Philadelphia Eagles   3.85    .694  100.00% 100.00%   0.00%     2.57
Dallas Cowboys        -3.03   .470    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
New York Giants       -4.33   .206    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Washington Commanders -6.53   .247    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Green Bay Packers     1.73    .588  100.00%   0.00%   0.00%     7.00
Chicago Bears         1.04    .674  100.00% 100.00%   0.00%     2.43
Detroit Lions         4.05    .502    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Minnesota Vikings     0.28    .500    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  -1.29   .448   53.14%  53.14%   0.00%     4.00
Carolina Panthers     -3.63   .493   46.86%  46.86%   0.00%     4.00
Atlanta Falcons       -2.16   .448    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
New Orleans Saints    -5.03   .375    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Seattle Seahawks      12.14   .802  100.00%  63.24%  63.24%     2.47
Los Angeles Rams      11.96   .700  100.00%   0.00%   0.00%     5.43
San Francisco 49ers   5.59    .728  100.00%  36.76%  36.76%     4.09
Arizona Cardinals     -4.83   .182    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

Possible Regular Season Outcomes

To give a range of how good or bad a team’s final record might be, several percentiles are shown for each team’s final winning percentage.

AFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
New England Patriots  .812  100.00%   .765   .824   .824   .824   .824
Buffalo Bills         .699  100.00%   .647   .706   .706   .706   .706
Miami Dolphins        .423  0.00%     .412   .412   .412   .412   .471
New York Jets         .183  0.00%     .176   .176   .176   .176   .235

AFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Pittsburgh Steelers   .560  100.00%   .529   .529   .588   .588   .588
Baltimore Ravens      .499  47.55%    .471   .471   .471   .529   .529
Cincinnati Bengals    .390  0.00%     .353   .353   .412   .412   .412
Cleveland Browns      .257  0.00%     .235   .235   .235   .294   .294

AFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Houston Texans        .684  100.00%   .647   .647   .706   .706   .706
Jacksonville Jaguars  .757  100.00%   .706   .765   .765   .765   .765
Indianapolis Colts    .492  36.38%    .471   .471   .471   .529   .529
Tennessee Titans      .184  0.00%     .176   .176   .176   .176   .235

AFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Denver Broncos        .800  100.00%   .765   .765   .824   .824   .824
Los Angeles Chargers  .671  100.00%   .647   .647   .647   .706   .706
Kansas City Chiefs    .400  0.00%     .353   .412   .412   .412   .412
Las Vegas Raiders     .129  0.00%     .118   .118   .118   .118   .176

NFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Philadelphia Eagles   .694  100.00%   .647   .706   .706   .706   .706
Dallas Cowboys        .470  0.00%     .441   .441   .441   .500   .500
New York Giants       .206  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .235   .235
Washington Commanders .247  0.00%     .235   .235   .235   .235   .294

NFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Green Bay Packers     .588  100.00%   .559   .559   .559   .618   .618
Chicago Bears         .674  100.00%   .647   .647   .647   .706   .706
Detroit Lions         .502  53.35%    .471   .471   .529   .529   .529
Minnesota Vikings     .500  50.23%    .471   .471   .529   .529   .529

NFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .448  0.00%     .412   .412   .471   .471   .471
Carolina Panthers     .493  38.30%    .471   .471   .471   .529   .529
Atlanta Falcons       .448  0.00%     .412   .412   .471   .471   .471
New Orleans Saints    .375  0.00%     .353   .353   .353   .412   .412

NFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Seattle Seahawks      .802  100.00%   .765   .765   .824   .824   .824
Los Angeles Rams      .700  100.00%   .706   .706   .706   .706   .706
San Francisco 49ers   .728  100.00%   .706   .706   .706   .765   .765
Arizona Cardinals     .182  0.00%     .176   .176   .176   .176   .176

Postseason Projections

The final table shows each team’s probability of reaching the playoffs, the divisional round, the conference championship, winning their conference, and winning the Super Bowl.

AFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
New England Patriots  .812   100.00%   91.86%    52.59%   23.65%  9.09%
Buffalo Bills         .699   100.00%   45.11%    19.65%    9.84%  3.36%
Miami Dolphins        .423     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
New York Jets         .183     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Pittsburgh Steelers   .560    65.30%   25.50%     8.74%    3.46%  0.94%
Baltimore Ravens      .499    34.71%   14.88%     5.63%    2.50%  0.73%
Cincinnati Bengals    .390     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Cleveland Browns      .257     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Houston Texans        .684   100.00%   57.76%    31.11%   18.81%  8.46%
Jacksonville Jaguars  .757   100.00%   65.29%    39.98%   23.10% 10.05%
Indianapolis Colts    .492     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Tennessee Titans      .184     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Denver Broncos        .800   100.00%   61.82%    28.39%   12.55%  4.23%
Los Angeles Chargers  .671   100.00%   37.79%    13.91%    6.08%  1.81%
Kansas City Chiefs    .400     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Las Vegas Raiders     .129     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Philadelphia Eagles   .694   100.00%   50.32%    24.32%    8.52%  3.92%
Dallas Cowboys        .470     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
New York Giants       .206     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Washington Commanders .247     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Green Bay Packers     .588   100.00%   43.64%    11.41%    3.69%  1.54%
Chicago Bears         .674   100.00%   45.59%    17.72%    4.72%  1.84%
Detroit Lions         .502     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Minnesota Vikings     .500     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .448    53.14%   11.94%     3.56%    0.95%  0.28%
Carolina Panthers     .493    46.86%    8.27%     1.84%    0.40%  0.12%
Atlanta Falcons       .448     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
New Orleans Saints    .375     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Seattle Seahawks      .802   100.00%   92.87%    64.83%   40.19% 27.48%
Los Angeles Rams      .700   100.00%   76.14%    46.02%   29.14% 19.98%
San Francisco 49ers   .728   100.00%   71.23%    30.29%   12.38%  6.17%
Arizona Cardinals     .182     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

Week 18 Game Predictions

And here are the predictions for the final weekend of the NFL regular season.

The thresholds for close games, blowouts, and high and low scoring games are different in the NFL than in college football. That’s because NFL teams are balanced enough in talent to usually avoid truly lopsided scores and there’s just less scoring overall.

Games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL for many of the same reasons I just mentioned. This is just for predicting which NFL games are most and least compelling each weekend.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. In the event that a margin is larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score, that’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a forecast of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This isn’t even close to possible with the current NFL ratings, even with the weakest offense against the strongest defense, but it does occur once in awhile in college football. A negative score is impossible, of course, so the score would be set to zero in those instances. However, there’s no upper limit on how many points a team can be projected to score. But with more parity between NFL teams, even the highest scoring predictions aren’t going to be nearly as crazy as what is possible with the college football ratings.

#1: Seattle Seahawks (4.79, 63.69%) at San Francisco 49ers (-4.79, 35.89%), Tie (0.42%)
Estimated score: 27.03 - 22.23, Total: 49.26
Quality: 92.62%, Team quality: 91.76%, Competitiveness: 94.38%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.95%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.53%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 31.80%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 12.68%

#2: Indianapolis Colts (-4.78, 35.94%) at Houston Texans (4.78, 63.64%), Tie (0.42%)
Estimated score: 18.89 - 23.66, Total: 42.55
Quality: 85.97%, Team quality: 82.03%, Competitiveness: 94.42%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.93%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.53%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 17.24%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 25.13%

#3: Detroit Lions (1.25, 53.47%) at Chicago Bears (-1.25, 46.09%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 28.96 - 27.72, Total: 56.68
Quality: 76.18%, Team quality: 66.62%, Competitiveness: 99.61%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.36%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.55%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 51.91%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 4.82%

#4: Los Angeles Chargers (-3.40, 39.83%) at Denver Broncos (3.40, 59.74%), Tie (0.43%)
Estimated score: 18.70 - 22.12, Total: 40.82
Quality: 72.87%, Team quality: 63.11%, Competitiveness: 97.14%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 22.57%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.07%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 14.33%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 29.13%

#5: Baltimore Ravens (-0.61, 47.96%) at Pittsburgh Steelers (0.61, 51.60%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 22.51 - 23.11, Total: 45.62
Quality: 68.90%, Team quality: 57.22%, Competitiveness: 99.91%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.21%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.61%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 23.31%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 18.77%

#6: Green Bay Packers (-0.30, 48.89%) at Minnesota Vikings (0.30, 50.66%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 18.34 - 18.66, Total: 37.00
Quality: 68.59%, Team quality: 56.81%, Competitiveness: 99.98%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.18%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.63%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 9.11%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 38.94%

#7: Carolina Panthers (-4.09, 37.84%) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4.09, 61.73%), Tie (0.43%)
Estimated score: 18.39 - 22.48, Total: 40.87
Quality: 46.37%, Team quality: 32.25%, Competitiveness: 95.87%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.21%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.82%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 14.41%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 29.01%

#8: Miami Dolphins (-12.06, 18.50%) at New England Patriots (12.06, 81.20%), Tie (0.30%)
Estimated score: 16.41 - 28.51, Total: 44.93
Quality: 43.35%, Team quality: 34.24%, Competitiveness: 69.49%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 37.51%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 11.74%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 21.84%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 20.11%

#9: Dallas Cowboys (-0.46, 48.43%) at New York Giants (0.46, 51.13%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 29.68 - 30.12, Total: 59.80
Quality: 41.23%, Team quality: 26.48%, Competitiveness: 99.95%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.19%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.62%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 60.52%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 2.99%

#10: Arizona Cardinals (-18.55, 8.61%) at Los Angeles Rams (18.55, 91.22%), Tie (0.17%)
Estimated score: 15.52 - 34.08, Total: 49.60
Quality: 41.05%, Team quality: 40.31%, Competitiveness: 42.59%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 55.16%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 6.84%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 32.66%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 12.18%

#11: New Orleans Saints (-4.63, 36.36%) at Atlanta Falcons (4.63, 63.22%), Tie (0.42%)
Estimated score: 16.50 - 21.11, Total: 37.61
Quality: 39.40%, Team quality: 25.40%, Competitiveness: 94.76%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.76%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.60%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 9.83%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 37.31%

#12: Washington Commanders (-12.14, 18.35%) at Philadelphia Eagles (12.14, 81.35%), Tie (0.30%)
Estimated score: 13.37 - 25.51, Total: 38.87
Quality: 38.31%, Team quality: 28.51%, Competitiveness: 69.17%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 37.70%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 11.68%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 11.46%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 34.00%

#13: Tennessee Titans (-16.06, 11.77%) at Jacksonville Jaguars (16.06, 88.02%), Tie (0.22%)
Estimated score: 14.87 - 30.89, Total: 45.76
Quality: 34.93%, Team quality: 28.46%, Competitiveness: 52.61%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 48.12%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 8.63%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 23.60%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 18.52%

#14: Cleveland Browns (-4.87, 35.67%) at Cincinnati Bengals (4.87, 63.91%), Tie (0.42%)
Estimated score: 19.90 - 24.80, Total: 44.70
Quality: 26.95%, Team quality: 14.41%, Competitiveness: 94.21%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 24.04%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.49%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 21.38%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 20.56%

#15: Kansas City Chiefs (12.03, 81.14%) at Las Vegas Raiders (-12.03, 18.57%), Tie (0.30%)
Estimated score: 23.32 - 11.30, Total: 34.62
Quality: 25.03%, Team quality: 15.01%, Competitiveness: 69.63%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 37.43%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 11.77%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 6.67%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 45.46%

#16: New York Jets (-17.22, 10.20%) at Buffalo Bills (17.22, 89.61%), Tie (0.19%)
Estimated score: 16.90 - 34.07, Total: 50.98
Quality: 19.31%, Team quality: 12.27%, Competitiveness: 47.82%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 51.40%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 7.77%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 36.21%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 10.34%

Happy new year! Thanks for reading!

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The ratings in this article are based on data from Pro Football Reference.

I’ve written previously that I want to consider a few modifications to my computer rating system because of some things I’ve noticed throughout the college football season. Although I’ll include some updated predictions for the remaining bowl games in this article, my focus is how the rating system might be improved, and I’ll discuss this across a few articles. Does Indiana really have a roughly 90% chance of winning against Alabama, or is my system not giving the Crimson Tide enough of a chance?

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There tends to be a fairly large spread between the top and bottom teams in my ratings. For example, ESPN’s FPI tends to have a little more than a 50 point spread between the highest and lowest ranked FBS teams. That’s a bit larger in Bill Connelly’s SP+ rating system, with around or a bit over a 60 point spread across the FBS. My ratings have a considerably larger spread, generally around 75 points between the top and bottom FBS teams.

The obvious way to narrow the spread between the highest and lowest ranked teams is to impose a limit on the margin of victory in games. For example, I might cap it at 50 points, meaning that any margin larger than 50 points is treated as a 50 point win. Intuitively, this makes sense, and that at some point tacking on an extra touchdown or two in a blowout really isn’t meaningful. The problem is that in testing this change, I’ve found that I’d have to cap the margin of victory at a level that seems unreasonably low to bring the spread between the highest and lowest ranked teams down to 55 or 60 points. A 50 point cap wouldn’t be nearly low enough to bring the spread between the top and bottom teams in my ratings down to SP+ or FPI levels.

To explain this better, if there’s an eleven touchdown difference between the highest and lowest ranked teams, I don’t believe that’s being inflated because Team A wins by 77 points over Team D. My testing suggests that it’s influenced a lot more by scenarios like Team A winning by 28 points over Team B, which wins by 28 points over Team C, which wins by 21 points over Team D. Blowouts with scores like 77-0 just don’t occur often enough to influence the ratings all that much.

Earlier this season, Indiana (89.06 predictive rating) had a 56-9 home win over Kennesaw State (41.71 predictive rating). That’s a predicted margin of victory of 47.35 points, if the game was at a neutral site. Indiana would be projected to win by 38.37 points over UCLA (50.69 predictive rating) if they played at a neutral site. In fact, Indiana won 56-6 in Bloomington. Earlier this season, Ohio State (86.16 predictive rating) won 70-0 in a home game against Grambling (3.78 predictive rating), not quite reaching the spread predicted by the ratings. But Indiana won 73-0 at home against Indiana State (16.68 predictive rating), which means the ratings are pretty much spot on. My point is that if hypothetically Indiana played UMass (11.90 predictive rating), I wouldn’t be surprised if Indiana won in a massive blowout like 77-0. I’m not entirely convinced that the relatively large spread between the highest and lowest ranked FBS teams in my ratings is actually a problem.

But there’s another issue, which is that once a team is projected to win by three touchdowns or so, the underdog is given a probability of winning that’s well below 10%. For example, Utah was predicted to win by 17.31 points over Nebraska, and they actually won 44-22, so the spread didn’t seem unreasonable However, it seems unrealistically low to estimate that Nebraska had just an 8.32% chance of winning that game. If there’s a real issue with the ratings and predictions, it’s likely that the probability of upsets is often much too low. A margin of victory around 17 points might have been the most likely outcome in that game, but a normal distribution might not be the best way to estimate the range of possible outcomes. As an experiment, I’ve run the new ratings and predictions both with a normal distribution and a logistic distribution. The shape of the logistic distribution is somewhat similar to the normal distribution, but there’s a higher probability of extreme events like major upsets.

Here are the predictive ratings using the normal distribution. This includes games played through December 30, 2025. But the change and move columns aren’t the difference between these ratings and the last update from December 13 like I’ve done in other weeks. Instead, the change and move columns show the difference between ratings generated with the normal and logistic distributions. There really isn’t a big difference in the actual ratings between the normal and logistic distributions, though a small portion of the teams do move up or down in the ratings by a few spots.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 1.88 points
Mean score: 26.82 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      89.06  +0.15  Indiana               45.43   43.67  
   2      86.16  +0.73  Ohio State            38.15   48.01  
   3      83.52  +0.60  Oregon                44.45   38.98  
   4      81.73  +0.22  Texas Tech            40.76   41.11  
   5      81.27  +1.28  Notre Dame            43.18   37.97  
   6      77.51  +0.73  Utah                  42.18   35.18  
   7      75.75  +1.12  Miami                 32.27   43.27  
   8      73.43  +0.44  Washington            37.84   35.59  
   9   +1 73.30  +0.46  Alabama               36.69   36.55  
  10   -1 73.20  +0.29  Georgia               32.57   40.63  
  11      72.23  +0.92  USC                   38.96   33.22  
  12      71.68  +0.72  Iowa                  30.40   41.17  
  13   +1 71.49  +0.84  Ole Miss              39.72   31.74  
  14   -1 71.40  +0.69  Vanderbilt            40.82   30.76  
  15      70.94  +0.63  BYU                   34.30   36.53  
  16      70.86  +0.89  Texas A&M             36.38   34.40  
  17      70.21  +0.75  Penn State            35.01   35.01  
  18      70.12  +0.74  Oklahoma              29.12   40.91  
  19      68.59  +0.62  Michigan              32.89   35.70  
  20      67.43  +1.46  Texas                 31.66   35.67  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21      66.08  +0.82  Arizona               31.76   34.44  
  22      65.42  +0.45  Tennessee             40.22   25.45  
  23   +1 65.38  +0.93  Illinois              32.25   33.00  
  24   +1 65.09  +0.87  South Florida         36.42   28.61  
  25   -2 65.00  +0.49  Missouri              30.07   35.01  
  26      64.23  +0.19  Florida State         33.74   30.72  
  27   +1 63.73  +1.14  North Texas           42.11   21.52  
  28   -1 63.00  +0.15  Auburn                28.24   34.76  
  29      62.84  +0.84  Iowa State            29.36   33.27  
  30      62.66  +0.86  LSU                   26.61   36.15  
  31   +5 62.19  +1.61  Louisville            31.56   30.63  
  32      61.97  +1.08  James Madison         31.27   30.70  
  33      61.85  +0.97  Virginia              29.66   32.20  
  34   -3 61.79  +0.55  Pittsburgh            33.46   28.45  
  35   -1 61.52  +0.65  TCU                   31.93   29.60  
  36   -1 60.96  +0.30  SMU                   30.17   30.75  
  37   +1 60.34  +0.56  Florida               26.75   33.64  
  38   -1 60.20  +0.38  Nebraska              30.96   29.24  
  39      59.92  +1.08  Kansas State          32.25   27.52  
  40      59.59  +1.11  Georgia Tech          31.15   28.46  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  41   +1 58.83  +0.98  NC State              31.57   27.38  
  42   +5 58.55  +1.25  Arizona State         24.44   34.00  
  43   -2 58.54  +0.44  Cincinnati            31.10   27.60  
  44      58.49  +0.85  East Carolina         27.96   30.36  
  45      58.34  +0.76  South Carolina        24.89   33.45  
  46      58.22  +0.76  Houston               29.65   28.57  
  47   -4 58.13  +0.47  Clemson               26.57   31.56  
  48      57.31  +0.54  Toledo                26.44   30.87  
  49      57.18  +0.78  Northwestern          23.65   33.51  
  50   +3 56.73  +1.21  Wisconsin             20.19   36.66  
  51      56.72  +0.95  Duke                  34.01   22.74  
  52   -2 56.49  +0.62  Old Dominion          26.10   30.39  
  53   -1 56.30  +0.66  Mississippi State     31.84   24.53  
  54      56.13  +0.70  Arkansas              34.08   22.04  
  55   +1 56.06  +0.89  Kentucky              25.91   30.17  
  56   -1 55.78  +0.47  Kansas                29.76   26.04  
  57   +1 55.03  +0.77  Boise State           26.96   27.77  
  58   -1 54.92  +0.36  Tulane                24.97   29.98  
  59      54.51  +0.35  San Diego State       22.94   31.62  
  60   +1 54.45  +0.58  Washington State      21.71   32.77  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  61   +1 54.30  +0.67  Michigan State        27.80   26.28  
  62   -2 54.29  +0.26  Wake Forest           23.04   31.29  
  63      54.27  +0.68  Rutgers               31.90   22.37  
  64      54.18  +0.89  Minnesota             24.65   29.28  
  65      54.11  +1.19  UTSA                  31.76   22.14  
  66      52.92  +0.95  Memphis               26.14   26.85  
  67      52.70  +1.02  Baylor                32.37   20.30  
  68      51.53  +0.76  Maryland              24.56   27.21  
  69      51.49  +0.82  New Mexico            23.83   27.67  
  70   +1 51.14  +1.18  UCF                   22.31   28.74  
  71   +1 51.07  +1.18  Purdue                23.88   27.03  
  72   +3 50.71  +1.61  Army                  19.29   31.39  
  73   -3 50.69  +0.45  UCLA                  24.37   26.51  
  74   -1 50.11  +0.81  UNLV                  29.90   20.20  
  75   -1 49.61  +0.35  Western Michigan      19.56   30.13  
  76   +1 49.57  +1.35  Utah State            28.13   21.36  
  77   -1 49.04  +0.52  Navy                  24.73   24.42  
  78      48.60  +1.24  Virginia Tech         24.53   23.73  
  79      48.34  +1.09  Colorado              23.61   24.65  
  80      47.88  +1.00  West Virginia         23.97   23.71  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  81      47.39  +0.66  Fresno State          20.25   27.25  
  82   +1 46.77  +0.80  Hawai'i               23.47   23.32  
  83   -1 46.69  +0.40  Stanford              20.79   26.18  
  84   +1 46.34  +0.72  UConn                 26.88   19.43  
  85   -1 46.18  +0.30  Ohio                  22.30   24.10  
  86      46.15  +0.61  California            23.25   22.90  
  87      45.82  +1.02  Texas State           29.09   16.39  
  88   +1 45.13  +0.59  Western Kentucky      22.40   22.73  
  89   -1 44.93  +0.34  Louisiana Tech        19.91   25.10  
  90   +1 43.91  +0.65  Boston College        24.48   19.42  
  91   -1 43.65  +0.21  Miami (OH)            19.40   24.42  
  92      43.36  +0.62  Temple                24.30   18.95  
  93      43.03  +1.31  North Carolina        17.73   25.26  
  94      42.61  +0.93  Air Force             24.38   18.11  
  95      41.93  +0.46  Marshall              24.88   17.14  
  96   +1 41.75  +0.93  Syracuse              20.60   21.21  
  97   -1 41.71  +0.70  Kennesaw State        21.34   20.35  
  98      40.15  +1.08  Troy                  17.12   22.78  
  99      40.04  +1.14  Wyoming               12.10   27.94  
 100      38.56  +0.09  Jacksonville State    18.72   19.86  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
 101      38.55  +0.33  Southern Miss         20.29   18.34  
 102   +1 38.53  +1.00  Central Michigan      16.93   21.60  
 103   -1 38.44  +0.79  Oregon State          16.99   21.46  
 104   +1 38.38  +0.90  Tulsa                 18.69   19.76  
 105   -1 38.38  +0.86  Liberty               19.37   19.03  
 106      38.02  +1.12  Missouri State        19.69   18.23  
 107      37.55  +0.85  Oklahoma State        15.56   21.99  
 108   +1 37.35  +1.03  Georgia Southern      22.26   14.98  
 109   -1 36.99  +0.53  Florida International 19.14   17.61  
 110      36.57  +0.66  Nevada                14.35   22.21  
 111   +2 36.50  +0.76  Colorado State        17.31   19.36  
 112      36.36  +0.60  Florida Atlantic      24.07   12.29  
 113   -2 36.31  +0.54  Arkansas State        16.86   19.28  
 114      35.78  +0.86  Louisiana             18.15   17.58  
 115      35.21  +0.70  Delaware              20.45   14.76  
 116      35.15  +0.83  Bowling Green         12.58   22.34  
 117      34.88  +0.57  San José State        19.51   15.35  
 118      34.68  +0.84  South Alabama         18.40   15.99  
 119      34.63  +1.02  UAB                   20.86   13.68  
 120      33.65  +1.07  Buffalo               15.15   18.46  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
 121      33.28  +0.82  App State             16.32   16.96  
 122      33.00  +1.04  Rice                  13.41   19.50  
 123      32.67  +0.90  Northern Illinois     11.21   21.36  
 124   +1 32.05  +0.92  Eastern Michigan      18.92   13.02  
 125   -1 32.03  +0.58  New Mexico State      13.08   18.96  
 126   +1 31.28  +0.67  Akron                 14.59   16.25  
 127   -1 31.23  +0.28  Coastal Carolina      17.07   14.16  
 128      31.02  +0.70  UTEP                  16.38   14.63  
 129      29.75  +0.38  Middle Tennessee      14.67   14.83  
 130   +1 28.69  +0.72  Ball State            12.02   16.64  
 131   -1 28.54  +0.40  Kent State            17.47   11.07  
 132      27.50  +0.72  Georgia State         14.48   12.92  
 133      27.41  +0.89  Charlotte             11.38   16.03  
 134      24.55  +0.90  UL Monroe             10.04   14.32  
 135      22.68  +0.84  Sam Houston           12.51   10.17  
 136      11.90  +0.70  Massachusetts         5.39    6.50   

Here are the game predictions using the normal distribution to estimate the range of possible outcomes.

#1: Oregon (1.79, 55.69%) vs. Texas Tech (-1.79, 44.31%)
Estimated score: 30.16 - 28.60, Total: 58.76
Quality: 99.07%, Team quality: 98.88%, Competitiveness: 99.47%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.18%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.03%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 39.82%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 30.92%

#2: Iowa (0.28, 50.89%) vs. Vanderbilt (-0.28, 49.11%)
Estimated score: 26.47 - 26.47, Total: 52.93
Quality: 98.39%, Team quality: 97.60%, Competitiveness: 99.99%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.05%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.40%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 34.27%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 36.27%

#3: Ole Miss (-1.71, 44.57%) vs. Georgia (1.71, 55.43%)
Estimated score: 25.92 - 27.65, Total: 53.56
Quality: 98.31%, Team quality: 97.72%, Competitiveness: 99.52%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.16%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.06%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 34.86%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.68%

#4: Michigan (1.16, 53.69%) vs. Texas (-1.16, 46.31%)
Estimated score: 24.04 - 22.78, Total: 46.83
Quality: 97.91%, Team quality: 96.99%, Competitiveness: 99.78%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.10%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.25%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 28.81%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 42.18%

#5: Arizona State (1.83, 55.83%) vs. Duke (-1.83, 44.17%)
Estimated score: 28.52 - 26.83, Total: 55.35
Quality: 96.07%, Team quality: 94.43%, Competitiveness: 99.44%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.18%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.01%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.54%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.01%

#6: Arizona (5.12, 65.88%) vs. SMU (-5.12, 34.12%)
Estimated score: 27.84 - 22.55, Total: 50.39
Quality: 95.90%, Team quality: 96.00%, Competitiveness: 95.70%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 3.14%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 39.33%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 31.95%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.70%

#7: Wake Forest (-2.00, 43.64%) vs. Mississippi State (2.00, 56.36%)
Estimated score: 25.33 - 27.36, Total: 52.69
Quality: 95.52%, Team quality: 93.66%, Competitiveness: 99.33%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.21%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.93%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 34.05%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 36.50%

#8: Miami (-10.41, 20.27%) vs. Ohio State (10.41, 79.73%)
Estimated score: 11.07 - 21.70, Total: 32.77
Quality: 93.19%, Team quality: 98.66%, Competitiveness: 83.15%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 6.95%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 31.06%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 18.05%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 56.24%

#9: Navy (-9.49, 22.40%) vs. Cincinnati (9.49, 77.60%)
Estimated score: 23.95 - 33.50, Total: 57.45
Quality: 90.51%, Team quality: 92.95%, Competitiveness: 85.81%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 6.06%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 32.73%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 38.55%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 32.09%

#10: Alabama (-15.76, 10.39%) vs. Indiana (15.76, 89.61%)
Estimated score: 19.83 - 35.70, Total: 55.53
Quality: 85.72%, Team quality: 98.58%, Competitiveness: 64.80%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 14.51%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 20.75%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.71%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 33.84%

#11: Rice (-12.82, 15.27%) vs. Texas State (12.82, 84.73%)
Estimated score: 23.84 - 36.41, Total: 60.25
Quality: 82.11%, Team quality: 85.72%, Competitiveness: 75.34%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 9.85%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 26.42%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 41.27%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 29.61%

#12: Nebraska (-17.31, 8.32%) vs. Utah (17.31, 91.68%)
Estimated score: 22.60 - 39.77, Total: 62.37
Quality: 82.05%, Team quality: 96.78%, Competitiveness: 58.98%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 17.52%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 17.89%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 43.36%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 27.79%

And here are the predictions for the same games, but with a logistic distribution.

#1: Oregon (1.41, 52.81%) vs. Texas Tech (-1.41, 47.19%)
Estimated score: 29.78 - 28.49, Total: 58.27
Quality: 99.22%, Team quality: 98.94%, Competitiveness: 99.79%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 18.04%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.17%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 43.20%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 37.95%

#2: Iowa (0.24, 50.49%) vs. Vanderbilt (-0.24, 49.51%)
Estimated score: 26.54 - 26.71, Total: 53.24
Quality: 98.42%, Team quality: 97.65%, Competitiveness: 99.99%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 17.95%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.25%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 40.08%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.01%

#3: Ole Miss (-2.26, 45.50%) vs. Georgia (2.26, 54.50%)
Estimated score: 25.54 - 27.60, Total: 53.14
Quality: 98.34%, Team quality: 97.79%, Competitiveness: 99.47%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 18.17%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.05%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 40.02%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.07%

#4: Michigan (2.01, 54.00%) vs. Texas (-2.01, 46.00%)
Estimated score: 24.25 - 22.69, Total: 46.94
Quality: 97.84%, Team quality: 96.97%, Competitiveness: 99.58%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 18.12%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.09%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.28%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 44.95%

#5: Arizona (4.60, 59.09%) vs. SMU (-4.60, 40.91%)
Estimated score: 27.45 - 22.78, Total: 50.23
Quality: 96.67%, Team quality: 96.09%, Competitiveness: 97.83%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 18.86%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 26.42%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 38.25%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 42.88%

#6: Arizona State (1.54, 53.08%) vs. Duke (-1.54, 46.92%)
Estimated score: 28.55 - 26.86, Total: 55.41
Quality: 96.12%, Team quality: 94.35%, Competitiveness: 99.75%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 18.05%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.16%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 41.41%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 39.68%

#7: Wake Forest (-1.60, 46.81%) vs. Mississippi State (1.60, 53.19%)
Estimated score: 25.24 - 27.11, Total: 52.35
Quality: 95.73%, Team quality: 93.79%, Competitiveness: 99.73%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 18.06%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.15%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 39.53%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.57%

#8: Miami (-10.80, 29.68%) vs. Ohio State (10.80, 70.32%)
Estimated score: 11.13 - 21.82, Total: 32.94
Quality: 95.19%, Team quality: 98.67%, Competitiveness: 88.60%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 22.93%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 23.04%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 28.49%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 53.86%

#9: Navy (-9.57, 31.77%) vs. Cincinnati (9.57, 68.23%)
Estimated score: 23.78 - 33.08, Total: 56.86
Quality: 92.34%, Team quality: 93.06%, Competitiveness: 90.92%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 21.87%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 23.86%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 42.31%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.80%

#10: Alabama (-16.06, 21.70%) vs. Indiana (16.06, 78.30%)
Estimated score: 19.85 - 36.14, Total: 55.99
Quality: 90.64%, Team quality: 98.65%, Competitiveness: 76.52%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 28.90%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 18.97%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 41.77%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 39.32%

#11: Nebraska (-16.97, 20.50%) vs. Utah (16.97, 79.50%)
Estimated score: 22.59 - 39.65, Total: 62.23
Quality: 88.64%, Team quality: 96.87%, Competitiveness: 74.21%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 30.14%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 18.24%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 45.69%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.59%

#12: Rice (-12.85, 26.38%) vs. Texas State (12.85, 73.62%)
Estimated score: 23.92 - 36.77, Total: 60.69
Quality: 85.04%, Team quality: 85.43%, Competitiveness: 84.25%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 24.99%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 21.53%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 44.72%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 36.50%

I’d like to test this out more before I implement this change for future seasons and in other sports, but my intuition is that the logistic distribution is a better way to estimate the range of possible outcomes and the win probabilities. I’d like to go into these topics in more depth with a couple of additional articles, but this seems like one of the easiest and best ways to improve the performance of my prediction system. I agree with the computer ratings that Indiana should be favored over Alabama, but giving the Tide a 21.70% chance of winning seems a lot more reasonable than the 10.39% if I estimate the range of possible outcomes with a normal distribution.

Thanks for reading, and happy new year!

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This article uses ratings that are based on data from collegefootballdata.com.

Merry Christmas! Much like Thanksgiving, there are three NFL games today. Unlike Thanksgiving, all three of today’s games are behind one TV paywall or another. It’s week 17, and most of the playoff bids have already been determined, though today’s Lions-Vikings game is a must win game if the Lions are going to keep their playoff hopes alive. Let’s get to the scenarios for playoff bids, then I’ll post the updated ratings and week 17 predictions. I featured the Chargers for this article’s photo because even though they’re already in the playoffs, they could have a big impact on the potentially most complex and confusing of the four playoff races. NFL tiebreakers can get confusing, but let’s look at the four races and see why Colts fans should also be really big fans of the Chargers for the final two weekends of the regular season.

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NFC South

Only one of the remaining NFC South teams in contention will make the playoffs, and that bid will come from winning the division. Right now, the Panthers are ahead by a game, but they also have a much more difficult remaining schedule with a home game against the Seahawks, then closing out the regular season with a road game against the Buccaneers. In contrast, that regular season finale is a home game for the Buccaneers, and they have a road game against the Dolphins this weekend. The Panthers’ home game against the Seahawks is much more difficult than the Buccaneers playing on the road at Miami, so the most likely scenario is a tie atop the NFC South after this weekend. Because the Buccaneers have a higher rating than the Panthers, plus they’ll have the benefit of playing the regular season finale at home, it makes sense that the season simulator gives them a slight edge.

Because the teams are separated by a single game unlike the other divisions involved, both teams have multiple ways to reach the playoffs. It’s complex enough that I’m not going to run through the various scenarios, but my simulator gives the Buccaneers a 53.02% chance of winning the division. ESPN’s FPI gives the Buccaneers a 55% chance of winning the division and reaching the playoffs. PlayoffStatus.com projects a 55% chance of the Panthers winning the division. This division is effectively a toss-up entering week 17.

NFC North

This also means that only one of the two NFC North teams still left in contention for playoff spot can get in. Right now, the Packers are 9-5-1, and the Lions are 8-7. The Packers also won both of their games against the Lions this season. If the Lions won both of their remaining games, but the Packers lost one of their remaining games and tied the other, the Packers would finish at 9-6-2 and the Lions at 10-7. These would be identical winning percentages, but the Packers would still get the tiebreaker because they won both of their games against the Lions. The only scenario where Detroit reaches the playoffs is to win both of their remaining games and have Green Bay lose both of their games. The simulator gives this a 5.88% chance of happening, which seems reasonable. This weekend, the Lions must defeat the Vikings (60.97%) and the Ravens must win a road game against the Packers (37.48%). And in week 18, the Lions must win against the Bears (56.34%) and the Vikings must win against the Packers (44.67%). If I multiply out the individual probabilities for each of the four games, I get a 5.75% chance of all four games having the necessary results, so the probabilities over 20,000 simulations is effectively right on the money.

AFC North

In the AFC North, the Ravens must get to 9-8 to have any chance at the playoffs. But that also requires the Steelers to lose both remaining games and finish at 9-8, and then for the Ravens to reach the playoffs on the tiebreakers. The Texans already have 10 wins, meaning that they would have a better record than both of these teams, therefore only one AFC North team can reach the playoffs. In this scenario, the Ravens and Steelers would then have their tie broken based on divisional records. The Steelers are currently 3-1 in divisional games but the Ravens are 3-2. Because the Steelers must lose their remaining games and the Ravens have to win theirs, the Steelers would finish 3-3 in division while the Ravens would be 4-2. Therefore, the tiebreaker would go to Baltimore.

However, in order for this tiebreaker to matter, the Ravens must win against the Packers this weekend, and the Steelers must lose to the Browns. The Browns have a 28.80% probability of winning according to my predictions, but the Ravens have just a 37.48% chance of winning. Multiplying these together, there should be a 10.79% chance of both of these outcomes happening this weekend.

If both of these things happen, we go to week 18 where the Ravens play at the Steelers and have a 42.83% chance of winning as per my ratings. By my math, there’s a 4.62% chance of all three events happening, meaning that the playoff simulator’s relatively crude tiebreaking system is probably a bit pessimistic about giving the Ravens just a 3.29% chance of reaching the playoff. Still, it’s a long shot for the Ravens to reach the playoffs.

AFC South

Finally, there’s the AFC South, with the Texans at 10-5 and the Colts at 8-7. The Texans have a seven game winning streak while the Colts have lost five straight games. Houston won the one game they’ve played against each other so far this season. But Indianapolis must win out, so the season series would be tied 1-1. The Colts are 2-2 in the division while the Texans are 4-1. But if the Colts win their remaining games, including the week 18 game against the Texans, both teams would be 4-2 in the division. The next tiebreaker is common opponents.

    HOU IND
LAR   L   L
JAX  LW  L?
TEN  WW  WW
SEA   L   L
 SF   W   L
DEN   L   W
 KC   W   L
ARI   W   W
 LV   W   W
LAC   ?   W

Right now, the Texans are 7-4 against common opponents and Colts are 6-5. For this scenario to even matter, the Texans must lose both remaining games and the Colts must win out, so they’ll be tied 7-5 each against common opponents. Next up is conference records, where the Texans are currently 8-2 and the Colts are 6-4. Again, for this scenario to matter, the both teams would finish 8-4 in conference. This then goes to strength of victory, which is the winning percentage of teams that that each team has won against. For that scenario to matter, the Texans must lose to the Chargers, and the Colts must win against the Jaguars.

• HOU: TEN, BAL, SF, JAX, TEN, BUF, IND, KC, ARI, LV

• IND: MIA, DEN, TEN, LV, ARI, LAC, TEN, ATL + JAX & HOU

I’ll remove the teams from each other’s lists and any teams that both the Colts and Texans have won against.

• HOU: BAL (7-8), SF (11-4), BUF (12-3), KC (6-9) = 36-24

• IND: MIA (6-9), DEN (12-3), LAC (11-4), ATL (6-9) = 35-25

And here are their projected final winning percentages:

• HOU: BAL (.460), SF (.709), BUF (.731), KC (.431) = .583

• IND: MIA (.390), DEN (.766), LAC (.694), ATL (.398) = .562

But that’s not quite accurate for this specific scenario because the Chargers must win against the the Texans this weekend, which would make them 12-5. Then they have a 40.87% chance of winning against the Broncos in week 18 and a 0.44% chance of a tie. That actually gives the chargers a projected .743 winning percentage if this scenario is relevant. Let’s update the winning percentages for the strength of victory tiebreaker.

• HOU: BAL (.460), SF (.709), BUF (.731), KC (.431) = .583

• IND: MIA (.390), DEN (.766), LAC (.743), ATL (.398) = .574

That’s still a slight edge to the Texans in the strength of victory tiebreaker. My season simulator isn’t actually this detailed in how it breaks ties, but if there’s a tie atop the AFC South, there’s a pretty good chance it will be broken by strength of victory. And right now, there’s a small edge to the Texans. But for this to even matter, the Colts must win against the Jaguars (48.28%), the Chargers must win against the Texans (35.95%), and then the Colts must win in week 18 (35.95%). That’s a combined 6.24%, which is what’s necessary for any of these tiebreakers to matter. My season simulator gives the Colts a 4.83% chance of reaching the playoffs, but that’s probably a bit generous due to the simplified tiebreakers it uses. FPI only gives them a 1.8% chance of reaching the playoffs, and PlayoffStatus.com puts their chances at 3%. The bottom line is that the Colts do have a playoff chance, but it’s requires them to win out, get help from the Chargers, and get additional help with the strength of victory tiebreaker.

Predictive Ratings

Here are the predictive ratings I used to generate these projections. These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points. They don’t factor in wins and losses, only the margin of victory. The ratings don’t explicitly calculate the strength of schedule, though I calculate this afterwards. However, because of how the ratings are calculated, the quality of opponents does influence the ratings.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 1.79 points
Mean score: 22.49 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      13.20  -0.13  Los Angeles Rams      8.18    5.05   
   2      12.41  -0.08  Seattle Seahawks      6.96    5.45   
   3      8.00   -1.50  Houston Texans        0.31    7.66   
   4   +1 7.32   +0.83  Jacksonville Jaguars  4.63    2.65   
   5   +4 5.84   +1.52  San Francisco 49ers   3.56    2.29   
   6   -2 5.02   -1.87  Indianapolis Colts    5.41    -0.40  
   7   -1 4.80   -0.96  Detroit Lions         6.27    -1.46  
   8      3.98   -0.70  Buffalo Bills         5.26    -1.26  
   9   +2 3.73   -0.02  Philadelphia Eagles   -0.98   4.68   
  10   +3 3.53   +0.72  New England Patriots  2.24    1.27   
  11   -4 2.83   -2.38  Kansas City Chiefs    -1.18   4.02   
  12      2.70   -0.40  Green Bay Packers     -0.12   2.81   
  13   -3 2.68   -1.14  Denver Broncos        0.22    2.45   
  14      1.44   +0.77  Los Angeles Chargers  -0.28   1.73   
  15   +1 0.83   +0.95  Pittsburgh Steelers   0.37    0.45   
  16   +1 0.78   +0.90  Chicago Bears         1.84    -1.06  
  17   -2 0.27   -0.18  Baltimore Ravens      0.16    0.10   
  18   +1 -0.82  +0.32  Minnesota Vikings     -3.28   2.45   
  19   -1 -0.94  -0.35  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  0.80    -1.73  
  20   +3 -3.06  +0.69  Atlanta Falcons       -2.64   -0.44  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21      -3.06  -0.75  Arizona Cardinals     -0.64   -2.41  
  22      -3.24  +0.43  Carolina Panthers     -4.32   1.06   
  23   -3 -3.26  -1.23  Dallas Cowboys        4.92    -8.20  
  24   +3 -5.53  +1.15  New Orleans Saints    -6.30   0.75   
  25      -5.68  -0.00  New York Giants       -1.81   -3.89  
  26   +2 -5.92  +2.19  Cincinnati Bengals    1.09    -6.97  
  27   -3 -6.07  -1.39  Miami Dolphins        -3.53   -2.56  
  28   +1 -6.31  +1.83  Tennessee Titans      -4.13   -2.15  
  29   -3 -6.37  -0.59  Washington Commanders -2.59   -3.80  
  30   +1 -8.44  +1.20  Cleveland Browns      -7.59   -0.86  
  31   +1 -9.95  +1.41  Las Vegas Raiders     -7.68   -2.25  
  32   -2 -10.63 -1.08  New York Jets         -5.18   -5.46  

Schedule Strength

The first column is the expected losing percentage (1 minus winning percentage) for a hypothetical average NFL team in each team’s games played to date. Larger numbers mean a tougher schedule. The second column is the same thing, just for future games instead of past games.

The third column is the average opponent rating, with an adjustment for the site of games, for previously played games. The fourth column is the average opponent rating for the future games that each team will play. These two columns are the same schedule strength metrics from my previous NFL articles.

In college football, the two approaches to schedule strength would differ more just because the approach used in the first two columns limits the influence of truly lopsided blowout games. In the NFL, there just aren’t that many blowouts, and the teams are more evenly balanced. Therefore, there’s just not too much of a difference in the two approaches to measuring schedule strength.

Schedule Strength for an Average Team
Home advantage: 1.79 points
Mean score: 22.49 points
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
   1 Los Angeles Rams      .587 (2)  .411 (23) 3.22 (3)   -3.06 (23)
   2 Seattle Seahawks      .536 (7)  .586 (10) 1.50 (7)   3.10 (10) 
   3 Houston Texans        .556 (4)  .595 (9)  2.17 (4)   3.23 (9)  
   4 Jacksonville Jaguars  .534 (8)  .484 (19) 1.24 (8)   -0.65 (19)
   5 San Francisco 49ers   .537 (6)  .627 (5)  1.68 (5)   4.80 (6)  
   6 Indianapolis Colts    .529 (10) .712 (1)  1.20 (9)   7.66 (1)  
   7 Detroit Lions         .485 (21) .552 (13) -0.41 (21) 1.77 (14) 
   8 Buffalo Bills         .445 (29) .368 (28) -1.94 (29) -5.25 (29)
   9 Philadelphia Eagles   .490 (20) .469 (20) -0.38 (20) -1.20 (20)
  10 New England Patriots  .394 (32) .268 (32) -3.90 (32) -8.35 (32)
  11 Kansas City Chiefs    .512 (12) .400 (25) 0.35 (12)  -3.63 (25)
  12 Green Bay Packers     .469 (23) .492 (18) -1.11 (23) -0.28 (18)
  13 Denver Broncos        .448 (28) .562 (11) -1.92 (28) 2.14 (11) 
  14 Los Angeles Chargers  .454 (26) .654 (3)  -1.66 (26) 5.34 (4)  
  15 Pittsburgh Steelers   .493 (18) .383 (26) -0.31 (18) -4.09 (26)
  16 Chicago Bears         .445 (30) .651 (4)  -2.00 (30) 5.32 (5)  
  17 Baltimore Ravens      .476 (22) .604 (8)  -0.91 (22) 3.56 (8)  
  18 Minnesota Vikings     .498 (15) .557 (12) 0.03 (15)  1.96 (13) 
  19 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .538 (5)  .365 (29) 1.55 (6)   -4.65 (28)
  20 Atlanta Falcons       .490 (19) .547 (14) -0.31 (19) 2.04 (12) 
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
  21 Arizona Cardinals     .585 (3)  .622 (6)  3.24 (2)   5.44 (3)  
  22 Carolina Panthers     .493 (17) .654 (2)  -0.19 (17) 5.74 (2)  
  23 Dallas Cowboys        .466 (25) .377 (27) -1.26 (25) -4.23 (27)
  24 New Orleans Saints    .497 (16) .416 (22) 0.07 (14)  -2.90 (22)
  25 New York Giants       .522 (11) .313 (30) 0.77 (11)  -6.61 (30)
  26 Cincinnati Bengals    .510 (13) .292 (31) 0.25 (13)  -7.54 (31)
  27 Miami Dolphins        .434 (31) .537 (15) -2.44 (31) 1.30 (15) 
  28 Tennessee Titans      .596 (1)  .522 (16) 3.47 (1)   0.90 (16) 
  29 Washington Commanders .498 (14) .506 (17) -0.09 (16) 0.23 (17) 
  30 Cleveland Browns      .467 (24) .426 (21) -1.23 (24) -2.54 (21)
  31 Las Vegas Raiders     .533 (9)  .410 (24) 1.12 (10)  -3.21 (24)
  32 New York Jets         .451 (27) .608 (7)  -1.71 (27) 3.75 (7)  

NFL Season Simulation

This season simulation is based on games and computer ratings through December 1, 2025. The season was simulated 20,000 times, and the results of the simulations have been aggregated to predict final records and playoff chances. Tiebreakers for making the postseason are simplified, and the simulations don’t factor in potential issues like injuries, but this is still useful for making an educated guess about the standings at the end of the regular season.

Projected Standings

First up is the projected won-loss records, points scored, and points allowed for each team. The rating column is the team’s overall rating, included as a measure of team strength.

AFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Buffalo Bills         12.42 4.57  0.01  .731  492.14  383.86  3.98  
New England Patriots  13.59 3.41  0.01  .799  467.59  334.04  3.53  
Miami Dolphins        6.62  10.37 0.01  .390  355.59  422.25  -6.07 
New York Jets         3.32  13.68 0.01  .195  316.92  489.55  -10.63

AFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Pittsburgh Steelers   10.26 6.73  0.01  .604  411.67  386.96  0.83  
Baltimore Ravens      7.81  9.18  0.01  .460  399.38  395.03  0.27  
Cincinnati Bengals    6.08  10.91 0.01  .358  411.23  507.09  -5.92 
Cleveland Browns      3.68  13.31 0.01  .217  282.74  403.27  -8.44 

AFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Jacksonville Jaguars  12.37 4.62  0.01  .728  467.15  353.35  7.32  
Houston Texans        11.26 5.73  0.01  .663  390.64  284.16  8.00  
Indianapolis Colts    8.85  8.14  0.01  .521  464.64  402.03  5.02  
Tennessee Titans      3.67  13.32 0.01  .216  284.82  451.04  -6.31 

AFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Denver Broncos        13.02 3.97  0.01  .766  401.93  333.94  2.68  
Los Angeles Chargers  11.78 5.21  0.01  .694  383.72  343.22  1.44  
Kansas City Chiefs    7.32  9.67  0.01  .431  379.65  324.44  2.83  
Las Vegas Raiders     2.66  14.33 0.01  .157  249.08  430.74  -9.95 

NFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Philadelphia Eagles   11.24 5.75  0.01  .661  397.25  327.64  3.73  
Dallas Cowboys        7.06  8.94  1.01  .445  484.68  512.63  -3.26 
New York Giants       3.04  13.95 0.01  .179  364.84  462.08  -5.68 
Washington Commanders 4.66  12.34 0.01  .274  352.43  460.56  -6.37 

NFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Chicago Bears         11.75 5.24  0.01  .691  434.85  410.96  0.78  
Green Bay Packers     10.16 5.83  1.01  .627  406.41  339.50  2.70  
Detroit Lions         9.16  7.83  0.01  .539  506.40  422.35  4.80  
Minnesota Vikings     7.85  9.14  0.01  .462  344.16  364.63  -0.82 

NFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  8.20  8.79  0.01  .482  395.22  417.78  -0.94 
Carolina Panthers     8.55  8.44  0.01  .503  320.14  387.65  -3.24 
Atlanta Falcons       6.77  10.22 0.01  .398  343.00  406.20  -3.06 
New Orleans Saints    5.85  11.14 0.01  .344  288.68  376.77  -5.53 

NFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Los Angeles Rams      12.74 4.26  0.00  .749  521.16  331.07  13.20 
Seattle Seahawks      13.46 3.53  0.01  .792  496.64  314.60  12.41 
San Francisco 49ers   12.05 4.94  0.01  .709  441.64  367.36  5.84  
Arizona Cardinals     3.63  13.36 0.01  .214  365.18  474.84  -3.06 

Playoff Chances

The next table shows each team’s chances of making the playoffs, winning their division, and having the best record in the conference. The mean playoff seed is an average that uses only the seasons when each team made the playoffs. Div% and Conf% are the probabilities of a team having the best record in their division and conference, respectively.

AFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Buffalo Bills         3.98    .731  100.00%  19.48%   5.68%     4.71
New England Patriots  3.53    .799  100.00%  80.52%  67.10%     1.98
Miami Dolphins        -6.07   .390    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
New York Jets         -10.63  .195    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Pittsburgh Steelers   0.83    .604   96.70%  96.70%   0.00%     4.00
Baltimore Ravens      0.27    .460    3.29%   3.29%   0.00%     4.00
Cincinnati Bengals    -5.92   .358    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Cleveland Browns      -8.44   .217    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Jacksonville Jaguars  7.32    .728  100.00%  75.11%  11.87%     3.16
Houston Texans        8.00    .663   95.17%  24.89%   0.09%     5.48
Indianapolis Colts    5.02    .521    4.83%   0.00%   0.00%     7.00
Tennessee Titans      -6.31   .216    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Denver Broncos        2.68    .766  100.00%  70.12%  12.04%     3.27
Los Angeles Chargers  1.44    .694  100.00%  29.89%   3.21%     5.33
Kansas City Chiefs    2.83    .431    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Las Vegas Raiders     -9.95   .157    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Philadelphia Eagles   3.73    .661  100.00% 100.00%   0.01%     2.86
Dallas Cowboys        -3.26   .445    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
New York Giants       -5.68   .179    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Washington Commanders -6.37   .274    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Chicago Bears         0.78    .691  100.00%  86.79%   6.49%     2.69
Green Bay Packers     2.70    .627   94.12%  13.21%   0.00%     6.27
Detroit Lions         4.80    .539    5.88%   0.00%   0.00%     7.00
Minnesota Vikings     -0.82   .462    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  -0.94   .482   53.02%  53.02%   0.00%     4.00
Carolina Panthers     -3.24   .503   46.98%  46.98%   0.00%     3.99
Atlanta Falcons       -3.06   .398    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
New Orleans Saints    -5.53   .344    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Los Angeles Rams      13.20   .749  100.00%  36.23%  31.14%     3.67
Seattle Seahawks      12.41   .792  100.00%  57.61%  56.22%     2.93
San Francisco 49ers   5.84    .709  100.00%   6.17%   6.14%     5.54
Arizona Cardinals     -3.06   .214    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

Possible Regular Season Outcomes

To give a range of how good or bad a team’s final record might be, several percentiles are shown for each team’s final winning percentage.

AFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Buffalo Bills         .731  100.00%   .706   .706   .706   .765   .765
New England Patriots  .799  100.00%   .765   .765   .824   .824   .824
Miami Dolphins        .390  0.00%     .353   .353   .412   .412   .412
New York Jets         .195  0.00%     .176   .176   .176   .235   .235

AFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Pittsburgh Steelers   .604  100.00%   .529   .588   .588   .647   .647
Baltimore Ravens      .460  16.55%    .412   .412   .471   .471   .529
Cincinnati Bengals    .358  0.00%     .294   .353   .353   .412   .412
Cleveland Browns      .217  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .235   .294

AFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Jacksonville Jaguars  .728  100.00%   .706   .706   .706   .765   .765
Houston Texans        .663  100.00%   .588   .647   .647   .706   .706
Indianapolis Colts    .521  66.79%    .471   .471   .529   .529   .588
Tennessee Titans      .216  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .235   .235

AFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Denver Broncos        .766  100.00%   .706   .765   .765   .824   .824
Los Angeles Chargers  .694  100.00%   .647   .647   .706   .706   .765
Kansas City Chiefs    .431  0.00%     .382   .412   .412   .471   .471
Las Vegas Raiders     .157  0.00%     .118   .118   .176   .176   .206

NFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Philadelphia Eagles   .661  100.00%   .588   .647   .647   .706   .706
Dallas Cowboys        .445  0.00%     .382   .441   .441   .500   .500
New York Giants       .179  0.00%     .118   .176   .176   .235   .235
Washington Commanders .274  0.00%     .235   .235   .294   .294   .294

NFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Chicago Bears         .691  100.00%   .647   .647   .706   .706   .765
Green Bay Packers     .627  100.00%   .559   .618   .618   .676   .676
Detroit Lions         .539  82.48%    .471   .529   .529   .588   .588
Minnesota Vikings     .462  17.80%    .412   .412   .471   .471   .529

NFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .482  35.76%    .412   .471   .471   .529   .529
Carolina Panthers     .503  48.68%    .471   .471   .471   .529   .529
Atlanta Falcons       .398  0.00%     .353   .353   .412   .412   .412
New Orleans Saints    .344  0.00%     .294   .294   .353   .353   .412

NFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Los Angeles Rams      .749  100.00%   .706   .765   .765   .765   .765
Seattle Seahawks      .792  100.00%   .765   .765   .824   .824   .824
San Francisco 49ers   .709  100.00%   .647   .706   .706   .765   .765
Arizona Cardinals     .214  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .235   .235

Postseason Projections

The final table shows each team’s probability of reaching the playoffs, the divisional round, the conference championship, winning their conference, and winning the Super Bowl.

AFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Buffalo Bills         .731   100.00%   53.22%    25.26%   12.13%  4.29%
New England Patriots  .799   100.00%   83.96%    43.13%   17.58%  5.76%
Miami Dolphins        .390     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
New York Jets         .195     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Pittsburgh Steelers   .604    96.70%   43.85%    16.32%    6.52%  1.62%
Baltimore Ravens      .460     3.29%    1.39%     0.47%    0.18%  0.05%
Cincinnati Bengals    .358     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Cleveland Browns      .217     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Jacksonville Jaguars  .728   100.00%   64.53%    39.86%   24.04%  9.78%
Houston Texans        .663    95.17%   54.89%    32.13%   20.56%  8.72%
Indianapolis Colts    .521     4.83%    2.41%     1.20%    0.58%  0.26%
Tennessee Titans      .216     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Denver Broncos        .766   100.00%   53.76%    24.88%   11.09%  3.35%
Los Angeles Chargers  .694   100.00%   41.99%    16.74%    7.30%  1.85%
Kansas City Chiefs    .431     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Las Vegas Raiders     .157     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Philadelphia Eagles   .661   100.00%   47.38%    21.49%    7.03%  3.28%
Dallas Cowboys        .445     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
New York Giants       .179     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Washington Commanders .274     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Chicago Bears         .691   100.00%   50.14%    18.92%    4.27%  1.64%
Green Bay Packers     .627    94.12%   43.93%    11.67%    4.16%  1.84%
Detroit Lions         .539     5.88%    3.12%     0.84%    0.33%  0.15%
Minnesota Vikings     .462     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .482    53.02%   12.33%     3.72%    0.96%  0.36%
Carolina Panthers     .503    46.98%    9.13%     2.28%    0.48%  0.16%
Atlanta Falcons       .398     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
New Orleans Saints    .344     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Los Angeles Rams      .749   100.00%   86.99%    59.48%   38.29% 27.34%
Seattle Seahawks      .792   100.00%   88.82%    60.42%   35.91% 25.02%
San Francisco 49ers   .709   100.00%   58.16%    21.18%    8.57%  4.52%
Arizona Cardinals     .214     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

Week 17 Game Predictions

The thresholds for close games, blowouts, and high and low scoring games are different in the NFL than in college football. That’s because NFL teams are balanced enough in talent to usually avoid truly lopsided scores and there’s just less scoring overall.

Games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL for many of the same reasons I just mentioned. This is just for predicting which NFL games are most and least compelling each weekend.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. In the event that a margin is larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score, that’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a forecast of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This isn’t even close to possible with the current NFL ratings, even with the weakest offense against the strongest defense, but it does occur once in awhile in college football. A negative score is impossible, of course, so the score would be set to zero in those instances. However, there’s no upper limit on how many points a team can be projected to score. But with more parity between NFL teams, even the highest scoring predictions aren’t going to be nearly as crazy as what is possible with the college football ratings.

#1: Jacksonville Jaguars (0.50, 51.27%) at Indianapolis Colts (-0.50, 48.28%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 26.62 - 26.15, Total: 52.77
Quality: 89.67%, Team quality: 84.94%, Competitiveness: 99.94%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.26%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.60%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 41.08%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 8.36%

#2: Houston Texans (4.77, 63.63%) at Los Angeles Chargers (-4.77, 35.95%), Tie (0.42%)
Estimated score: 20.17 - 15.45, Total: 35.62
Quality: 81.63%, Team quality: 75.90%, Competitiveness: 94.43%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.99%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.52%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 7.72%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 42.75%

#3: Philadelphia Eagles (-2.04, 43.75%) at Buffalo Bills (2.04, 55.80%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 21.87 - 23.97, Total: 45.84
Quality: 81.21%, Team quality: 73.57%, Competitiveness: 98.96%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.74%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.41%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 23.89%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 18.49%

#4: Denver Broncos (-1.95, 44.03%) at Kansas City Chiefs (1.95, 55.52%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 17.80 - 19.75, Total: 37.55
Quality: 76.58%, Team quality: 67.33%, Competitiveness: 99.05%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.69%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.43%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 9.87%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 37.53%

#5: Chicago Bears (-6.86, 30.38%) at San Francisco 49ers (6.86, 69.23%), Tie (0.39%)
Estimated score: 21.14 - 28.00, Total: 49.14
Quality: 72.48%, Team quality: 65.46%, Competitiveness: 88.86%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 26.84%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.43%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 31.60%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 12.97%

#6: Detroit Lions (3.83, 60.97%) at Minnesota Vikings (-3.83, 38.60%), Tie (0.43%)
Estimated score: 25.41 - 21.57, Total: 46.98
Quality: 71.26%, Team quality: 61.27%, Competitiveness: 96.38%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.01%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.90%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 26.43%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 16.44%

#7: Baltimore Ravens (-4.23, 37.48%) at Green Bay Packers (4.23, 62.09%), Tie (0.43%)
Estimated score: 18.95 - 23.17, Total: 42.12
Quality: 68.26%, Team quality: 57.68%, Competitiveness: 95.60%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.40%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.75%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 16.61%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 26.21%

#8: Seattle Seahawks (13.86, 84.50%) at Carolina Panthers (-13.86, 15.24%), Tie (0.26%)
Estimated score: 27.50 - 13.62, Total: 41.12
Quality: 59.36%, Team quality: 58.13%, Competitiveness: 61.91%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 42.14%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 10.32%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 14.93%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 28.52%

#9: Los Angeles Rams (14.47, 85.53%) at Atlanta Falcons (-14.47, 14.22%), Tie (0.25%)
Estimated score: 30.22 - 15.70, Total: 45.91
Quality: 59.27%, Team quality: 59.25%, Competitiveness: 59.31%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 43.78%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 9.84%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 24.05%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 18.35%

#10: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3.34, 59.56%) at Miami Dolphins (-3.34, 40.00%), Tie (0.44%)
Estimated score: 24.95 - 21.58, Total: 46.53
Quality: 41.39%, Team quality: 27.00%, Competitiveness: 97.24%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 22.59%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.07%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 25.41%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 17.23%

#11: Arizona Cardinals (1.06, 52.92%) at Cincinnati Bengals (-1.06, 46.63%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 27.92 - 26.89, Total: 54.81
Quality: 36.94%, Team quality: 22.48%, Competitiveness: 99.72%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.37%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.56%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 46.68%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 6.38%

#12: Pittsburgh Steelers (7.48, 70.82%) at Cleveland Browns (-7.48, 28.80%), Tie (0.38%)
Estimated score: 22.82 - 15.35, Total: 38.18
Quality: 35.37%, Team quality: 22.57%, Competitiveness: 86.90%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 27.86%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.05%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 10.66%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 35.87%

#13: Dallas Cowboys (1.31, 53.66%) at Washington Commanders (-1.31, 45.90%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 30.32 - 29.00, Total: 59.32
Quality: 35.09%, Team quality: 20.83%, Competitiveness: 99.57%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.44%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.53%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 59.17%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 3.30%

#14: New Orleans Saints (-1.00, 46.80%) at Tennessee Titans (1.00, 52.75%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 17.45 - 18.51, Total: 35.96
Quality: 29.41%, Team quality: 15.97%, Competitiveness: 99.75%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.35%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.57%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 8.08%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 41.81%

#15: New England Patriots (12.38, 81.79%) at New York Jets (-12.38, 17.92%), Tie (0.29%)
Estimated score: 29.30 - 16.94, Total: 46.24
Quality: 28.58%, Team quality: 18.51%, Competitiveness: 68.18%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 38.33%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 11.49%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 24.77%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 17.75%

#16: New York Giants (2.48, 57.09%) at Las Vegas Raiders (-2.48, 42.47%), Tie (0.44%)
Estimated score: 22.04 - 19.59, Total: 41.63
Quality: 20.44%, Team quality: 9.31%, Competitiveness: 98.46%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.98%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.31%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 15.77%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 27.34%

Yes, I know I’m late getting this posted. It’s Christmas, and it also took awhile to run through the math for some of the more complex playoff scenarios. It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s only one playoff race left to discuss next weekend. Thanks for reading, and have a merry Christmas!

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This article is based on ratings derived from data posted on Pro Football Reference.

I’ve been working on some updates to my computer rating system, and as a result, 'I’m not going to write a whole lot in this article. Admittedly, that also means I’m being lazy about the photograph, which is of the site of this week’s Monday night game. I’ll discuss some of the changes to the rating system in an upcoming article, and I’m going to examine the impact of the updates on the predictions for the college football bowl games. Aside from a bug fix, the changes won’t be affecting the NFL ratings this season, but I’ll look at making the changes for next season. I’m also a bit late getting this posted, and that was due to one last glitch in the changes I’d made to the rating software, which I needed to go back and fix that before posting the article.

There are two main issues I want to consider in modifying the ratings. One is that my prediction system generally produces larger point spreads than other prediction systems like ESPN’s FPI. And my system also tends to produce low probabilities of upsets in games that appear to have a clear favorite, and perhaps the probabilities are tilted too much toward the favorites. That second part also likely affected the NFL predictions, where the Baltimore Ravens were predicted to almost certainly make the playoffs this season, a prediction that is now very much in doubt. Was there too little uncertainty in the predictions? My intuition is that the larger point spreads aren’t necessarily a problem, but I’ll probably reconsider whether to use the normal distribution for my predictions.

The bug fix I introduced doesn’t change the ratings much. For week 15’s ratings, it increased the rating for the Steelers by 0.22 points and decreases the Cardinals’ rating by 0.22 points. These were the largest changes in the ratings, and the actual bug fix was to adjust the width of the distribution of the possible scores for a team in a game. The week 16 ratings show changes compared to the new week 15 ratings, which I calculated again using the bug fix. The older distribution wasn’t necessarily going to result in ratings that were wrong, but the current approach makes more sense. But the bigger changes I’m exploring are using the logistic distribution instead of the normal distribution, and perhaps clipping the tails of the distributions when calculating the ratings to limit the effect of blowout games. And I’ll discuss this more in an upcoming article.

With that said, here are the ratings, with last week’s ratings also updated with the minor bug fix.

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Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points. They don’t factor in wins and losses, only the margin of victory. The ratings don’t explicitly calculate the strength of schedule, though I calculate this afterwards. However, because of how the ratings are calculated, the quality of opponents does influence the ratings.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 2.00 points
Mean score: 22.44 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      13.33  -0.50  Los Angeles Rams      7.68    5.66   
   2      12.50  -0.61  Seattle Seahawks      6.30    6.23   
   3      9.50   +0.32  Houston Texans        0.90    8.62   
   4      6.89   +0.13  Indianapolis Colts    5.75    1.19   
   5      6.49   +0.15  Jacksonville Jaguars  4.25    2.28   
   6   +1 5.76   +0.30  Detroit Lions         6.85    -1.09  
   7   -1 5.21   -0.31  Kansas City Chiefs    0.30    4.96   
   8   +1 4.68   +0.15  Buffalo Bills         6.04    -1.33  
   9   -1 4.32   -0.52  San Francisco 49ers   1.99    2.33   
  10      3.82   +0.38  Denver Broncos        0.53    3.27   
  11   +2 3.75   +1.38  Philadelphia Eagles   -1.35   5.10   
  12   -1 3.10   -0.30  Green Bay Packers     0.40    2.66   
  13   -1 2.81   -0.49  New England Patriots  1.62    1.20   
  14   +1 0.66   +0.74  Los Angeles Chargers  -0.39   1.03   
  15   +1 0.45   +1.15  Baltimore Ravens      0.09    0.41   
  16   +1 -0.12  +0.85  Pittsburgh Steelers   0.05    -0.16  
  17   +3 -0.12  +1.67  Chicago Bears         1.73    -1.87  
  18   -4 -0.59  -0.64  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  1.09    -1.70  
  19   +2 -1.14  +1.25  Minnesota Vikings     -2.95   1.80   
  20   -2 -2.04  -0.71  Dallas Cowboys        5.82    -7.85  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21   -2 -2.31  -0.96  Arizona Cardinals     0.02    -2.32  
  22      -3.67  -0.49  Carolina Panthers     -4.49   0.83   
  23      -3.76  +0.32  Atlanta Falcons       -2.78   -0.97  
  24      -4.69  -0.44  Miami Dolphins        -3.24   -1.44  
  25      -5.67  -0.38  New York Giants       -1.18   -4.47  
  26      -5.78  +0.87  Washington Commanders -2.45   -3.34  
  27      -6.68  +0.13  New Orleans Saints    -6.58   -0.11  
  28      -8.11  -0.73  Cincinnati Bengals    -0.45   -7.71  
  29      -8.15  -0.09  Tennessee Titans      -4.55   -3.62  
  30   +1 -9.56  -0.60  New York Jets         -4.29   -5.29  
  31   -1 -9.63  -1.19  Cleveland Browns      -8.01   -1.59  
  32      -11.36 -0.95  Las Vegas Raiders     -8.70   -2.63  

Schedule Strength

The first column is the expected losing percentage (1 minus winning percentage) for a hypothetical average NFL team in each team’s games played to date. Larger numbers mean a tougher schedule. The second column is the same thing, just for future games instead of past games.

The third column is the average opponent rating, with an adjustment for the site of games, for previously played games. The fourth column is the average opponent rating for the future games that each team will play. These two columns are the same schedule strength metrics from my previous NFL articles.

In college football, the two approaches to schedule strength would differ more just because the approach used in the first two columns limits the influence of truly lopsided blowout games. In the NFL, there just aren’t that many blowouts, and the teams are more evenly balanced. Therefore, there’s just not too much of a difference in the two approaches to measuring schedule strength.

Schedule Strength for an Average Team
Home advantage: 2.00 points
Mean score: 22.44 points
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
   1 Los Angeles Rams      .566 (4)  .560 (10) 2.33 (4)   2.81 (8)  
   2 Seattle Seahawks      .514 (14) .644 (3)  0.69 (12)  5.33 (3)  
   3 Houston Texans        .584 (3)  .461 (21) 3.21 (3)   -1.94 (23)
   4 Indianapolis Colts    .521 (10) .668 (1)  0.93 (10)  6.10 (1)  
   5 Jacksonville Jaguars  .528 (8)  .547 (11) 1.05 (8)   1.52 (11) 
   6 Detroit Lions         .488 (20) .506 (19) -0.30 (20) 0.21 (19) 
   7 Kansas City Chiefs    .531 (7)  .374 (28) 0.99 (9)   -4.56 (28)
   8 Buffalo Bills         .457 (26) .344 (29) -1.50 (26) -5.81 (30)
   9 San Francisco 49ers   .522 (9)  .655 (2)  1.17 (7)   5.75 (2)  
  10 Denver Broncos        .437 (30) .599 (6)  -2.35 (30) 3.45 (6)  
  11 Philadelphia Eagles   .509 (15) .454 (22) 0.23 (15)  -1.63 (21)
  12 Green Bay Packers     .461 (24) .512 (16) -1.39 (24) 0.40 (17) 
  13 New England Patriots  .370 (32) .389 (27) -4.76 (32) -3.93 (27)
  14 Los Angeles Chargers  .461 (25) .626 (4)  -1.49 (25) 4.43 (4)  
  15 Baltimore Ravens      .469 (23) .576 (8)  -1.19 (23) 2.60 (9)  
  16 Pittsburgh Steelers   .474 (21) .486 (20) -1.02 (22) -0.47 (20)
  17 Chicago Bears         .432 (31) .608 (5)  -2.47 (31) 3.73 (5)  
  18 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .540 (5)  .402 (26) 1.71 (5)   -3.34 (26)
  19 Minnesota Vikings     .499 (17) .512 (17) 0.04 (17)  0.40 (18) 
  20 Dallas Cowboys        .472 (22) .414 (25) -1.02 (21) -2.93 (25)
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
  21 Arizona Cardinals     .598 (2)  .510 (18) 3.70 (2)   1.16 (12) 
  22 Carolina Panthers     .497 (18) .583 (7)  -0.05 (18) 3.10 (7)  
  23 Atlanta Falcons       .496 (19) .517 (15) -0.08 (19) 0.78 (16) 
  24 Miami Dolphins        .444 (29) .430 (24) -2.04 (29) -2.63 (24)
  25 New York Giants       .535 (6)  .344 (30) 1.20 (6)   -5.51 (29)
  26 Washington Commanders .503 (16) .533 (12) 0.04 (16)  1.15 (13) 
  27 New Orleans Saints    .517 (13) .322 (32) 0.90 (11)  -6.49 (32)
  28 Cincinnati Bengals    .517 (12) .329 (31) 0.49 (14)  -6.21 (31)
  29 Tennessee Titans      .605 (1)  .530 (13) 3.82 (1)   1.01 (14) 
  30 New York Jets         .454 (27) .526 (14) -1.65 (27) 0.94 (15) 
  31 Cleveland Browns      .450 (28) .447 (23) -1.88 (28) -1.85 (22)
  32 Las Vegas Raiders     .520 (11) .561 (9)  0.60 (13)  2.35 (10) 

NFL Season Simulations

This season simulation is based on games and computer ratings through December 1, 2025. The season was simulated 20,000 times, and the results of the simulations have been aggregated to predict final records and playoff chances. Tiebreakers for making the postseason are simplified, and the simulations don’t factor in potential issues like injuries, but this is still useful for making an educated guess about the standings at the end of the regular season.

Projected Standings

First up is the projected won-loss records, points scored, and points allowed for each team. The rating column is the team’s overall rating, included as a measure of team strength.

AFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
New England Patriots  13.01 3.98  0.01  .766  459.61  333.60  2.81  
Buffalo Bills         12.24 4.75  0.01  .720  499.33  381.30  4.68  
Miami Dolphins        7.33  9.65  0.01  .432  362.95  397.15  -4.69 
New York Jets         3.73  13.26 0.01  .220  330.32  482.53  -9.56 

AFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Pittsburgh Steelers   9.53  7.46  0.01  .561  404.86  394.02  -0.12 
Baltimore Ravens      8.32  8.67  0.01  .490  398.06  389.45  0.45  
Cincinnati Bengals    5.35  11.64 0.01  .315  386.56  514.97  -8.11 
Cleveland Browns      3.90  13.09 0.01  .229  279.96  408.89  -9.63 

AFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Jacksonville Jaguars  11.83 5.16  0.01  .696  454.43  355.66  6.49  
Houston Texans        11.24 5.75  0.01  .661  394.66  268.15  9.50  
Indianapolis Colts    9.56  7.43  0.01  .563  464.55  372.96  6.89  
Tennessee Titans      2.86  14.13 0.01  .168  273.60  469.26  -8.15 

AFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Denver Broncos        13.52 3.47  0.01  .796  403.97  322.00  3.82  
Los Angeles Chargers  11.19 5.80  0.02  .659  376.67  356.64  0.66  
Kansas City Chiefs    8.21  8.78  0.01  .483  398.34  310.37  5.21  
Las Vegas Raiders     2.62  14.37 0.01  .154  232.62  437.35  -11.36

NFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Philadelphia Eagles   10.89 6.10  0.01  .641  390.25  325.92  3.75  
Dallas Cowboys        7.57  8.41  1.01  .475  497.58  507.73  -2.04 
New York Giants       3.48  13.51 0.01  .205  373.32  470.00  -5.67 
Washington Commanders 4.97  12.02 0.01  .293  350.39  454.39  -5.78 

NFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Green Bay Packers     10.71 5.27  1.01  .660  415.54  340.56  3.10  
Chicago Bears         11.18 5.81  0.01  .658  434.73  419.18  -0.12 
Detroit Lions         9.94  7.05  0.01  .585  515.11  415.61  5.76  
Minnesota Vikings     7.36  9.62  0.01  .433  351.63  374.27  -1.14 

NFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  8.72  8.27  0.01  .513  396.62  415.52  -0.59 
Carolina Panthers     7.99  8.99  0.01  .471  316.86  389.32  -3.67 
Atlanta Falcons       6.19  10.79 0.01  .365  338.29  411.61  -3.76 
New Orleans Saints    5.48  11.50 0.01  .323  283.05  389.31  -6.68 

NFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Los Angeles Rams      13.19 3.80  0.01  .776  506.52  316.79  13.33 
Seattle Seahawks      13.04 3.95  0.01  .767  481.61  297.44  12.50 
San Francisco 49ers   11.36 5.62  0.01  .669  412.72  366.32  4.32  
Arizona Cardinals     4.29  12.69 0.01  .253  371.45  467.89  -2.31 

Playoff Chances

The next table shows each team’s chances of making the playoffs, winning their division, and having the best record in the conference. The mean playoff seed is an average that uses only the seasons when each team made the playoffs. Div% and Conf% are the probabilities of a team having the best record in their division and conference, respectively.

AFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
New England Patriots  2.81    .766   99.80%  60.52%  32.90%     3.04
Buffalo Bills         4.68    .720   98.95%  39.48%   8.61%     4.16
Miami Dolphins        -4.69   .432    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
New York Jets         -9.56   .220    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.12   .561   75.53%  75.48%   0.00%     3.98
Baltimore Ravens      0.45    .490   24.52%  24.52%   0.00%     4.00
Cincinnati Bengals    -8.11   .315    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Cleveland Browns      -9.63   .229    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Jacksonville Jaguars  6.49    .696   98.78%  63.74%  10.73%     3.69
Houston Texans        9.50    .661   90.38%  33.38%   0.32%     4.95
Indianapolis Colts    6.89    .563   26.65%   2.88%   0.00%     6.32
Tennessee Titans      -8.15   .168    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Denver Broncos        3.82    .796  100.00%  89.78%  44.86%     2.05
Los Angeles Chargers  0.66    .659   85.41%  10.22%   2.58%     5.87
Kansas City Chiefs    5.21    .483    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Las Vegas Raiders     -11.36  .154    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Philadelphia Eagles   3.75    .641   99.45%  99.45%   0.06%     2.85
Dallas Cowboys        -2.04   .475    0.55%   0.55%   0.00%     3.17
New York Giants       -5.67   .205    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Washington Commanders -5.78   .293    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Green Bay Packers     3.10    .660   88.89%  50.68%   0.18%     4.10
Chicago Bears         -0.12   .658   75.89%  41.66%   2.44%     4.13
Detroit Lions         5.76    .585   38.99%   7.66%   0.00%     6.07
Minnesota Vikings     -1.14   .433    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  -0.59   .513   69.12%  69.12%   0.00%     3.99
Carolina Panthers     -3.67   .471   30.89%  30.89%   0.00%     3.96
Atlanta Falcons       -3.76   .365    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
New Orleans Saints    -6.68   .323    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Los Angeles Rams      13.33   .776   99.95%  51.84%  50.63%     2.96
Seattle Seahawks      12.50   .767   99.80%  46.86%  45.40%     3.32
San Francisco 49ers   4.32    .669   96.49%   1.31%   1.28%     5.96
Arizona Cardinals     -2.31   .253    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

Possible Regular Season Outcomes

To give a range of how good or bad a team’s final record might be, several percentiles are shown for each team’s final winning percentage.

AFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
New England Patriots  .766  100.00%   .706   .765   .765   .824   .824
Buffalo Bills         .720  100.00%   .647   .706   .706   .765   .765
Miami Dolphins        .432  7.17%     .353   .412   .412   .471   .471
New York Jets         .220  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .235   .294

AFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Pittsburgh Steelers   .561  90.18%    .529   .529   .588   .588   .647
Baltimore Ravens      .490  41.02%    .412   .471   .471   .529   .529
Cincinnati Bengals    .315  0.00%     .235   .294   .294   .353   .353
Cleveland Browns      .229  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .235   .294

AFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Jacksonville Jaguars  .696  100.00%   .647   .647   .706   .706   .765
Houston Texans        .661  100.00%   .588   .647   .647   .706   .706
Indianapolis Colts    .563  89.74%    .497   .529   .588   .588   .647
Tennessee Titans      .168  0.00%     .118   .118   .176   .176   .235

AFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Denver Broncos        .796  100.00%   .706   .765   .824   .824   .882
Los Angeles Chargers  .659  100.00%   .588   .647   .647   .706   .706
Kansas City Chiefs    .483  38.21%    .412   .471   .471   .529   .529
Las Vegas Raiders     .154  0.00%     .118   .118   .176   .176   .176

NFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Philadelphia Eagles   .641  100.00%   .588   .588   .647   .647   .706
Dallas Cowboys        .475  14.88%    .382   .441   .500   .500   .559
New York Giants       .205  0.00%     .118   .176   .176   .235   .294
Washington Commanders .293  0.00%     .235   .235   .294   .294   .353

NFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Green Bay Packers     .660  100.00%   .618   .618   .676   .676   .735
Chicago Bears         .658  100.00%   .588   .647   .647   .706   .706
Detroit Lions         .585  95.61%    .529   .529   .588   .647   .647
Minnesota Vikings     .433  8.80%     .353   .412   .412   .471   .471

NFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .513  61.06%    .471   .471   .529   .529   .588
Carolina Panthers     .471  25.34%    .412   .412   .471   .529   .529
Atlanta Falcons       .365  0.00%     .294   .353   .353   .412   .412
New Orleans Saints    .323  0.00%     .235   .294   .294   .353   .412

NFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Los Angeles Rams      .776  100.00%   .706   .765   .765   .824   .824
Seattle Seahawks      .767  100.00%   .706   .765   .765   .824   .824
San Francisco 49ers   .669  100.00%   .588   .647   .647   .706   .706
Arizona Cardinals     .253  0.00%     .176   .235   .235   .294   .294

Postseason Projections

The final table shows each team’s probability of reaching the playoffs, the divisional round, the conference championship, winning their conference, and winning the Super Bowl.

AFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
New England Patriots  .766    99.80%   65.53%    30.31%   12.57%  3.79%
Buffalo Bills         .720    98.95%   55.67%    27.96%   13.51%  4.64%
Miami Dolphins        .432     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
New York Jets         .220     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Pittsburgh Steelers   .561    75.53%   32.52%    10.64%    3.82%  0.90%
Baltimore Ravens      .490    24.52%   11.07%     3.70%    1.43%  0.40%
Cincinnati Bengals    .315     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Cleveland Browns      .229     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Jacksonville Jaguars  .696    98.78%   59.34%    34.23%   18.83%  7.22%
Houston Texans        .661    90.38%   57.16%    35.73%   23.90% 11.24%
Indianapolis Colts    .563    26.65%   13.63%     7.53%    4.66%  1.93%
Tennessee Titans      .168     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Denver Broncos        .796   100.00%   73.14%    38.00%   16.53%  5.30%
Los Angeles Chargers  .659    85.41%   31.94%    11.91%    4.75%  1.14%
Kansas City Chiefs    .483     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Las Vegas Raiders     .154     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Philadelphia Eagles   .641    99.45%   52.08%    23.57%    7.27%  3.28%
Dallas Cowboys        .475     0.55%    0.18%     0.03%    0.01%  0.01%
New York Giants       .205     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Washington Commanders .293     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Green Bay Packers     .660    88.89%   46.52%    17.61%    5.50%  2.54%
Chicago Bears         .658    75.89%   31.61%     9.68%    2.28%  0.79%
Detroit Lions         .585    38.99%   20.72%     6.82%    2.83%  1.44%
Minnesota Vikings     .433     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .513    69.12%   17.04%     5.15%    1.35%  0.51%
Carolina Panthers     .471    30.89%    6.14%     1.44%    0.34%  0.10%
Atlanta Falcons       .365     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
New Orleans Saints    .323     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Los Angeles Rams      .776    99.95%   90.18%    62.79%   40.45% 28.46%
Seattle Seahawks      .767    99.80%   86.58%    58.30%   34.29% 23.54%
San Francisco 49ers   .669    96.49%   48.96%    14.62%    5.68%  2.76%
Arizona Cardinals     .253     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

Week 16 Game Predictions

The thresholds for close games, blowouts, and high and low scoring games are different in the NFL than in college football. That’s because NFL teams are balanced enough in talent to usually avoid truly lopsided scores and there’s just less scoring overall.

Games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL for many of the same reasons I just mentioned. This is just for predicting which NFL games are most and least compelling each weekend.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. In the event that a margin is larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score, that’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a forecast of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This isn’t even close to possible with the current NFL ratings, even with the weakest offense against the strongest defense, but it does occur once in awhile in college football. A negative score is impossible, of course, so the score would be set to zero in those instances. However, there’s no upper limit on how many points a team can be projected to score. But with more parity between NFL teams, even the highest scoring predictions aren’t going to be nearly as crazy as what is possible with the college football ratings.

#1: Los Angeles Rams (-1.17, 46.29%) at Seattle Seahawks (1.17, 53.25%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 22.89 - 24.07, Total: 46.96
Quality: 98.49%, Team quality: 97.91%, Competitiveness: 99.65%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.11%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.66%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 26.69%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 16.82%

#2: Jacksonville Jaguars (0.67, 51.75%) at Denver Broncos (-0.67, 47.79%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 22.42 - 21.70, Total: 44.11
Quality: 85.60%, Team quality: 79.24%, Competitiveness: 99.89%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.00%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.71%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 20.66%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 22.21%

#3: San Francisco 49ers (-4.57, 36.43%) at Indianapolis Colts (4.57, 63.13%), Tie (0.43%)
Estimated score: 22.23 - 26.86, Total: 49.09
Quality: 84.07%, Team quality: 79.15%, Competitiveness: 94.82%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.49%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.71%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 31.71%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 13.40%

#4: New England Patriots (0.36, 50.83%) at Baltimore Ravens (-0.36, 48.71%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 22.64 - 22.33, Total: 44.97
Quality: 71.27%, Team quality: 60.18%, Competitiveness: 99.97%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 20.96%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.73%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 22.38%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 20.49%

#5: Green Bay Packers (1.22, 53.41%) at Chicago Bears (-1.22, 46.13%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 23.71 - 22.50, Total: 46.21
Quality: 70.39%, Team quality: 59.17%, Competitiveness: 99.62%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.13%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.66%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 25.01%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 18.16%

#6: Pittsburgh Steelers (-7.88, 27.65%) at Detroit Lions (7.88, 71.97%), Tie (0.39%)
Estimated score: 22.58 - 30.44, Total: 53.02
Quality: 68.03%, Team quality: 60.72%, Competitiveness: 85.38%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 28.35%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 14.85%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 41.87%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 8.41%

#7: Los Angeles Chargers (0.70, 51.85%) at Dallas Cowboys (-0.70, 47.69%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 28.89 - 28.23, Total: 57.12
Quality: 59.26%, Team quality: 45.64%, Competitiveness: 99.88%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.00%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.71%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 53.07%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 4.84%

#8: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1.08, 52.98%) at Carolina Panthers (-1.08, 46.56%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 21.69 - 20.65, Total: 42.34
Quality: 51.23%, Team quality: 36.72%, Competitiveness: 99.71%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.09%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.68%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 17.35%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 26.01%

#9: Philadelphia Eagles (7.53, 71.09%) at Washington Commanders (-7.53, 28.52%), Tie (0.39%)
Estimated score: 23.43 - 15.89, Total: 39.32
Quality: 50.66%, Team quality: 38.75%, Competitiveness: 86.56%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 27.73%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.08%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 12.54%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 33.18%

#10: Atlanta Falcons (-3.45, 39.61%) at Arizona Cardinals (3.45, 59.94%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 20.97 - 24.43, Total: 45.41
Quality: 45.09%, Team quality: 30.74%, Competitiveness: 97.01%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 22.41%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.14%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 23.29%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 19.65%

#11: Minnesota Vikings (2.53, 57.27%) at New York Giants (-2.53, 42.28%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 22.95 - 20.46, Total: 43.41
Quality: 43.65%, Team quality: 29.07%, Competitiveness: 98.38%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.73%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.41%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 19.30%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 23.68%

#12: Kansas City Chiefs (11.36, 79.91%) at Tennessee Titans (-11.36, 19.77%), Tie (0.32%)
Estimated score: 25.35 - 13.93, Total: 39.28
Quality: 41.14%, Team quality: 31.07%, Competitiveness: 72.12%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 35.69%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 12.30%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 12.48%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 33.27%

#13: Buffalo Bills (12.31, 81.82%) at Cleveland Browns (-12.31, 17.88%), Tie (0.30%)
Estimated score: 29.06 - 16.76, Total: 45.82
Quality: 34.81%, Team quality: 24.88%, Competitiveness: 68.13%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 38.03%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 11.55%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 24.18%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 18.86%

#14: Cincinnati Bengals (-5.43, 34.06%) at Miami Dolphins (5.43, 65.52%), Tie (0.42%)
Estimated score: 22.42 - 27.90, Total: 50.33
Quality: 26.88%, Team quality: 14.47%, Competitiveness: 92.78%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 24.52%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.30%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 34.80%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 11.65%

#15: New York Jets (-4.88, 35.55%) at New Orleans Saints (4.88, 64.01%), Tie (0.43%)
Estimated score: 17.25 - 22.15, Total: 39.40
Quality: 20.20%, Team quality: 9.36%, Competitiveness: 94.11%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.85%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.56%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 12.66%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 32.97%

#16: Las Vegas Raiders (-22.86, 4.67%) at Houston Texans (22.86, 95.22%), Tie (0.11%)
Estimated score: 4.12 - 26.96, Total: 31.08
Quality: 18.71%, Team quality: 15.51%, Competitiveness: 27.25%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 67.16%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 4.21%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 4.31%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 55.26%

Thanks for reading!

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This article uses ratings based on data obtained from Pro Football Reference.

I hesitate about posting postseason game predictions other than the college football playoff, mostly because many top players opt out of bowl games, and the ratings don’t reflect the current state of the teams. The predictions for these games are almost certainly going to be less accurate than they were late in the regular season. But I’ll go ahead and post these anyway, and I’ll make additional predictions later in the winter as the college football playoff progresses.

I’ve highlighted Oregon with the photo for this article because they’re heavily favored over James Madison according to my ratings. My predictive ratings have been favorable to Oregon all season long, but James Madison has been very impressive throughout the season, and I’m intrigued to see if they are actually much more competitive against Oregon. Although I expect the Ducks to win, I’m not convinced this will actually be a blowout like the ratings suggest.

The ratings in this article do include the result of the Army-Navy game, and there’s little movement over the previous ratings due to the lack of additional FBS games being played.

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Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

The last column here is SOR, which means strength of record. Unlike all the other columns, this is a backward looking rating and evaluates the quality of a team’s wins and losses in comparison to a hypothetical team with a rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. Such a hypothetical team would typically be ranked somewhere between #10 and #15. Strength of record is just each team’s actual winning percentage minus the expected winning percentage for that hypothetical team against the same schedule. This is negative for most teams because their record is being compared against the expected record for a pretty good team.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 1.83 points
Mean score: 26.84 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
   1      90.25  +0.16  Indiana               46.02   44.17    .241
   2      86.57  -0.18  Ohio State            38.15   48.45    .157
   3      84.59  -0.19  Oregon                43.60   41.04    .178
   4      82.56  -0.28  Texas Tech            41.25   41.43    .080
   5      81.97  -0.30  Notre Dame            43.23   38.66   -.001
   6      77.98  -0.39  Utah                  42.59   35.57   -.022
   7      75.77  -0.27  Miami                 33.88   41.89    .004
   8      73.78  -0.34  USC                   40.22   33.70   -.002
   9      73.43  -0.48  Alabama               36.29   37.14    .021
  10      73.41  -0.19  Georgia               32.77   40.64    .120
  11      73.22  -0.11  Washington            38.23   35.00   -.121
  12      72.67  -0.32  Vanderbilt            41.71   30.93    .007
  13      72.13  -0.25  Iowa                  30.49   41.45   -.065
  14      72.00  -0.27  BYU                   34.98   37.03    .086
  15      71.87  -0.23  Texas A&M             38.35   33.48    .115
  16      71.49  -0.22  Oklahoma              29.11   42.29    .049
  17      71.22  -0.28  Ole Miss              40.15   31.25    .066
  18      71.10  +0.14  Penn State            36.51   34.49   -.217
  19      69.65  -0.03  Michigan              33.53   36.10   -.019
  20   +1 68.19  +0.06  Texas                 31.84   36.17    .007
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  21   -1 68.09  -0.24  South Florida         39.09   28.99   -.141
  22      67.13  -0.17  Missouri              32.14   34.98   -.136
  23      66.98  -0.23  Tennessee             41.42   25.52   -.149
  24      66.42  -0.12  Arizona               32.00   34.46   -.145
  25   +1 65.67  +0.00  Illinois              32.85   32.71   -.073
  26   -1 65.17  -0.63  Florida State         33.83   31.44   -.433
  27   +1 64.63  +0.13  North Texas           41.43   23.18   -.113
  28   -1 64.24  -0.37  LSU                   25.90   38.43   -.183
  29      63.92  -0.41  Auburn                28.57   35.28   -.351
  30      63.31  -0.27  Pittsburgh            34.89   28.46   -.176
  31      62.96  -0.53  Iowa State            29.51   33.47   -.198
  32      62.44  -0.15  Louisville            31.57   30.87   -.209
  33      61.88  -0.19  James Madison         29.82   32.01   -.051
  34   +1 61.70  -0.04  SMU                   30.52   31.18   -.240
  35   +1 61.52  -0.09  Virginia              30.69   30.83   -.164
  36   -2 61.47  -0.44  Florida               27.05   34.67   -.380
  37   +1 61.14  +0.24  Nebraska              31.25   29.76   -.251
  38   -1 60.87  -0.30  TCU                   31.81   29.10   -.218
  39      60.14  -0.15  Kansas State          32.33   27.59   -.314
  40   +1 59.42  -0.08  Georgia Tech          31.28   28.09   -.158
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  41   +2 59.39  +0.10  Cincinnati            31.22   28.09   -.257
  42   -2 59.31  -0.30  South Carolina        25.27   33.97   -.426
  43   -1 58.97  -0.32  Arizona State         24.80   34.16   -.146
  44      58.88  -0.36  Clemson               27.68   31.13   -.324
  45      58.20  -0.09  Houston               28.29   29.90   -.139
  46   +1 57.95  -0.06  Toledo                26.69   31.28   -.314
  47   +4 57.76  -0.03  Mississippi State     32.25   25.53   -.375
  48   -2 57.72  -0.30  East Carolina         28.38   29.44   -.271
  49   -1 57.63  -0.33  NC State              31.22   26.20   -.223
  50      57.49  -0.35  Arkansas              34.53   22.78   -.578
  51   +1 57.43  -0.03  Wisconsin             20.51   36.91   -.281
  52   -3 57.35  -0.51  Northwestern          23.73   33.61   -.265
  53      57.13  -0.07  Duke                  34.01   23.14   -.307
  54   +1 57.13  +0.17  Boise State           28.09   29.04   -.201
  55   -1 56.72  -0.36  Kentucky              26.08   30.61   -.357
  56   +1 56.51  -0.22  Kansas                29.81   26.79   -.374
  57   -1 56.49  -0.31  Tulane                25.88   30.53   -.074
  58      55.82  -0.38  Memphis               28.33   27.55   -.288
  59      55.27  -0.30  Old Dominion          26.50   28.74   -.152
  60   +1 55.04  -0.03  Wake Forest           23.17   31.78   -.256
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  61   +2 54.89  -0.08  Rutgers               31.76   23.01   -.304
  62   -2 54.85  -0.35  San Diego State       21.76   33.12   -.228
  63   -1 54.57  -0.42  Michigan State        27.90   26.67   -.419
  64   +1 54.39  -0.18  Minnesota             25.43   28.93   -.199
  65   -1 54.36  -0.24  Washington State      21.39   33.12   -.360
  66      53.06  -0.32  Baylor                32.49   20.68   -.427
  67      52.84  -0.50  UTSA                  30.48   22.26   -.392
  68   +1 52.55  -0.13  Maryland              24.83   27.69   -.474
  69   -1 52.50  -0.44  New Mexico            24.71   27.76   -.190
  70      52.03  -0.34  UNLV                  32.57   19.38   -.204
  71   +1 51.50  -0.27  UCF                   22.60   28.96   -.432
  72   +1 51.46  -0.04  Purdue                24.09   27.28   -.477
  73   -2 51.39  -0.39  UCLA                  24.35   27.00   -.409
  74      51.18  +0.22  Utah State            28.33   22.71   -.398
  75      50.59  -0.16  Navy                  25.32   25.28   -.046
  76      49.30  -0.35  Army                  18.20   31.07   -.441
  77      48.93  -0.07  UConn                 27.87   21.06   -.241
  78      48.65  -0.18  Virginia Tech         24.46   24.16   -.583
  79      48.47  -0.15  Colorado              23.52   24.95   -.575
  80      48.09  -0.30  West Virginia         24.34   23.87   -.460
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  81   +1 48.01  -0.23  Western Michigan      18.64   29.53   -.256
  82   -1 47.55  -0.71  Stanford              21.01   26.47   -.452
  83      47.23  -0.43  Hawai’i               22.96   24.34   -.293
  84   +2 47.05  +0.12  Fresno State          21.10   25.91   -.307
  85   -1 46.90  -0.47  Louisiana Tech        21.58   25.31   -.386
  86   -1 46.63  -0.34  California            23.02   23.68   -.356
  87   +1 46.03  -0.35  Western Kentucky      23.35   22.57   -.298
  88   -1 45.99  -0.57  Texas State           29.61   16.42   -.470
  89      45.85  -0.19  Ohio                  23.72   22.12   -.250
  90      45.17  -0.05  Miami (OH)            20.66   24.50   -.434
  91      44.96  -0.09  Kennesaw State        22.99   22.03   -.151
  92      44.89  -0.01  Boston College        24.94   19.89   -.702
  93      43.90  -0.36  Temple                24.85   19.05   -.500
  94      43.70  -0.13  Air Force             24.91   18.61   -.642
  95      43.25  -0.43  North Carolina        17.85   25.52   -.610
  96   +1 42.63  -0.11  Marshall              24.97   17.62   -.523
  97   -1 42.57  -0.23  Syracuse              20.71   21.88   -.549
  98      40.91  -0.33  Troy                  18.22   22.66   -.345
  99      40.57  -0.16  Wyoming               12.15   28.36   -.603
 100   +1 40.49  -0.10  Florida International 20.35   20.07   -.373
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 101   -1 40.18  -0.45  Southern Miss         21.33   18.73   -.407
 102      39.97  -0.46  Missouri State        20.35   19.66   -.356
 103      39.85  -0.34  Jacksonville State    20.08   19.94   -.378
 104   +1 39.64  -0.10  Central Michigan      17.49   22.19   -.354
 105   -1 39.52  -0.47  Liberty               19.73   19.59   -.645
 106      39.13  -0.30  Tulsa                 18.87   20.27   -.638
 107      39.09  +0.02  Oregon State          17.62   21.45   -.675
 108   +1 38.10  +0.02  Florida Atlantic      24.72   13.27   -.607
 109   -1 37.99  -0.50  Oklahoma State        16.09   21.97   -.704
 110      37.52  -0.23  Nevada                14.56   23.00   -.688
 111      36.83  -0.48  Colorado State        17.30   19.50   -.757
 112   +1 36.79  -0.32  Arkansas State        16.51   20.21   -.477
 113   -1 36.74  -0.39  Louisiana             19.85   16.91   -.453
 114      36.58  -0.49  Georgia Southern      22.40   14.14   -.430
 115   +2 35.79  -0.18  Delaware              21.92   13.76   -.487
 116   -1 35.71  -0.33  Bowling Green         12.89   22.85   -.628
 117   +1 35.68  -0.14  UAB                   21.44   14.34   -.589
 118   -2 35.65  -0.33  San José State        19.92   15.78   -.701
 119      35.39  -0.24  South Alabama         18.96   16.37   -.616
 120      34.64  -0.39  App State             17.79   16.94   -.549
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 121      34.47  -0.43  Buffalo               15.21   19.34   -.574
 122      34.22  -0.12  Rice                  14.16   20.06   -.517
 123      33.51  +0.04  New Mexico State      13.70   19.79   -.630
 124      33.05  -0.20  Northern Illinois     11.44   21.48   -.718
 125      32.34  -0.33  Eastern Michigan      18.76   13.57   -.653
 126      32.19  -0.12  UTEP                  16.85   15.43   -.796
 127      31.75  -0.34  Akron                 15.09   16.58   -.556
 128      31.27  -0.14  Coastal Carolina      17.56   13.67   -.447
 129      31.05  -0.19  Middle Tennessee      15.53   15.61   -.736
 130      29.48  -0.21  Kent State            17.83   11.64   -.443
 131      29.40  +0.08  Ball State            12.17   17.27   -.625
 132      28.26  -0.23  Charlotte             11.81   16.37   -.801
 133      28.01  -0.44  Georgia State         14.60   13.44   -.812
 134      24.90  -0.48  UL Monroe             10.25   14.78   -.689
 135      23.92  -0.43  Sam Houston           12.88   11.07   -.793
 136      12.45  +0.09  Massachusetts         5.50    6.95    -.927

Schedule Strength

There are two different measures of schedule strength in this table. The first two columns measure the difficulty a team’s past and future schedules would pose for a team that would be 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. The columns are the team’s expected losing percentage against that schedule, meaning that higher numbers indicate a stronger schedule. This should be somewhat similar to the schedule strength from ESPN’s FPI ratings.

The last two columns are also the past and future schedules, but they’re just the average of the opponents’ predictive ratings with an adjustment for the site of the game. Schedule strength is a factor in deciding which teams belong in the college football playoff, and these two columns aren’t always representative of the schedule strength for a team near the top of the ratings. These ratings should be closer to the schedule strength in Jeff Sagarin’s ratings, which are the rating a team would need to be expected to win exactly 50% of games against that team’s schedule.

Past and Future Schedule Strength
Home advantage: 1.83 points
Mean score: 26.84 points
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
   1 Indiana               .241 (15)  ---       58.55 (17)  ---       
   2 Ohio State            .234 (19)  ---       58.02 (24)  ---       
   3 Oregon                .262 (8)   .130 (29) 61.03 (5)   60.05 (29)
   4 Texas Tech            .156 (50)  ---       50.21 (65)  ---       
   5 Notre Dame            .166 (45)  ---       57.53 (29)  ---       
   6 Utah                  .144 (55)  .149 (27) 55.40 (40)  61.14 (27)
   7 Miami                 .170 (43)  .486 (5)  55.28 (42)  73.70 (5) 
   8 USC                   .248 (13)  .144 (28) 60.23 (9)   60.87 (28)
   9 Alabama               .251 (12)  .474 (6)  59.11 (13)  73.32 (6) 
  10 Georgia               .197 (35)  ---       57.96 (25)  ---       
  11 Washington            .212 (28)  .087 (41) 58.42 (18)  57.13 (41)
  12 Vanderbilt            .174 (42)  .436 (10) 55.13 (45)  72.13 (10)
  13 Iowa                  .268 (7)   .453 (9)  56.97 (33)  72.67 (9) 
  14 BYU                   .240 (17)  .120 (30) 58.36 (20)  59.42 (30)
  15 Texas A&M             .198 (33)  .493 (3)  57.32 (32)  73.94 (3) 
  16 Oklahoma              .216 (25)  .419 (12) 59.06 (14)  71.60 (12)
  17 Ole Miss              .150 (54)  .060 (46) 54.32 (48)  54.66 (46)
  18 Penn State            .283 (5)   .111 (33) 60.43 (7)   58.88 (33)
  19 Michigan              .231 (22)  .317 (15) 60.82 (6)   68.19 (15)
  20 Texas                 .257 (10)  .360 (14) 58.28 (21)  69.65 (14)
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
  21 South Florida         .109 (65)  .066 (43) 48.18 (77)  55.27 (43)
  22 Missouri              .197 (34)  .156 (26) 53.95 (51)  61.52 (26)
  23 Tennessee             .184 (40)  .249 (20) 54.76 (47)  65.67 (20)
  24 Arizona               .105 (68)  .160 (25) 52.82 (56)  61.70 (25)
  25 Illinois              .260 (9)   .283 (18) 59.35 (12)  66.98 (18)
  26 Florida State         .150 (53)  ---       53.46 (52)  ---       
  27 North Texas           .041 (107) .061 (45) 44.71 (91)  54.85 (45)
  28 LSU                   .233 (20)  .101 (34) 60.18 (10)  58.20 (34)
  29 Auburn                .233 (21)  ---       57.48 (31)  ---       
  30 Pittsburgh            .158 (49)  .094 (37) 53.14 (54)  57.72 (37)
  31 Iowa State            .135 (58)  ---       55.25 (43)  ---       
  32 Louisville            .124 (60)  .098 (35) 52.87 (55)  57.95 (35)
  33 James Madison         .026 (124) .837 (1)  40.70 (111) 86.42 (1) 
  34 SMU                   .094 (72)  .268 (19) 50.01 (66)  66.42 (19)
  35 Virginia              .067 (85)  .287 (17) 49.75 (69)  67.13 (17)
  36 Florida               .286 (4)   ---       62.76 (4)   ---       
  37 Nebraska              .166 (46)  .621 (2)  54.07 (50)  77.98 (2) 
  38 TCU                   .115 (63)  .489 (4)  55.24 (44)  73.78 (4) 
  39 Kansas State          .186 (39)  ---       57.73 (26)  ---       
  40 Georgia Tech          .092 (74)  .432 (11) 51.17 (61)  72.00 (11)
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
  41 Cincinnati            .160 (47)  .030 (53) 52.15 (59)  50.59 (53)
  42 South Carolina        .241 (16)  ---       58.81 (15)  ---       
  43 Arizona State         .188 (38)  .087 (40) 57.67 (27)  57.13 (40)
  44 Clemson               .092 (73)  .404 (13) 51.10 (62)  71.10 (13)
  45 Houston               .111 (64)  .214 (22) 51.73 (60)  64.24 (22)
  46 Toledo                .020 (129) .175 (24) 37.93 (131) 62.44 (24)
  47 Mississippi State     .208 (30)  .063 (44) 55.96 (38)  55.04 (44)
  48 East Carolina         .062 (90)  .193 (23) 44.83 (89)  63.31 (23)
  49 NC State              .194 (36)  .071 (42) 56.54 (35)  55.82 (42)
  50 Arkansas              .255 (11)  ---       58.64 (16)  ---       
  51 Wisconsin             .385 (1)   ---       66.25 (2)   ---       
  52 Northwestern          .235 (18)  .003 (71) 56.48 (37)  39.64 (71)
  53 Duke                  .078 (79)  .113 (32) 52.48 (57)  58.97 (32)
  54 Boise State           .107 (67)  .471 (7)  48.95 (72)  73.22 (7) 
  55 Kentucky              .226 (23)  ---       60.03 (11)  ---       
  56 Kansas                .209 (29)  ---       55.39 (41)  ---       
  57 Tulane                .080 (77)  .465 (8)  49.92 (68)  73.05 (8) 
  58 Memphis               .046 (104) .093 (38) 43.76 (95)  57.63 (38)
  59 Old Dominion          .098 (71)  .314 (16) 41.63 (106) 68.09 (16)
  60 Wake Forest           .077 (81)  .095 (36) 49.73 (70)  57.76 (36)
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
  61 Rutgers               .279 (6)   ---       58.37 (19)  ---       
  62 San Diego State       .022 (128) .223 (21) 42.66 (100) 64.63 (21)
  63 Michigan State        .247 (14)  ---       60.34 (8)   ---       
  64 Minnesota             .218 (24)  .042 (50) 54.24 (49)  52.50 (50)
  65 Washington State      .140 (56)  .033 (52) 53.23 (53)  51.18 (52)
  66 Baylor                .156 (51)  ---       54.95 (46)  ---       
  67 UTSA                  .108 (66)  .004 (67) 48.62 (76)  40.49 (67)
  68 Maryland              .193 (37)  ---       55.51 (39)  ---       
  69 New Mexico            .060 (96)  .057 (47) 47.06 (81)  54.39 (47)
  70 UNLV                  .027 (122) .012 (62) 45.05 (87)  45.85 (62)
  71 UCF                   .152 (52)  ---       50.40 (63)  ---       
  72 Purdue                .356 (2)   ---       64.30 (3)   ---       
  73 UCLA                  .341 (3)   ---       66.92 (1)   ---       
  74 Utah State            .102 (70)  .057 (48) 47.31 (80)  54.36 (48)
  75 Navy                  .121 (61)  .119 (31) 45.79 (85)  59.39 (31)
  76 Army                  .059 (97)  .022 (56) 48.80 (73)  48.93 (56)
  77 UConn                 .009 (135) .023 (54) 37.79 (132) 49.30 (54)
  78 Virginia Tech         .167 (44)  ---       57.50 (30)  ---       
  79 Colorado              .175 (41)  ---       58.15 (23)  ---       
  80 West Virginia         .207 (31)  ---       56.70 (34)  ---       
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
  81 Western Michigan      .051 (100) .010 (64) 42.82 (98)  44.96 (64)
  82 Stanford              .214 (26)  ---       58.26 (22)  ---       
  83 Hawai’i               .040 (109) .009 (65) 42.39 (103) 44.80 (65)
  84 Fresno State          .027 (123) .010 (63) 40.66 (112) 45.17 (63)
  85 Louisiana Tech        .031 (117) .000 (78) 40.81 (110) 31.27 (78)
  86 California            .061 (91)  .022 (55) 48.64 (75)  49.06 (55)
  87 Western Kentucky      .035 (114) .003 (68) 39.10 (124) 40.18 (68)
  88 Texas State           .030 (118) .001 (77) 40.32 (116) 34.22 (77)
  89 Ohio                  .084 (75)  .039 (51) 40.18 (117) 52.03 (51)
  90 Miami (OH)            .027 (121) .015 (58) 41.89 (104) 47.05 (58)
  91 Kennesaw State        .080 (78)  .018 (57) 41.58 (107) 48.01 (57)
  92 Boston College        .131 (59)  ---       52.44 (58)  ---       
  93 Temple                .084 (76)  ---       45.70 (86)  ---       
  94 Air Force             .025 (125) ---       44.16 (93)  ---       
  95 North Carolina        .057 (98)  ---       48.71 (74)  ---       
  96 Marshall              .061 (93)  ---       41.74 (105) ---       
  97 Syracuse              .201 (32)  ---       56.54 (36)  ---       
  98 Troy                  .039 (110) .003 (70) 41.26 (108) 39.85 (70)
  99 Wyoming               .063 (87)  ---       44.79 (90)  ---       
 100 Florida International .044 (105) .044 (49) 38.96 (126) 52.84 (49)
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
 101 Southern Miss         .010 (134) .012 (60) 37.73 (133) 46.03 (60)
 102 Missouri State        .060 (94)  .001 (72) 42.73 (99)  36.79 (72)
 103 Jacksonville State    .007 (136) .004 (66) 37.03 (134) 40.91 (66)
 104 Central Michigan      .063 (88)  .090 (39) 38.46 (130) 57.35 (39)
 105 Liberty               .022 (127) ---       40.56 (113) ---       
 106 Tulsa                 .029 (119) ---       44.57 (92)  ---       
 107 Oregon State          .158 (48)  ---       50.01 (67)  ---       
 108 Florida Atlantic      .060 (95)  ---       45.00 (88)  ---       
 109 Oklahoma State        .213 (27)  ---       57.56 (28)  ---       
 110 Nevada                .062 (89)  ---       47.99 (78)  ---       
 111 Colorado State        .076 (82)  ---       49.50 (71)  ---       
 112 Arkansas State        .023 (126) .003 (69) 39.70 (120) 39.97 (69)
 113 Louisiana             .047 (103) .001 (75) 40.04 (118) 35.79 (75)
 114 Georgia Southern      .070 (84)  .001 (76) 42.63 (101) 34.64 (76)
 115 Delaware              .013 (132) .001 (73) 38.92 (127) 36.74 (73)
 116 Bowling Green         .039 (111) ---       39.05 (125) ---       
 117 UAB                   .078 (80)  ---       47.67 (79)  ---       
 118 San José State        .049 (102) ---       46.80 (82)  ---       
 119 South Alabama         .051 (101) ---       39.64 (121) ---       
 120 App State             .034 (115) .001 (74) 39.56 (123) 36.58 (74)
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
 121 Buffalo               .010 (133) ---       34.13 (136) ---       
 122 Rice                  .067 (86)  .012 (61) 46.20 (83)  45.99 (61)
 123 New Mexico State      .037 (113) ---       39.63 (122) ---       
 124 Northern Illinois     .032 (116) ---       40.48 (115) ---       
 125 Eastern Michigan      .014 (130) ---       38.85 (129) ---       
 126 UTEP                  .038 (112) ---       38.90 (128) ---       
 127 Akron                 .027 (120) ---       36.49 (135) ---       
 128 Coastal Carolina      .053 (99)  .015 (59) 42.94 (97)  46.90 (59)
 129 Middle Tennessee      .014 (131) ---       39.96 (119) ---       
 130 Kent State            .140 (57)  ---       42.54 (102) ---       
 131 Ball State            .042 (106) ---       43.15 (96)  ---       
 132 Charlotte             .115 (62)  ---       50.40 (64)  ---       
 133 Georgia State         .105 (69)  ---       46.04 (84)  ---       
 134 UL Monroe             .061 (92)  ---       40.48 (114) ---       
 135 Sam Houston           .040 (108) ---       43.76 (94)  ---       
 136 Massachusetts         .073 (83)  ---       41.13 (109) ---       

Conference Ratings

To rate the overall quality of conferences, I calculate the expected outcome if each team in a conference were to play every FBS team at a neutral site. The Win% column is the average probability of winning for all of the possible games and for all the teams in the conference. It’s similar to the average rating of all the teams in the conference, but it should be less skewed by outliers.

However, the idea of the “best” conference is subjective, and another way to judge the quality of a conference is to consider how many of its teams are among the best in the FBS. What if instead of playing every team in the FBS, each conference opponent just plays a hypothetical opponent with a rating that’s 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean? In this case, the quality of a conference is determined by how its teams would be expected to perform against a hypothetical opponent ranked somewhere around #10 to #15 in the FBS. This is what I’ve done with the HighWin% column. It’s analogous to how I calculate strength of record, and each conference’s rating is impacted more when the conference has more highly rated teams.

Conference Ratings
Rank Win% Conference        HighWin%  Rating Offense Defense OffDef    
   1 .755 SEC               .282 (3)  66.08  32.71   33.35   -0.64 (7) 
   2 .718 Big Ten           .309 (2)  65.67  31.86   33.78   -1.92 (9) 
   3 .689 FBS Independents  .378 (1)  65.45  35.55   29.86   5.69 (1)  
   4 .633 Big 12            .192 (4)  59.69  29.85   29.88   -0.03 (5) 
   5 .574 ACC               .119 (5)  55.97  27.92   28.03   -0.11 (6) 
   6 .436 American Athletic .064 (6)  48.20  25.21   22.98   2.23 (2)  
   7 .404 Pac-12            .030 (7)  46.73  19.51   27.29   -7.78 (11)
   8 .396 Mountain West     .026 (8)  46.35  22.36   23.96   -1.60 (8) 
   9 .279 Sun Belt          .019 (9)  39.37  20.60   18.76   1.84 (3)  
  10 .248 Conference USA    .004 (11) 37.85  19.11   18.74   0.37 (4)  
  11 .244 Mid-American      .011 (10) 36.56  16.62   19.95   -3.32 (10)

Bowl Game Predictions

As a caution, I do not adjust for changes to rosters between the regular season and bowl games. The ratings are based on the quality of teams during the season, and they may well not reflect the current quality of the teams due to players opting out. I expect that these predictions will be considerably less accurate than my projections during the final weeks of the regular season.

Upcoming games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL. NFL games are typically decided by smaller margins than college games, the teams are more balanced in their quality, and there’s just not as much scoring in the NFL. Of course, there’s only one game to rank here, so it’s automatically #1. Thresholds for close games and blowouts are also different between college and the NFL for the same reasons.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. These margins are sometimes larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score. That’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a prediction of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This is, of course, impossible, so the score is set to zero in those instances. There’s no cap on how many points a team can be projected to score, though.

#1: Alabama (0.11, 50.36%) at Oklahoma (-0.11, 49.64%)
Estimated score: 19.92 - 19.73, Total: 39.65
Quality: 98.34%, Team quality: 97.52%, Competitiveness: 100.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.04%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.43%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 23.25%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 49.36%

#2: Iowa (-0.54, 48.29%) vs. Vanderbilt (0.54, 51.71%)
Estimated score: 26.39 - 27.10, Total: 53.49
Quality: 98.32%, Team quality: 97.51%, Competitiveness: 99.95%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.05%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.40%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 34.97%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.92%

#3: Miami (2.07, 56.56%) at Texas A&M (-2.07, 43.44%)
Estimated score: 26.32 - 24.21, Total: 50.53
Quality: 98.24%, Team quality: 97.72%, Competitiveness: 99.29%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.21%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.92%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 32.29%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.71%

#4: Michigan (1.46, 54.64%) vs. Texas (-1.46, 45.36%)
Estimated score: 24.19 - 22.57, Total: 46.76
Quality: 97.81%, Team quality: 96.90%, Competitiveness: 99.65%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.13%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.18%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 29.00%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 42.34%

#5: Tennessee (1.31, 54.17%) vs. Illinois (-1.31, 45.83%)
Estimated score: 35.54 - 34.16, Total: 69.71
Quality: 97.48%, Team quality: 96.38%, Competitiveness: 99.71%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.11%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.23%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 50.70%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 22.24%

#6: Arizona (4.71, 64.68%) vs. SMU (-4.71, 35.32%)
Estimated score: 27.65 - 22.90, Total: 50.56
Quality: 96.01%, Team quality: 95.83%, Competitiveness: 96.35%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.96%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 39.81%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 32.31%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.68%

#7: Arizona State (1.84, 55.84%) vs. Duke (-1.84, 44.16%)
Estimated score: 28.50 - 26.68, Total: 55.18
Quality: 95.92%, Team quality: 94.20%, Competitiveness: 99.44%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.18%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.03%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.55%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.35%

#8: Memphis (-1.81, 44.24%) vs. NC State (1.81, 55.76%)
Estimated score: 28.97 - 30.51, Total: 59.48
Quality: 95.63%, Team quality: 93.77%, Competitiveness: 99.45%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.17%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.04%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 40.64%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 30.51%

#9: Virginia (-5.61, 32.70%) vs. Missouri (5.61, 67.30%)
Estimated score: 22.55 - 28.14, Total: 50.69
Quality: 95.54%, Team quality: 95.88%, Competitiveness: 94.86%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 3.35%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.77%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 32.43%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.56%

#10: Toledo (-4.49, 35.98%) vs. Louisville (4.49, 64.02%)
Estimated score: 22.65 - 27.12, Total: 49.78
Quality: 95.44%, Team quality: 94.82%, Competitiveness: 96.68%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.87%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 40.04%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 31.62%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 39.42%

#11: Wake Forest (-2.72, 41.39%) vs. Mississippi State (2.72, 58.61%)
Estimated score: 24.47 - 27.30, Total: 51.78
Quality: 95.33%, Team quality: 93.66%, Competitiveness: 98.77%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.34%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.54%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 33.41%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 37.52%

#12: Pittsburgh (5.59, 67.26%) vs. East Carolina (-5.59, 32.74%)
Estimated score: 32.28 - 26.76, Total: 59.05
Quality: 94.89%, Team quality: 94.89%, Competitiveness: 94.89%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 3.35%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.78%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 40.22%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 30.89%

#13: New Mexico (-1.89, 44.00%) vs. Minnesota (1.89, 56.00%)
Estimated score: 22.61 - 24.50, Total: 47.12
Quality: 94.82%, Team quality: 92.61%, Competitiveness: 99.41%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.18%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.00%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 29.30%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.99%

#14: LSU (6.04, 68.54%) vs. Houston (-6.04, 31.46%)
Estimated score: 22.83 - 16.69, Total: 39.53
Quality: 94.74%, Team quality: 95.08%, Competitiveness: 94.06%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 3.57%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.21%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 23.16%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 49.48%

#15: Washington State (3.17, 60.01%) vs. Utah State (-3.17, 39.99%)
Estimated score: 25.52 - 22.04, Total: 47.56
Quality: 94.29%, Team quality: 92.34%, Competitiveness: 98.33%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.45%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.22%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 29.68%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.57%

#16: UConn (-0.37, 48.82%) vs. Army (0.37, 51.18%)
Estimated score: 23.63 - 23.98, Total: 47.61
Quality: 93.78%, Team quality: 90.83%, Competitiveness: 99.98%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.04%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.42%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 29.72%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.51%

#17: California (-2.43, 42.30%) at Hawai’i (2.43, 57.70%)
Estimated score: 24.60 - 27.03, Total: 51.63
Quality: 92.78%, Team quality: 89.81%, Competitiveness: 99.02%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.28%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.72%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 33.28%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 37.66%

#18: Miami (OH) (-1.87, 44.05%) vs. Fresno State (1.87, 55.95%)
Estimated score: 21.59 - 23.44, Total: 45.03
Quality: 92.63%, Team quality: 89.41%, Competitiveness: 99.42%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.18%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.01%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 27.53%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 44.04%

#19: Kennesaw State (-3.05, 40.36%) vs. Western Michigan (3.05, 59.64%)
Estimated score: 20.29 - 23.45, Total: 43.74
Quality: 92.45%, Team quality: 89.58%, Competitiveness: 98.46%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.42%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.31%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 26.48%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 45.31%

#20: UNLV (6.18, 68.95%) vs. Ohio (-6.18, 31.05%)
Estimated score: 37.28 - 31.17, Total: 68.46
Quality: 91.69%, Team quality: 90.67%, Competitiveness: 93.78%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 3.65%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.01%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 49.46%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 23.17%

#21: North Texas (9.78, 78.30%) vs. San Diego State (-9.78, 21.70%)
Estimated score: 35.14 - 25.41, Total: 60.55
Quality: 91.25%, Team quality: 94.56%, Competitiveness: 84.99%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 6.31%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 32.22%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 41.67%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 29.58%

#22: Navy (-8.80, 24.08%) vs. Cincinnati (8.80, 75.92%)
Estimated score: 24.06 - 32.78, Total: 56.84
Quality: 91.22%, Team quality: 93.03%, Competitiveness: 87.71%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 5.44%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 33.96%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 38.10%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 32.85%

#23: Troy (1.05, 53.36%) vs. Jacksonville State (-1.05, 46.64%)
Estimated score: 25.12 - 24.25, Total: 49.37
Quality: 90.59%, Team quality: 86.30%, Competitiveness: 99.82%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.08%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.30%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 31.26%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 39.81%

#24: Western Kentucky (5.86, 68.02%) vs. Southern Miss (-5.86, 31.98%)
Estimated score: 31.46 - 25.60, Total: 57.06
Quality: 89.93%, Team quality: 87.77%, Competitiveness: 94.41%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 3.48%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.45%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 38.31%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 32.66%

#25: Missouri State (3.18, 60.05%) vs. Arkansas State (-3.18, 39.95%)
Estimated score: 26.97 - 23.68, Total: 50.65
Quality: 89.26%, Team quality: 85.05%, Competitiveness: 98.32%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.45%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.22%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 32.40%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.59%

#26: Penn State (12.22, 83.57%) vs. Clemson (-12.22, 16.43%)
Estimated score: 32.22 - 20.03, Total: 52.24
Quality: 89.26%, Team quality: 95.87%, Competitiveness: 77.38%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 9.03%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.60%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 33.83%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 37.08%

#27: Georgia Tech (-12.58, 15.72%) vs. BYU (12.58, 84.28%)
Estimated score: 21.08 - 33.73, Total: 54.81
Quality: 88.89%, Team quality: 96.03%, Competitiveness: 76.16%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 9.50%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 26.90%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.20%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.69%

#28: Louisiana (0.95, 53.04%) vs. Delaware (-0.95, 46.96%)
Estimated score: 32.92 - 31.85, Total: 64.77
Quality: 88.77%, Team quality: 83.71%, Competitiveness: 99.85%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.08%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.32%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 45.81%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 26.06%

#29: USC (12.92, 84.92%) vs. TCU (-12.92, 15.08%)
Estimated score: 37.95 - 24.94, Total: 62.90
Quality: 88.65%, Team quality: 96.37%, Competitiveness: 75.01%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 9.96%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 26.24%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 43.96%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 27.60%

#30: Georgia Southern (1.94, 56.15%) vs. App State (-1.94, 43.85%)
Estimated score: 32.30 - 30.49, Total: 62.78
Quality: 88.32%, Team quality: 83.26%, Competitiveness: 99.38%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.19%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.98%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 43.85%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 27.69%

#31: Old Dominion (-12.82, 15.27%) vs. South Florida (12.82, 84.73%)
Estimated score: 24.35 - 37.18, Total: 61.53
Quality: 87.94%, Team quality: 95.00%, Competitiveness: 75.36%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 9.82%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 26.44%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 42.62%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 28.75%

#32: Florida International (-12.35, 16.16%) vs. UTSA (12.35, 83.84%)
Estimated score: 24.92 - 37.24, Total: 62.17
Quality: 84.99%, Team quality: 89.32%, Competitiveness: 76.93%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 9.20%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.34%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 43.25%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 28.21%

#33: Boise State (-16.09, 9.91%) vs. Washington (16.09, 90.09%)
Estimated score: 19.92 - 36.02, Total: 55.94
Quality: 83.53%, Team quality: 95.76%, Competitiveness: 63.56%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 15.11%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 20.13%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 37.26%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 33.66%

#34: Rice (-11.77, 17.33%) vs. Texas State (11.77, 82.67%)
Estimated score: 24.57 - 36.39, Total: 60.96
Quality: 83.40%, Team quality: 85.76%, Competitiveness: 78.86%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 8.47%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 28.48%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 42.07%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 29.23%

#35: Nebraska (-16.84, 8.90%) vs. Utah (16.84, 91.10%)
Estimated score: 22.51 - 39.66, Total: 62.17
Quality: 82.80%, Team quality: 96.68%, Competitiveness: 60.72%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 16.56%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 18.73%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 43.25%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 28.21%

#36: Tulane (-16.56, 9.27%) at Ole Miss (16.56, 90.73%)
Estimated score: 20.56 - 37.37, Total: 57.93
Quality: 82.55%, Team quality: 95.41%, Competitiveness: 61.79%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 16.01%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 19.25%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 39.14%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 31.88%

#37: Coastal Carolina (-15.63, 10.57%) vs. Louisiana Tech (15.63, 89.43%)
Estimated score: 19.09 - 34.74, Total: 53.83
Quality: 77.75%, Team quality: 84.85%, Competitiveness: 65.28%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 14.26%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 21.00%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 35.29%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.60%

#38: Central Michigan (-17.71, 7.84%) vs. Northwestern (17.71, 92.16%)
Estimated score: 10.72 - 28.37, Total: 39.09
Quality: 77.40%, Team quality: 89.83%, Competitiveness: 57.46%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 18.34%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 17.18%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 22.83%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 49.91%

#39: James Madison (-24.54, 2.49%) at Oregon (24.54, 97.51%)
Estimated score: 14.70 - 39.34, Total: 54.04
Quality: 67.75%, Team quality: 97.00%, Competitiveness: 33.04%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 36.06%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 7.46%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 35.48%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.41%

Thanks for reading!

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These ratings are based on data from collegefootballdata.com.

The Carolina Panthers are increasingly looking like a serious playoff contender now that they’re tied with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers atop the NFC South. Here’s a quick update to the computer ratings and the NFL seasonal projections prior to tonight’s game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Buccaneers. The Bucs need a win to avoid giving the Panthers the edge in the division, something that is a huge surprise after the Panthers opened the season last in the computer ratings.

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Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points. They don’t factor in wins and losses, only the margin of victory. The ratings don’t explicitly calculate the strength of schedule, though I calculate this afterwards. However, because of how the ratings are calculated, the quality of opponents does influence the ratings.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 1.78 points
Mean score: 22.38 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      14.01  +1.37  Los Angeles Rams      7.42    6.56   
   2      13.27  +1.59  Seattle Seahawks      8.00    5.27   
   3      9.36   +1.00  Houston Texans        0.06    9.28   
   4      6.86   -0.99  Indianapolis Colts    6.81    0.06   
   5   +4 6.50   +1.65  Jacksonville Jaguars  3.63    2.84   
   6   -1 5.54   -1.11  Kansas City Chiefs    0.71    4.83   
   7      5.43   +0.14  Detroit Lions         5.92    -0.53  
   8      5.05   +0.19  San Francisco 49ers   2.04    3.04   
   9   -3 4.47   -1.06  Buffalo Bills         5.57    -1.10  
  10      3.44   -0.59  Denver Broncos        -0.41   3.85   
  11      3.31   -0.11  Green Bay Packers     -0.23   3.54   
  12      3.20   -0.14  New England Patriots  1.41    1.79   
  13      2.40   -0.59  Philadelphia Eagles   -1.74   4.12   
  14      0.13   -0.93  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  1.58    -1.47  
  15   +3 -0.13  +0.70  Los Angeles Chargers  -0.27   0.11   
  16   +1 -0.82  -0.45  Baltimore Ravens      0.60    -1.39  
  17   -2 -1.12  -0.84  Arizona Cardinals     -0.12   -1.01  
  18   +2 -1.19  +0.88  Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.71   -0.48  
  19   -3 -1.39  -1.10  Dallas Cowboys        6.31    -7.70  
  20   -1 -1.89  +0.03  Chicago Bears         1.34    -3.22  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21   +3 -2.55  +2.26  Minnesota Vikings     -4.12   1.60   
  22      -3.15  -0.05  Carolina Panthers     -3.90   0.73   
  23   -2 -4.04  -1.33  Atlanta Falcons       -3.23   -0.81  
  24   +2 -4.32  +0.75  Miami Dolphins        -3.02   -1.30  
  25      -5.33  -0.34  New York Giants       -0.77   -4.55  
  26   +2 -6.64  +1.04  New Orleans Saints    -6.67   0.01   
  27   -4 -6.70  -2.00  Washington Commanders -2.76   -3.92  
  28   +2 -7.49  +1.11  Cincinnati Bengals    1.31    -8.81  
  29   +2 -7.97  +0.79  Tennessee Titans      -4.90   -3.07  
  30   -1 -8.61  -0.05  Cleveland Browns      -7.03   -1.58  
  31   -4 -9.03  -1.74  New York Jets         -4.79   -4.26  
  32      -10.50 +0.10  Las Vegas Raiders     -8.08   -2.42  

Schedule Strength

The first column is the expected losing percentage (1 minus winning percentage) for a hypothetical average NFL team in each team’s games played to date. Larger numbers mean a tougher schedule. The second column is the same thing, just for future games instead of past games.

The third column is the average opponent rating, with an adjustment for the site of games, for previously played games. The fourth column is the average opponent rating for the future games that each team will play. These two columns are the same schedule strength metrics from my previous NFL articles.

In college football, the two approaches to schedule strength would differ more just because the approach used in the first two columns limits the influence of truly lopsided blowout games. In the NFL, there just aren’t that many blowouts, and the teams are more evenly balanced. Therefore, there’s just not too much of a difference in the two approaches to measuring schedule strength.

Schedule Strength for an Average Team
Home advantage: 1.78 points
Mean score: 22.38 points
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
   1 Los Angeles Rams      .565 (4)  .579 (7)  2.36 (7)   3.38 (5)  
   2 Seattle Seahawks      .506 (15) .652 (2)  0.42 (13)  5.69 (2)  
   3 Houston Texans        .600 (2)  .449 (22) 3.91 (1)   -2.11 (23)
   4 Indianapolis Colts    .497 (17) .721 (1)  -0.01 (17) 8.55 (1)  
   5 Jacksonville Jaguars  .562 (5)  .460 (20) 2.41 (6)   -1.67 (21)
   6 Kansas City Chiefs    .528 (11) .395 (27) 0.91 (11)  -3.79 (28)
   7 Detroit Lions         .453 (23) .565 (10) -1.68 (23) 2.99 (7)  
   8 San Francisco 49ers   .556 (7)  .542 (11) 2.51 (4)   1.68 (12) 
   9 Buffalo Bills         .446 (24) .421 (25) -1.89 (24) -3.01 (25)
  10 Denver Broncos        .431 (31) .582 (5)  -2.55 (31) 2.91 (8)  
  11 Green Bay Packers     .440 (25) .512 (16) -2.15 (25) 0.44 (15) 
  12 New England Patriots  .363 (32) .433 (24) -5.03 (32) -2.43 (24)
  13 Philadelphia Eagles   .531 (10) .372 (30) 1.20 (10)  -4.86 (30)
  14 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .558 (6)  .395 (26) 2.42 (5)   -3.66 (26)
  15 Los Angeles Chargers  .438 (27) .644 (3)  -2.28 (29) 5.13 (3)  
  16 Baltimore Ravens      .478 (21) .510 (17) -0.79 (21) 0.35 (17) 
  17 Arizona Cardinals     .592 (3)  .585 (4)  3.58 (3)   3.85 (4)  
  18 Pittsburgh Steelers   .482 (20) .440 (23) -0.67 (20) -2.08 (22)
  19 Dallas Cowboys        .472 (22) .394 (28) -1.03 (22) -3.68 (27)
  20 Chicago Bears         .438 (28) .516 (14) -2.21 (26) 0.40 (16) 
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
  21 Minnesota Vikings     .482 (19) .515 (15) -0.51 (19) 0.50 (14) 
  22 Carolina Panthers     .514 (12) .542 (12) 0.59 (12)  1.72 (11) 
  23 Atlanta Falcons       .496 (18) .539 (13) -0.06 (18) 1.59 (13) 
  24 Miami Dolphins        .435 (30) .465 (19) -2.38 (30) -1.34 (19)
  25 New York Giants       .542 (8)  .328 (32) 1.49 (9)   -6.18 (32)
  26 New Orleans Saints    .538 (9)  .333 (31) 1.71 (8)   -6.04 (31)
  27 Washington Commanders .506 (14) .486 (18) 0.20 (15)  -0.48 (18)
  28 Cincinnati Bengals    .508 (13) .373 (29) 0.22 (14)  -4.61 (29)
  29 Tennessee Titans      .604 (1)  .574 (9)  3.90 (2)   2.61 (10) 
  30 Cleveland Browns      .439 (26) .457 (21) -2.27 (28) -1.52 (20)
  31 New York Jets         .437 (29) .576 (8)  -2.26 (27) 2.77 (9)  
  32 Las Vegas Raiders     .502 (16) .580 (6)  0.03 (16)  2.99 (6)  

Simulating the Rest of the Season

These results are based on games and computer ratings through December 1, 2025. The season was simulated 20,000 times, and the results of the simulations have been aggregated to predict final records and playoff chances. Tiebreakers for making the postseason are simplified, and the simulations don’t factor in potential issues like injuries, but this is still useful for making an educated guess about the standings at the end of the regular season.

Projected Standings

First up is the projected won-loss records, points scored, and points allowed for each team. The rating column is the team’s overall rating, included as a measure of team strength.

AFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
New England Patriots  13.57 3.42  0.02  .799  454.58  322.36  3.20  
Buffalo Bills         11.71 5.28  0.01  .689  487.82  375.41  4.47  
Miami Dolphins        7.69  9.29  0.02  .453  367.79  394.21  -4.32 
New York Jets         3.89  13.10 0.01  .229  322.02  461.54  -9.03 

AFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Pittsburgh Steelers   9.09  7.89  0.02  .535  399.67  399.42  -1.19 
Baltimore Ravens      7.87  9.12  0.02  .463  405.45  419.03  -0.82 
Cincinnati Bengals    5.69  11.29 0.02  .335  416.09  526.43  -7.49 
Cleveland Browns      4.27  12.71 0.02  .252  298.69  404.54  -8.61 

AFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Jacksonville Jaguars  11.71 5.28  0.01  .689  435.45  347.84  6.50  
Houston Texans        11.03 5.96  0.02  .649  378.03  260.72  9.36  
Indianapolis Colts    9.83  7.16  0.01  .579  472.62  388.15  6.86  
Tennessee Titans      3.01  13.97 0.02  .178  261.61  458.55  -7.97 

AFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Denver Broncos        13.05 3.93  0.02  .768  386.71  311.53  3.44  
Los Angeles Chargers  10.45 6.53  0.02  .615  376.36  368.39  -0.13 
Kansas City Chiefs    8.91  8.07  0.02  .525  408.90  310.30  5.54  
Las Vegas Raiders     2.80  14.18 0.02  .165  244.11  429.61  -10.50

NFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Philadelphia Eagles   10.69 6.29  0.02  .629  383.28  337.67  2.40  
Dallas Cowboys        8.24  7.75  1.02  .514  502.32  498.08  -1.39 
New York Giants       4.09  12.89 0.02  .241  379.73  464.38  -5.33 
Washington Commanders 4.34  12.64 0.02  .256  344.90  461.45  -6.70 

NFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Green Bay Packers     11.30 4.68  1.02  .695  408.36  322.07  3.31  
Chicago Bears         10.75 6.23  0.02  .633  426.60  436.24  -1.89 
Detroit Lions         10.24 6.74  0.02  .603  500.86  401.71  5.43  
Minnesota Vikings     6.66  10.32 0.02  .392  337.63  375.53  -2.55 

NFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  9.38  7.60  0.02  .552  395.32  406.82  0.13  
Carolina Panthers     8.52  8.46  0.02  .502  319.55  388.50  -3.15 
Atlanta Falcons       5.47  11.51 0.02  .322  325.59  408.12  -4.04 
New Orleans Saints    4.92  12.06 0.02  .290  277.01  388.39  -6.64 

NFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Seattle Seahawks      12.75 4.24  0.01  .750  498.43  307.44  13.27 
Los Angeles Rams      12.96 4.03  0.01  .763  495.50  301.96  14.01 
San Francisco 49ers   11.29 5.69  0.01  .665  407.52  356.51  5.05  
Arizona Cardinals     4.56  12.42 0.02  .269  364.00  449.58  -1.12 

Playoff Chances

The next table shows each team’s chances of making the playoffs, winning their division, and having the best record in the conference. The mean playoff seed is an average that uses only the seasons when each team made the playoffs. Div% and Conf% are the probabilities of a team having the best record in their division and conference, respectively.

AFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
New England Patriots  3.20    .799   99.96%  84.23%  57.38%     1.97
Buffalo Bills         4.47    .689   95.47%  15.77%   5.66%     4.99
Miami Dolphins        -4.32   .453    0.18%   0.00%   0.00%     6.89
New York Jets         -9.03   .229    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Pittsburgh Steelers   -1.19   .535   76.02%  75.83%   0.00%     3.99
Baltimore Ravens      -0.82   .463   24.07%  24.02%   0.00%     4.01
Cincinnati Bengals    -7.49   .335    0.15%   0.15%   0.00%     4.00
Cleveland Browns      -8.61   .252    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Jacksonville Jaguars  6.50    .689   97.91%  63.30%   7.27%     3.65
Houston Texans        9.36    .649   88.68%  30.63%   0.33%     4.92
Indianapolis Colts    6.86    .579   44.66%   6.08%   0.03%     6.01
Tennessee Titans      -7.97   .178    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Denver Broncos        3.44    .768   99.65%  91.54%  28.69%     2.22
Los Angeles Chargers  -0.13   .615   58.99%   8.46%   0.65%     5.81
Kansas City Chiefs    5.54    .525   14.27%   0.00%   0.00%     6.91
Las Vegas Raiders     -10.50  .165    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Philadelphia Eagles   2.40    .629   94.16%  93.58%   0.30%     3.00
Dallas Cowboys        -1.39   .514    8.61%   6.42%   0.00%     4.25
New York Giants       -5.33   .241    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Washington Commanders -6.70   .256    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Green Bay Packers     3.31    .695   94.17%  70.33%   7.18%     3.13
Chicago Bears         -1.89   .633   58.29%  20.36%   1.74%     4.99
Detroit Lions         5.43    .603   53.61%   9.30%   0.29%     5.99
Minnesota Vikings     -2.55   .392    0.04%   0.00%   0.00%     7.00

NFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  0.13    .552   69.72%  69.58%   0.00%     3.88
Carolina Panthers     -3.15   .502   30.61%  30.40%   0.00%     3.89
Atlanta Falcons       -4.04   .322    0.02%   0.02%   0.00%     4.00
New Orleans Saints    -6.64   .290    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Seattle Seahawks      13.27   .750   99.52%  43.41%  39.97%     3.53
Los Angeles Rams      14.01   .763   99.22%  54.24%  48.55%     2.96
San Francisco 49ers   5.05    .665   92.03%   2.34%   1.98%     5.86
Arizona Cardinals     -1.12   .269    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

Possible Regular Season Outcomes

To give a range of how good or bad a team’s final record might be, several percentiles are shown for each team’s final winning percentage.

AFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
New England Patriots  .799  100.00%   .706   .765   .824   .824   .882
Buffalo Bills         .689  100.00%   .647   .647   .706   .706   .765
Miami Dolphins        .453  19.30%    .412   .412   .471   .471   .529
New York Jets         .229  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .235   .294

AFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Pittsburgh Steelers   .535  73.44%    .471   .471   .529   .588   .588
Baltimore Ravens      .463  25.57%    .412   .412   .471   .529   .529
Cincinnati Bengals    .335  0.00%     .265   .294   .353   .353   .412
Cleveland Browns      .252  0.00%     .176   .235   .235   .294   .294

AFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Jacksonville Jaguars  .689  100.00%   .647   .647   .706   .706   .765
Houston Texans        .649  99.83%    .588   .647   .647   .706   .706
Indianapolis Colts    .579  92.45%    .529   .529   .588   .588   .647
Tennessee Titans      .178  0.00%     .118   .118   .176   .235   .235

AFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Denver Broncos        .768  100.00%   .706   .706   .765   .824   .824
Los Angeles Chargers  .615  100.00%   .529   .588   .588   .647   .706
Kansas City Chiefs    .525  70.38%    .471   .471   .529   .588   .588
Las Vegas Raiders     .165  0.00%     .118   .118   .176   .176   .235

NFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Philadelphia Eagles   .629  99.26%    .588   .588   .647   .647   .706
Dallas Cowboys        .514  41.06%    .441   .500   .500   .559   .559
New York Giants       .241  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .294   .294
Washington Commanders .256  0.00%     .176   .235   .235   .294   .353

NFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Green Bay Packers     .695  100.00%   .618   .676   .676   .735   .794
Chicago Bears         .633  100.00%   .588   .588   .647   .647   .706
Detroit Lions         .603  97.38%    .529   .588   .588   .647   .647
Minnesota Vikings     .392  2.83%     .294   .353   .412   .412   .471

NFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .552  82.25%    .471   .529   .529   .588   .647
Carolina Panthers     .502  49.66%    .412   .471   .500   .529   .588
Atlanta Falcons       .322  0.00%     .235   .294   .294   .353   .412
New Orleans Saints    .290  0.00%     .235   .235   .294   .353   .353

NFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Seattle Seahawks      .750  100.00%   .706   .706   .765   .765   .824
Los Angeles Rams      .763  100.00%   .706   .706   .765   .824   .824
San Francisco 49ers   .665  100.00%   .588   .647   .647   .706   .706
Arizona Cardinals     .269  0.00%     .235   .235   .294   .294   .353

Postseason Projections

The final table shows each team’s probability of reaching the playoffs, the divisional round, the conference championship, winning their conference, and winning the Super Bowl.

AFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
New England Patriots  .799    99.96%   79.48%    38.32%   15.46%  4.71%
Buffalo Bills         .689    95.47%   52.02%    24.89%   12.04%  4.08%
Miami Dolphins        .453     0.18%    0.05%     0.01%    0.00%  0.00%
New York Jets         .229     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Pittsburgh Steelers   .535    76.02%   28.86%     9.16%    3.09%  0.64%
Baltimore Ravens      .463    24.07%    9.36%     3.12%    1.24%  0.24%
Cincinnati Bengals    .335     0.15%    0.02%     0.01%    0.00%  0.00%
Cleveland Browns      .252     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Jacksonville Jaguars  .689    97.91%   57.77%    32.86%   18.15%  7.08%
Houston Texans        .649    88.68%   56.78%    36.09%   23.59% 10.32%
Indianapolis Colts    .579    44.66%   23.55%    13.21%    7.87%  3.01%
Tennessee Titans      .178     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Denver Broncos        .768    99.65%   64.50%    31.34%   14.01%  4.30%
Los Angeles Chargers  .615    58.99%   20.85%     7.67%    2.85%  0.65%
Kansas City Chiefs    .525    14.27%    6.75%     3.33%    1.69%  0.56%
Las Vegas Raiders     .165     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Philadelphia Eagles   .629    94.16%   43.00%    17.26%    4.70%  2.01%
Dallas Cowboys        .514     8.61%    2.71%     0.64%    0.10%  0.02%
New York Giants       .241     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Washington Commanders .256     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Green Bay Packers     .695    94.17%   53.19%    22.70%    6.40%  2.81%
Chicago Bears         .633    58.29%   20.84%     4.83%    0.98%  0.33%
Detroit Lions         .603    53.61%   28.39%     9.46%    3.86%  1.83%
Minnesota Vikings     .392     0.04%    0.01%     0.01%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .552    69.72%   19.75%     6.46%    1.50%  0.50%
Carolina Panthers     .502    30.61%    6.91%     1.68%    0.26%  0.07%
Atlanta Falcons       .322     0.02%    0.01%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
New Orleans Saints    .290     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Seattle Seahawks      .750    99.52%   86.02%    57.98%   35.47% 24.83%
Los Angeles Rams      .763    99.22%   88.58%    62.48%   40.52% 29.00%
San Francisco 49ers   .665    92.03%   50.61%    16.52%    6.21%  3.01%
Arizona Cardinals     .269     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

Week 15 Game Predictions

The thresholds for close games, blowouts, and high and low scoring games are different in the NFL than in college football. That’s because NFL teams are balanced enough in talent to usually avoid truly lopsided scores and there’s just less scoring overall.

Games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL for many of the same reasons I just mentioned. This is just for predicting which NFL games are most and least compelling each weekend.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. In the event that a margin is larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score, that’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a forecast of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This isn’t even close to possible with the current NFL ratings, even with the weakest offense against the strongest defense, but it does occur once in awhile in college football. A negative score is impossible, of course, so the score would be set to zero in those instances. However, there’s no upper limit on how many points a team can be projected to score. But with more parity between NFL teams, even the highest scoring predictions aren’t going to be nearly as crazy as what is possible with the college football ratings.

#1: Indianapolis Colts (-8.20, 27.27%) at Seattle Seahawks (8.20, 72.35%), Tie (0.38%)
Estimated score: 23.02 - 31.21, Total: 54.23
Quality: 88.56%, Team quality: 90.53%, Competitiveness: 84.77%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 29.61%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 14.46%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 45.15%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 7.19%

#2: Detroit Lions (-10.36, 22.32%) at Los Angeles Rams (10.36, 77.34%), Tie (0.34%)
Estimated score: 20.85 - 31.22, Total: 52.06
Quality: 83.53%, Team quality: 87.10%, Competitiveness: 76.83%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 33.96%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 12.96%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 39.32%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 9.47%

#3: Buffalo Bills (-0.51, 48.30%) at New England Patriots (0.51, 51.25%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 25.27 - 25.77, Total: 51.05
Quality: 80.99%, Team quality: 72.91%, Competitiveness: 99.94%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.88%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.38%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 36.65%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 10.70%

#4: Green Bay Packers (-1.92, 44.19%) at Denver Broncos (1.92, 55.36%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 17.41 - 19.32, Total: 36.73
Quality: 78.65%, Team quality: 70.07%, Competitiveness: 99.10%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 22.29%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.22%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 9.23%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 39.88%

#5: Los Angeles Chargers (-7.45, 29.10%) at Kansas City Chiefs (7.45, 70.50%), Tie (0.39%)
Estimated score: 16.38 - 23.87, Total: 40.25
Quality: 68.52%, Team quality: 60.73%, Competitiveness: 87.23%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 28.31%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 14.93%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 13.92%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 30.87%

#6: Arizona Cardinals (-12.26, 18.45%) at Houston Texans (12.26, 81.25%), Tie (0.30%)
Estimated score: 12.09 - 24.34, Total: 36.43
Quality: 62.61%, Team quality: 59.56%, Competitiveness: 69.19%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 38.35%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 11.54%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 8.89%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 40.67%

#7: Minnesota Vikings (-2.95, 41.24%) at Dallas Cowboys (2.95, 58.32%), Tie (0.44%)
Estimated score: 25.07 - 27.98, Total: 53.04
Quality: 51.11%, Team quality: 36.94%, Competitiveness: 97.88%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 22.88%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.98%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 41.93%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 8.38%

#8: Atlanta Falcons (-5.95, 32.96%) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5.95, 66.63%), Tie (0.41%)
Estimated score: 19.73 - 25.65, Total: 45.38
Quality: 48.15%, Team quality: 34.90%, Competitiveness: 91.65%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 26.02%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.78%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 23.23%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 19.70%

#9: Miami Dolphins (-4.91, 35.75%) at Pittsburgh Steelers (4.91, 63.83%), Tie (0.43%)
Estimated score: 18.95 - 23.86, Total: 42.81
Quality: 45.12%, Team quality: 31.23%, Competitiveness: 94.23%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 24.71%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.28%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 18.19%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 24.98%

#10: Baltimore Ravens (4.89, 63.77%) at Cincinnati Bengals (-4.89, 35.80%), Tie (0.43%)
Estimated score: 30.90 - 25.97, Total: 56.87
Quality: 37.79%, Team quality: 23.92%, Competitiveness: 94.27%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 24.68%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.29%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 52.38%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 5.02%

#11: Carolina Panthers (1.72, 54.78%) at New Orleans Saints (-1.72, 44.77%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 17.58 - 15.86, Total: 33.44
Quality: 35.88%, Team quality: 21.57%, Competitiveness: 99.27%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 22.20%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.25%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 6.02%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 48.80%

#12: Tennessee Titans (-14.80, 14.01%) at San Francisco 49ers (14.80, 85.74%), Tie (0.25%)
Estimated score: 13.55 - 28.38, Total: 41.93
Quality: 33.68%, Team quality: 25.54%, Competitiveness: 58.58%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 44.85%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 9.60%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 16.63%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 26.93%

#13: Washington Commanders (-3.15, 40.65%) at New York Giants (3.15, 58.90%), Tie (0.44%)
Estimated score: 23.27 - 26.42, Total: 49.70
Quality: 29.74%, Team quality: 16.42%, Competitiveness: 97.58%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.03%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.93%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 33.22%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 12.51%

#14: New York Jets (-17.31, 10.42%) at Jacksonville Jaguars (17.31, 89.38%), Tie (0.20%)
Estimated score: 13.85 - 31.15, Total: 45.00
Quality: 28.89%, Team quality: 22.35%, Competitiveness: 48.26%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 51.72%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 7.75%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 22.45%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 20.43%

#15: Cleveland Browns (-8.50, 26.54%) at Chicago Bears (8.50, 73.08%), Tie (0.37%)
Estimated score: 17.67 - 26.18, Total: 43.85
Quality: 28.72%, Team quality: 16.82%, Competitiveness: 83.72%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 30.17%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 14.26%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 20.15%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 22.75%

#16: Las Vegas Raiders (-14.68, 14.19%) at Philadelphia Eagles (14.68, 85.56%), Tie (0.25%)
Estimated score: 9.28 - 23.94, Total: 33.22
Quality: 24.25%, Team quality: 15.54%, Competitiveness: 59.06%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 44.55%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 9.68%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 5.84%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 49.39%

Although the Buccaneers are still favored to win the NFC South, the Panthers are serious playoff contenders, and my simulator now gives them just over a 30% chance of reaching the playoffs. That appeared very unlikely at the start of the season, but the Panthers are very much in contention and are favored this weekend against the New Orleans Saints. The NFC South is becoming a surprisingly interesting race, and there are still two games left between the Buccaneers and Panthers, games that will almost certainly decide who actually wins the division. There are lots of other interesting races in the NFL, but I’m just particularly interested in this division because of how unlikely it seemed at the start of the season that the Panthers would be in contention entering week 15. Thanks for reading!

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The ratings in this article are based on data from Pro Football Reference.

I have two big questions heading into the announcement of the 12 team field for the college football playoff. Will every conference except the SEC and Big Ten be reduced to just zero or one bids? And will the selection committee really pick just one team from between the third and fourth ranked conferences?

I’ll probably continue The Linked Letters After Dark during the college football playoff, perhaps writing a late night column after each round of the playoff that will include updated ratings and game predictions. But for now, let’s go through the updated ratings after the conference championship games and then address the big questions facing the selection committee.

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Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

The last column here is SOR, which means strength of record. Unlike all the other columns, this is a backward looking rating and evaluates the quality of a team’s wins and losses in comparison to a hypothetical team with a rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. Such a hypothetical team would typically be ranked somewhere between #10 and #15. Strength of record is just each team’s actual winning percentage minus the expected winning percentage for that hypothetical team against the same schedule. This is negative for most teams because their record is being compared against the expected record for a pretty good team.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 1.79 points
Mean score: 26.83 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
   1      90.08  -0.22  Indiana               45.97   44.01    .240
   2      86.76  +0.36  Ohio State            38.36   48.39    .154
   3      84.78  +0.03  Oregon                43.78   40.89    .177
   4   +1 82.83  +1.38  Texas Tech            41.41   41.40    .080
   5   -1 82.28  +0.12  Notre Dame            43.33   38.82    .000
   6      78.37  +0.16  Utah                  42.62   35.69   -.022
   7      76.03  -0.03  Miami                 34.05   42.01    .005
   8   +1 74.13  -0.04  USC                   40.24   33.96   -.003
   9   -1 73.92  -1.69  Alabama               36.57   37.26    .023
  10   +3 73.60  +1.20  Georgia               32.81   40.85    .122
  11      73.33  +0.08  Washington            38.22   35.07   -.122
  12      72.99  -0.02  Vanderbilt            41.86   31.10    .008
  13   +2 72.38  +0.17  Iowa                  30.70   41.61   -.066
  14   -4 72.27  -1.01  BYU                   35.18   36.96    .087
  15   -1 72.10  -0.21  Texas A&M             38.47   33.63    .115
  16      71.70  -0.16  Oklahoma              29.31   42.47    .050
  17      71.50  +0.12  Ole Miss              40.19   31.31    .067
  18      70.96  +0.04  Penn State            36.45   34.46   -.218
  19      69.68  -0.06  Michigan              33.59   36.15   -.019
  20      68.33  +0.01  South Florida         39.41   28.99   -.141
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  21      68.13  +0.11  Texas                 32.02   36.19    .008
  22      67.29  -0.52  Missouri              32.31   35.01   -.134
  23      67.21  -0.26  Tennessee             41.50   25.70   -.148
  24      66.53  -0.28  Arizona               32.04   34.50   -.144
  25   +1 65.79  +0.04  Florida State         34.02   31.54   -.431
  26   +1 65.67  +0.10  Illinois              32.95   32.77   -.074
  27   +2 64.61  -0.11  LSU                   26.03   38.51   -.181
  28   -3 64.50  -1.93  North Texas           41.35   23.14   -.113
  29   -1 64.32  -0.69  Auburn                28.81   35.51   -.349
  30      63.58  +0.03  Pittsburgh            34.92   28.57   -.174
  31      63.49  +0.61  Iowa State            29.75   33.65   -.198
  32      62.59  -0.08  Louisville            31.62   31.02   -.209
  33   +1 62.07  -0.42  James Madison         29.93   32.19   -.050
  34   +1 61.91  -0.07  Florida               27.17   34.72   -.379
  35   +1 61.74  +0.13  SMU                   30.56   31.16   -.239
  36   -3 61.61  -1.03  Virginia              30.64   30.97   -.163
  37      61.16  +0.04  TCU                   32.07   28.92   -.218
  38      60.89  -0.09  Nebraska              31.24   29.62   -.251
  39      60.29  +0.16  Kansas State          32.47   27.68   -.313
  40      59.61  -0.15  South Carolina        25.54   34.08   -.424
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  41   +1 59.50  +0.07  Georgia Tech          31.37   28.13   -.158
  42   +2 59.29  +0.36  Arizona State         24.91   34.28   -.145
  43   -2 59.29  -0.19  Cincinnati            31.17   28.13   -.256
  44   -1 59.23  +0.05  Clemson               27.93   31.16   -.324
  45      58.29  +0.11  Houston               28.47   29.87   -.139
  46      58.02  -0.10  East Carolina         28.53   29.43   -.270
  47      58.02  -0.07  Toledo                26.65   31.22   -.313
  48      57.95  +0.09  NC State              31.25   26.41   -.222
  49   +3 57.86  +0.56  Northwestern          23.89   33.94   -.268
  50      57.84  +0.12  Arkansas              34.65   22.88   -.578
  51   -2 57.79  -0.02  Mississippi State     32.15   25.72   -.374
  52   -1 57.46  -0.14  Wisconsin             20.53   36.87   -.282
  53   +1 57.20  +0.64  Duke                  34.09   23.21   -.307
  54   -1 57.08  -0.07  Kentucky              26.33   30.74   -.356
  55      56.96  +0.42  Boise State           27.93   29.07   -.201
  56   +6 56.80  +1.93  Tulane                25.89   30.80   -.073
  57   -1 56.73  +0.24  Kansas                30.02   26.75   -.374
  58   -1 56.20  +0.12  Memphis               28.47   27.73   -.287
  59   -1 55.58  -0.14  Old Dominion          26.59   28.85   -.153
  60      55.20  -0.05  San Diego State       21.86   33.37   -.228
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  61   -2 55.07  -0.20  Wake Forest           23.27   32.00   -.256
  62   +1 54.99  +0.28  Michigan State        28.04   26.90   -.421
  63   -2 54.97  +0.04  Rutgers               31.83   23.17   -.306
  64      54.60  -0.10  Washington State      21.50   33.04   -.361
  65      54.57  +0.05  Minnesota             25.64   29.01   -.199
  66      53.38  +0.04  Baylor                32.59   20.60   -.427
  67      53.34  +0.14  UTSA                  30.73   22.54   -.393
  68   +2 52.95  +0.31  New Mexico            24.97   27.76   -.191
  69   -1 52.69  -0.16  Maryland              24.96   27.69   -.476
  70   -1 52.37  -0.39  UNLV                  32.55   19.62   -.205
  71   +1 51.78  +0.24  UCLA                  24.29   27.37   -.409
  72   -1 51.77  +0.15  UCF                   22.69   28.99   -.432
  73   +1 51.50  +0.17  Purdue                24.21   27.18   -.478
  74   -1 50.96  -0.41  Utah State            28.29   22.86   -.398
  75      50.74  -0.25  Navy                  25.89   24.86   -.052
  76      49.65  -0.20  Army                  18.63   30.94   -.393
  77      49.00  -0.25  UConn                 27.85   21.17   -.241
  78      48.83  -0.26  Virginia Tech         24.51   24.32   -.582
  79      48.62  -0.24  Colorado              23.61   25.01   -.573
  80      48.39  -0.05  West Virginia         24.19   24.05   -.459
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  81      48.26  +0.07  Stanford              21.21   26.85   -.451
  82      48.24  +0.23  Western Michigan      18.61   29.64   -.257
  83      47.67  +0.15  Hawai’i               23.18   24.43   -.293
  84      47.37  +0.03  Louisiana Tech        21.69   25.52   -.386
  85      46.98  +0.09  California            23.01   23.87   -.356
  86      46.93  +0.06  Fresno State          21.07   25.86   -.307
  87   +1 46.55  +0.19  Texas State           29.81   16.61   -.470
  88   -1 46.39  -0.00  Western Kentucky      23.49   22.91   -.298
  89      46.04  -0.22  Ohio                  23.82   22.36   -.250
  90      45.22  -0.85  Miami (OH)            20.71   24.50   -.435
  91      45.05  -0.27  Kennesaw State        23.09   22.19   -.151
  92      44.90  -0.25  Boston College        24.97   19.91   -.701
  93      44.27  +0.18  Temple                24.90   19.11   -.500
  94      43.84  +0.09  Air Force             25.00   18.75   -.642
  95      43.68  +0.03  North Carolina        17.88   25.71   -.610
  96      42.80  +0.12  Syracuse              20.83   21.80   -.549
  97      42.74  +0.16  Marshall              25.08   17.65   -.522
  98   +4 41.24  +0.74  Troy                  18.39   22.88   -.345
  99   -1 40.73  -0.11  Wyoming               12.29   28.59   -.603
 100      40.63  -0.05  Southern Miss         21.60   19.10   -.407
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 101   -2 40.59  -0.24  Florida International 20.38   20.20   -.374
 102   +1 40.43  +0.20  Missouri State        20.47   19.87   -.356
 103   -2 40.19  -0.32  Jacksonville State    20.18   19.99   -.378
 104      39.99  +0.18  Liberty               19.90   19.87   -.645
 105      39.73  -0.02  Central Michigan      17.45   22.13   -.354
 106      39.43  +0.01  Tulsa                 19.02   20.55   -.638
 107      39.07  -0.09  Oregon State          17.62   21.41   -.675
 108      38.50  +0.33  Oklahoma State        16.21   22.32   -.704
 109      38.09  -0.07  Florida Atlantic      24.56   13.39   -.607
 110      37.76  +0.03  Nevada                14.76   23.04   -.689
 111   +3 37.31  +0.52  Colorado State        17.49   19.65   -.758
 112   -1 37.13  +0.05  Louisiana             19.99   17.10   -.453
 113   -1 37.11  +0.15  Arkansas State        16.59   20.35   -.476
 114   -1 37.07  +0.24  Georgia Southern      22.58   14.36   -.430
 115      36.03  +0.01  Bowling Green         12.96   22.98   -.629
 116   +2 35.98  +0.24  San José State        20.13   15.92   -.702
 117      35.97  +0.08  Delaware              22.16   13.81   -.487
 118   -2 35.82  -0.10  UAB                   21.53   14.32   -.589
 119      35.63  +0.13  South Alabama         18.94   16.64   -.616
 120      35.03  +0.11  App State             17.90   17.10   -.549
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 121      34.90  -0.00  Buffalo               15.32   19.75   -.574
 122      34.34  -0.37  Rice                  14.36   20.00   -.517
 123      33.47  -0.11  New Mexico State      13.60   19.84   -.629
 124      33.25  -0.08  Northern Illinois     11.52   21.67   -.718
 125      32.67  -0.20  Eastern Michigan      18.92   13.76   -.652
 126      32.31  -0.03  UTEP                  16.77   15.54   -.797
 127      32.09  -0.04  Akron                 15.34   16.62   -.557
 128      31.41  -0.23  Coastal Carolina      17.60   13.82   -.446
 129      31.24  -0.14  Middle Tennessee      15.52   15.64   -.736
 130      29.69  +0.11  Kent State            18.05   11.74   -.443
 131      29.32  -0.17  Ball State            12.11   17.21   -.625
 132   +1 28.48  +0.24  Charlotte             11.85   16.44   -.801
 133   -1 28.45  -0.01  Georgia State         14.84   13.53   -.811
 134      25.38  +0.05  UL Monroe             10.39   14.87   -.688
 135      24.35  +0.06  Sam Houston           13.11   11.15   -.793
 136      12.36  -0.29  Massachusetts         5.50    6.99    -.927

Schedule Strength

There are two different measures of schedule strength in this table. The first two columns measure the difficulty a team’s past and future schedules would pose for a team that would be 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. The columns are the team’s expected losing percentage against that schedule, meaning that higher numbers indicate a stronger schedule. This should be somewhat similar to the schedule strength from ESPN’s FPI ratings.

The last two columns are also the past and future schedules, but they’re just the average of the opponents’ predictive ratings with an adjustment for the site of the game. Schedule strength is a factor in deciding which teams belong in the college football playoff, and these two columns aren’t always representative of the schedule strength for a team near the top of the ratings. These ratings should be closer to the schedule strength in Jeff Sagarin’s ratings, which are the rating a team would need to be expected to win exactly 50% of games against that team’s schedule.

There are a few teams besides Army and Navy that have future schedule strength ratings already due to some bowl game matchups already being announced.

Past and Future Schedule Strength
Home advantage: 1.79 points
Mean score: 26.83 points
Rank Team                  SOS        Future   OppRtg      Future   
   1 Indiana               .240 (17)  ---      58.70 (17)  ---      
   2 Ohio State            .231 (21)  ---      58.10 (25)  ---      
   3 Oregon                .261 (8)   ---      61.19 (5)   ---      
   4 Texas Tech            .157 (50)  ---      50.45 (65)  ---      
   5 Notre Dame            .167 (45)  ---      57.77 (30)  ---      
   6 Utah                  .145 (55)  ---      55.59 (41)  ---      
   7 Miami                 .172 (43)  ---      55.59 (40)  ---      
   8 USC                   .247 (13)  ---      60.48 (8)   ---      
   9 Alabama               .253 (12)  ---      59.39 (13)  ---      
  10 Georgia               .199 (34)  ---      58.25 (24)  ---      
  11 Washington            .211 (28)  ---      58.59 (19)  ---      
  12 Vanderbilt            .175 (42)  ---      55.37 (45)  ---      
  13 Iowa                  .267 (7)   ---      57.04 (33)  ---      
  14 BYU                   .241 (16)  ---      58.64 (18)  ---      
  15 Texas A&M             .199 (35)  ---      57.58 (32)  ---      
  16 Oklahoma              .217 (25)  ---      59.34 (14)  ---      
  17 Ole Miss              .151 (54)  ---      54.64 (48)  ---      
  18 Penn State            .282 (5)   ---      60.41 (10)  ---      
  19 Michigan              .231 (22)  ---      61.02 (6)   ---      
  20 South Florida         .109 (65)  .067 (2) 48.36 (77)  55.58 (2)
Rank Team                  SOS        Future   OppRtg      Future   
  21 Texas                 .258 (10)  ---      58.55 (20)  ---      
  22 Missouri              .199 (33)  ---      54.26 (51)  ---      
  23 Tennessee             .186 (40)  ---      55.06 (47)  ---      
  24 Arizona               .106 (68)  ---      53.06 (56)  ---      
  25 Florida State         .152 (52)  ---      53.78 (52)  ---      
  26 Illinois              .259 (9)   ---      59.51 (12)  ---      
  27 LSU                   .236 (18)  ---      60.51 (7)   ---      
  28 North Texas           .041 (107) ---      44.99 (91)  ---      
  29 Auburn                .234 (19)  ---      57.74 (31)  ---      
  30 Pittsburgh            .159 (48)  ---      53.43 (53)  ---      
  31 Iowa State            .135 (58)  ---      55.56 (43)  ---      
  32 Louisville            .124 (61)  ---      53.14 (55)  ---      
  33 James Madison         .026 (121) ---      41.01 (111) ---      
  34 Florida               .287 (4)   ---      63.00 (4)   ---      
  35 SMU                   .094 (72)  ---      50.30 (66)  ---      
  36 Virginia              .068 (85)  ---      50.00 (69)  ---      
  37 TCU                   .115 (63)  ---      55.49 (44)  ---      
  38 Nebraska              .165 (46)  ---      54.28 (50)  ---      
  39 Kansas State          .187 (39)  ---      58.07 (26)  ---      
  40 South Carolina        .243 (15)  ---      59.10 (15)  ---      
Rank Team                  SOS        Future   OppRtg      Future   
  41 Georgia Tech          .092 (74)  ---      51.37 (61)  ---      
  42 Arizona State         .189 (38)  ---      57.94 (27)  ---      
  43 Cincinnati            .160 (47)  ---      52.42 (59)  ---      
  44 Clemson               .093 (73)  ---      51.34 (62)  ---      
  45 Houston               .111 (64)  ---      51.96 (60)  ---      
  46 East Carolina         .063 (88)  ---      45.12 (89)  ---      
  47 Toledo                .020 (129) ---      38.13 (131) ---      
  48 NC State              .194 (36)  ---      56.80 (35)  ---      
  49 Northwestern          .232 (20)  ---      56.63 (37)  ---      
  50 Arkansas              .256 (11)  ---      58.90 (16)  ---      
  51 Mississippi State     .209 (30)  ---      56.21 (38)  ---      
  52 Wisconsin             .385 (1)   ---      66.39 (2)   ---      
  53 Duke                  .077 (80)  ---      52.65 (58)  ---      
  54 Kentucky              .227 (23)  ---      60.28 (11)  ---      
  55 Boise State           .107 (67)  ---      49.17 (72)  ---      
  56 Tulane                .081 (77)  ---      50.18 (68)  ---      
  57 Kansas                .210 (29)  ---      55.63 (39)  ---      
  58 Memphis               .046 (104) ---      44.00 (94)  ---      
  59 Old Dominion          .097 (71)  .315 (1) 41.91 (106) 68.33 (1)
  60 San Diego State       .022 (128) ---      42.84 (101) ---      
Rank Team                  SOS        Future   OppRtg      Future   
  61 Wake Forest           .078 (79)  ---      49.94 (70)  ---      
  62 Michigan State        .245 (14)  ---      60.46 (9)   ---      
  63 Rutgers               .278 (6)   ---      58.48 (22)  ---      
  64 Washington State      .139 (57)  ---      53.38 (54)  ---      
  65 Minnesota             .218 (24)  ---      54.45 (49)  ---      
  66 Baylor                .156 (51)  ---      55.20 (46)  ---      
  67 UTSA                  .107 (66)  ---      48.90 (75)  ---      
  68 New Mexico            .059 (97)  ---      47.23 (81)  ---      
  69 Maryland              .191 (37)  ---      55.58 (42)  ---      
  70 UNLV                  .026 (124) ---      45.23 (87)  ---      
  71 UCLA                  .341 (3)   ---      67.11 (1)   ---      
  72 UCF                   .151 (53)  ---      50.66 (63)  ---      
  73 Purdue                .355 (2)   ---      64.47 (3)   ---      
  74 Utah State            .102 (70)  ---      47.49 (80)  ---      
  75 Navy                  .130 (60)  .024 (4) 45.68 (86)  49.65 (4)
  76 Army                  .062 (91)  .030 (3) 49.06 (73)  50.74 (3)
  77 UConn                 .009 (135) ---      37.92 (133) ---      
  78 Virginia Tech         .168 (44)  ---      57.79 (29)  ---      
  79 Colorado              .177 (41)  ---      58.39 (23)  ---      
  80 West Virginia         .208 (31)  ---      56.95 (34)  ---      
Rank Team                  SOS        Future   OppRtg      Future   
  81 Stanford              .216 (26)  ---      58.54 (21)  ---      
  82 Western Michigan      .051 (100) ---      42.90 (99)  ---      
  83 Hawai’i               .040 (109) .010 (6) 42.63 (103) 45.18 (6)
  84 Louisiana Tech        .031 (117) ---      41.08 (110) ---      
  85 California            .061 (94)  .023 (5) 48.84 (76)  49.46 (5)
  86 Fresno State          .026 (123) ---      40.87 (112) ---      
  87 Texas State           .030 (118) ---      40.68 (115) ---      
  88 Western Kentucky      .035 (114) ---      39.38 (124) ---      
  89 Ohio                  .083 (75)  ---      40.35 (117) ---      
  90 Miami (OH)            .027 (120) ---      42.10 (105) ---      
  91 Kennesaw State        .080 (78)  ---      41.79 (107) ---      
  92 Boston College        .132 (59)  ---      52.68 (57)  ---      
  93 Temple                .083 (76)  ---      45.91 (85)  ---      
  94 Air Force             .025 (125) ---      44.36 (93)  ---      
  95 North Carolina        .057 (98)  ---      48.96 (74)  ---      
  96 Syracuse              .201 (32)  ---      56.72 (36)  ---      
  97 Marshall              .061 (93)  ---      42.11 (104) ---      
  98 Troy                  .040 (110) ---      41.66 (108) ---      
  99 Wyoming               .064 (87)  ---      45.07 (90)  ---      
 100 Southern Miss         .010 (133) ---      38.09 (132) ---      
Rank Team                  SOS        Future   OppRtg      Future   
 101 Florida International .043 (105) ---      39.17 (127) ---      
 102 Missouri State        .060 (95)  .001 (8) 42.95 (98)  37.11 (8)
 103 Jacksonville State    .007 (136) ---      37.31 (134) ---      
 104 Liberty               .022 (127) ---      40.75 (114) ---      
 105 Central Michigan      .063 (89)  ---      38.69 (130) ---      
 106 Tulsa                 .029 (119) ---      44.81 (92)  ---      
 107 Oregon State          .158 (49)  ---      50.20 (67)  ---      
 108 Oklahoma State        .213 (27)  ---      57.80 (28)  ---      
 109 Florida Atlantic      .060 (96)  ---      45.20 (88)  ---      
 110 Nevada                .061 (92)  ---      48.11 (78)  ---      
 111 Colorado State        .076 (82)  ---      49.70 (71)  ---      
 112 Louisiana             .047 (103) ---      40.30 (118) ---      
 113 Arkansas State        .024 (126) .003 (7) 40.08 (120) 40.43 (7)
 114 Georgia Southern      .070 (84)  ---      42.85 (100) ---      
 115 Bowling Green         .038 (111) ---      39.20 (125) ---      
 116 San José State        .048 (102) ---      46.98 (82)  ---      
 117 Delaware              .013 (132) ---      39.18 (126) ---      
 118 UAB                   .077 (81)  ---      47.84 (79)  ---      
 119 South Alabama         .050 (101) ---      39.95 (121) ---      
 120 App State             .034 (115) ---      39.79 (123) ---      
Rank Team                  SOS        Future   OppRtg      Future   
 121 Buffalo               .010 (134) ---      34.33 (136) ---      
 122 Rice                  .067 (86)  ---      46.40 (83)  ---      
 123 New Mexico State      .037 (112) ---      39.93 (122) ---      
 124 Northern Illinois     .032 (116) ---      40.61 (116) ---      
 125 Eastern Michigan      .014 (130) ---      39.09 (129) ---      
 126 UTEP                  .037 (113) ---      39.16 (128) ---      
 127 Akron                 .026 (122) ---      36.60 (135) ---      
 128 Coastal Carolina      .054 (99)  ---      43.23 (97)  ---      
 129 Middle Tennessee      .014 (131) ---      40.20 (119) ---      
 130 Kent State            .141 (56)  ---      42.75 (102) ---      
 131 Ball State            .042 (106) ---      43.29 (96)  ---      
 132 Charlotte             .115 (62)  ---      50.63 (64)  ---      
 133 Georgia State         .106 (69)  ---      46.34 (84)  ---      
 134 UL Monroe             .062 (90)  ---      40.82 (113) ---      
 135 Sam Houston           .040 (108) ---      43.94 (95)  ---      
 136 Massachusetts         .073 (83)  ---      41.36 (109) ---      

Conference Ratings

To rate the overall quality of conferences, I calculate the expected outcome if each team in a conference were to play every FBS team at a neutral site. The Win% column is the average probability of winning for all of the possible games and for all the teams in the conference. It’s similar to the average rating of all the teams in the conference, but it should be less skewed by outliers.

However, the idea of the “best” conference is subjective, and another way to judge the quality of a conference is to consider how many of its teams are among the best in the FBS. What if instead of playing every team in the FBS, each conference opponent just plays a hypothetical opponent with a rating that’s 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean? In this case, the quality of a conference is determined by how its teams would be expected to perform against a hypothetical opponent ranked somewhere around #10 to #15 in the FBS. This is what I’ve done with the HighWin% column. It’s analogous to how I calculate strength of record, and each conference’s rating is impacted more when the conference has more highly rated teams.

Conference Ratings
Rank Win% Conference        HighWin%  Rating Offense Defense OffDef    
   1 .755 SEC               .283 (3)  66.35  32.86   33.48   -0.62 (7) 
   2 .717 Big Ten           .308 (2)  65.80  31.94   33.84   -1.90 (9) 
   3 .688 FBS Independents  .379 (1)  65.64  35.59   30.00   5.60 (1)  
   4 .634 Big 12            .192 (4)  59.95  29.96   29.92   0.04 (5)  
   5 .575 ACC               .119 (5)  56.22  28.01   28.15   -0.15 (6) 
   6 .436 American Athletic .064 (6)  48.43  25.37   23.02   2.35 (2)  
   7 .402 Pac-12            .030 (7)  46.84  19.56   27.22   -7.67 (11)
   8 .396 Mountain West     .025 (8)  46.55  22.46   24.08   -1.62 (8) 
   9 .280 Sun Belt          .019 (9)  39.71  20.73   18.93   1.80 (3)  
  10 .249 Conference USA    .004 (11) 38.11  19.20   18.88   0.32 (4)  
  11 .244 Mid-American      .011 (10) 36.73  16.69   20.04   -3.36 (10)

Playoff Ratings

Here are the four components of the playoff ratings:

1. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s strength of record for a hypothetical team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS average. (SOR; 55%)

2. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s predictive rating (Fwd; 30%)

3. The team’s winning percentage (Win%; 10%)

4. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s strength of schedule for a hypothetical team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS average. (SOS; 5%)

Unlike my predictive ratings, these are based heavily on strength of record, meaning that they give more weight to a team’s past accomplishments than what they’re expected to do in the future.

Playoff Ratings
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
   1      .9891  +.0099 Indiana               .991  .907  1.000  .995
   2      .9755  +.0001 Oregon                .983  .940  .917   .986
   3      .9723  -.0013 Ohio State            .979  .888  .923   .990
   4   +4 .9460  +.0135 Texas Tech            .958  .646  .923   .981
   5   +2 .9447  +.0114 Georgia               .971  .803  .923   .926
   6   -1 .9384  -.0014 Texas A&M             .970  .802  .917   .911
   7   -3 .9322  -.0086 BYU                   .961  .908  .846   .913
   8   +1 .9183  -.0028 Oklahoma              .946  .854  .833   .907
   9   +2 .9182  +.0023 Ole Miss              .953  .618  .917   .904
  10      .9172  +.0006 Notre Dame            .920  .686  .833   .979
  11   -5 .9151  -.0207 Alabama               .933  .930  .769   .929
  12      .9103  +.0007 Miami                 .923  .707  .833   .947
  13   +1 .9050  +.0011 USC                   .918  .919  .750   .931
  14   -1 .9037  -.0036 Vanderbilt            .924  .717  .833   .920
  15      .8994  +.0017 Utah                  .905  .592  .833   .962
  16      .8879  +.0021 Texas                 .924  .936  .750   .859
  17      .8827  +.0008 Michigan              .907  .888  .750   .881
  18      .8673  +.0019 Iowa                  .871  .948  .667   .914
  19   +1 .8348  +.0018 Washington            .816  .839  .667   .924
  20   +1 .8345  +.0024 Illinois              .864  .939  .667   .818
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  21   +2 .8092  +.0005 James Madison         .884  .132  .923   .747
  22      .8025  -.0067 Missouri              .803  .804  .667   .846
  23   +1 .7923  -.0027 South Florida         .795  .429  .750   .862
  24   +1 .7911  -.0016 Tennessee             .788  .758  .667   .845
  25   -6 .7869  -.0487 North Texas           .827  .171  .846   .797
  26   +1 .7811  -.0006 Arizona               .791  .415  .750   .834
  27   +6 .7617  +.0309 Tulane                .865  .309  .846   .620
  28      .7529  -.0037 LSU                   .746  .898  .583   .799
  29      .7498  +.0028 Penn State            .695  .964  .500   .898
  30      .7480  +.0019 Pittsburgh            .755  .655  .667   .779
  31      .7450  +.0075 Arizona State         .791  .769  .667   .683
  32   -6 .7338  -.0499 Virginia              .769  .259  .769   .737
  33   +1 .7332  +.0051 Houston               .798  .440  .750   .658
  34   -2 .7309  -.0044 Navy                  .883  .524  .818   .458
  35   +1 .7251  +.0053 Georgia Tech          .775  .355  .750   .688
  36   -1 .7246  +.0034 Iowa State            .723  .549  .667   .777
  37      .7082  -.0011 Louisville            .708  .500  .667   .758
  38      .7000  -.0012 Old Dominion          .781  .378  .750   .588
  39      .6897  +.0009 TCU                   .695  .459  .667   .727
  40   +5 .6730  +.0202 Boise State           .719  .421  .692   .624
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  41   +1 .6721  +.0022 SMU                   .664  .366  .667   .740
  42   -1 .6713  +.0013 NC State              .688  .788  .583   .650
  43      .6663  +.0029 Minnesota             .721  .857  .583   .561
  44      .6633  +.0020 Nebraska              .645  .680  .583   .721
  45   +1 .6469  -.0014 Cincinnati            .638  .660  .583   .683
  46   +1 .6442  +.0039 New Mexico            .732  .227  .750   .517
  47   +2 .6298  +.0076 Northwestern          .620  .891  .500   .647
  48      .6282  +.0016 San Diego State       .680  .120  .750   .578
  49   -9 .6263  -.0480 UNLV                  .713  .130  .769   .502
  50   +1 .6162  +.0080 Kennesaw State        .783  .305  .769   .311
  51   -1 .6130  +.0008 East Carolina         .616  .242  .667   .651
  52      .6051  -.0009 Wake Forest           .639  .296  .667   .575
  53      .6032  -.0023 Wisconsin             .598  .999  .333   .637
  54   +1 .6014  +.0071 Kansas State          .548  .763  .500   .707
  55   -1 .5932  -.0059 Auburn                .489  .895  .417   .793
  56      .5818  +.0042 Memphis               .590  .187  .667   .605
  57      .5725  +.0025 Clemson               .530  .360  .583   .681
  58   +7 .5721  +.0468 Duke                  .557  .296  .615   .631
  59   +1 .5690  +.0032 Rutgers               .560  .960  .417   .572
  60   -2 .5689  +.0006 Toledo                .547  .117  .667   .651
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  61   -2 .5661  -.0001 UConn                 .660  .093  .750   .411
  62   -1 .5468  +.0035 Florida               .440  .969  .333   .743
  63   +1 .5467  +.0210 Western Michigan      .637  .200  .692   .391
  64   -2 .5393  -.0000 Ohio                  .648  .320  .667   .335
  65   -2 .5362  +.0022 Kentucky              .477  .879  .417   .627
  66   +1 .5234  +.0033 Mississippi State     .448  .833  .417   .646
  67   -1 .5159  -.0052 Florida State         .358  .624  .417   .821
  68   +1 .5159  +.0056 Kansas                .449  .835  .417   .618
  69   +1 .5065  +.0016 Hawai’i               .579  .167  .667   .376
  70   -2 .5054  -.0070 Washington State      .470  .567  .500   .562
  71   +1 .4921  +.0010 Western Kentucky      .572  .154  .667   .344
  72   -1 .4894  -.0059 South Carolina        .370  .912  .333   .691
  73      .4869  +.0027 Fresno State          .557  .131  .667   .357
  74      .4598  -.0017 UTSA                  .419  .423  .500   .528
  75      .4562  +.0034 Michigan State        .373  .917  .333   .573
  76   +1 .4403  +.0013 California            .478  .234  .583   .358
  77   +3 .4361  +.0051 UCLA                  .392  .993  .250   .486
  78      .4346  -.0026 Utah State            .410  .400  .500   .464
  79      .4330  +.0011 Baylor                .364  .643  .417   .529
  80   +1 .4251  -.0008 Army                  .419  .238  .545   .428
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  81   +2 .4145  +.0024 UCF                   .357  .621  .417   .486
  82   +2 .4125  +.0012 Louisiana Tech        .430  .144  .583   .369
  83   -7 .4103  -.0312 Troy                  .496  .167  .615   .226
  84   +2 .3954  +.0025 Missouri State        .477  .233  .583   .210
  85   +2 .3937  +.0010 Central Michigan      .481  .240  .583   .196
  86   +2 .3859  +.0000 Maryland              .292  .776  .333   .510
  87   +2 .3778  -.0003 Florida International .449  .176  .583   .213
  88   +2 .3737  -.0022 Stanford              .328  .851  .333   .391
  89   -7 .3706  -.0515 Jacksonville State    .442  .089  .615   .205
  90   +1 .3690  +.0039 Purdue                .289  .996  .167   .478
  91   +1 .3674  +.0028 West Virginia         .317  .830  .333   .395
  92   +1 .3495  +.0001 Arkansas              .168  .933  .167   .647
  93   -8 .3488  -.0490 Miami (OH)            .353  .133  .538   .315
  94      .3447  +.0012 Southern Miss         .396  .095  .583   .213
  95      .3267  +.0028 Texas State           .301  .140  .500   .348
  96      .3061  +.0011 Georgia Southern      .360  .267  .500   .150
  97      .2878  -.0008 Temple                .259  .319  .417   .292
  98      .2836  -.0006 Louisiana             .325  .189  .500   .151
  99   +2 .2764  +.0031 Kent State            .341  .574  .417   .062
 100   -1 .2761  -.0018 Colorado              .172  .724  .250   .401
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
 101   -1 .2714  -.0029 Virginia Tech         .163  .692  .250   .407
 102      .2679  -.0023 Coastal Carolina      .335  .209  .500   .078
 103      .2619  +.0030 Arkansas State        .292  .125  .500   .151
 104      .2574  +.0041 Marshall              .230  .234  .417   .258
 105      .2523  +.0016 Syracuse              .199  .809  .250   .259
 106      .2475  +.0011 Delaware              .277  .102  .500   .133
 107      .2183  -.0034 Rice                  .238  .255  .417   .111
 108      .2033  +.0006 North Carolina        .137  .221  .333   .279
 109      .1942  +.0009 App State             .198  .151  .417   .120
 110      .1890  +.0002 Wyoming               .143  .245  .333   .215
 111      .1848  +.0011 Air Force             .110  .127  .333   .282
 112      .1778  +.0003 Akron                 .190  .131  .417   .084
 113   +2 .1763  +.0007 Buffalo               .172  .095  .417   .118
 114      .1744  -.0012 Boston College        .071  .534  .167   .307
 115   -2 .1732  -.0029 UAB                   .156  .296  .333   .131
 116      .1717  +.0015 Florida Atlantic      .140  .232  .333   .167
 117      .1598  +.0013 Tulsa                 .113  .138  .333   .191
 118      .1589  +.0012 Liberty               .108  .121  .333   .201
 119      .1538  -.0017 South Alabama         .131  .199  .333   .128
 120      .1518  +.0010 Oregon State          .086  .650  .167   .184
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
 121      .1478  +.0002 Bowling Green         .120  .161  .333   .134
 122      .1409  +.0033 Oklahoma State        .070  .845  .083   .174
 123      .1373  -.0001 New Mexico State      .120  .160  .333   .100
 124   +1 .1280  +.0006 Nevada                .078  .235  .250   .161
 125   -1 .1278  -.0010 Ball State            .124  .174  .333   .059
 126      .1219  -.0003 Eastern Michigan      .102  .104  .333   .091
 127      .1135  +.0014 San José State        .071  .193  .250   .133
 128      .1018  +.0029 Colorado State        .045  .290  .167   .154
 129      .0955  -.0001 Northern Illinois     .062  .145  .250   .097
 130      .0901  -.0016 UL Monroe             .079  .239  .250   .033
 131      .0822  -.0002 Middle Tennessee      .053  .103  .250   .076
 132      .0679  +.0000 UTEP                  .031  .158  .167   .087
 133      .0636  +.0010 Charlotte             .030  .459  .083   .053
 134      .0599  -.0003 Georgia State         .027  .415  .083   .052
 135      .0514  +.0002 Sam Houston           .032  .167  .167   .029
 136      .0195  -.0004 Massachusetts         .008  .278  .000   .003

Predicting the Playoff

With the exception of the top five ranked conference champions, conference affiliation does not entitle a team to a spot in the college football playoff. When I mentioned the third and fourth ranked conferences in my introduction, I was, of course, referring to the Big 12 and ACC. Between them, only Texas Tech is guaranteed to be in the playoff. No, teams in these conferences shouldn’t be guaranteed playoff bids just because they play in the Big 12 and ACC. However, it is a problem if deserving teams from these conferences are being passed over in favor of less deserving teams from other conferences. It’s also a problem if there appear to be inconsistencies in how the selection committee evaluates teams.

It’s virtually certain that the five conference champions in the playoff will be Indiana, Georgia, Texas Tech, Tulane, and James Madison. Ohio State, Oregon, Texas A&M, and Ole Miss each have one loss and should be viewed as locks to reach the playoff. That leaves three remaining at-large spots, and many teams that have arguments that they deserve one of these three spots. Here’s my list of those teams: Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Miami, BYU, Alabama, Texas, Utah, Vanderbilt, USC, and Michigan. I’ll also add Duke because they’re the ACC champion. Here’s a table with various rankings of those teams and the teams I consider locks:

              Playoff SOS SOR Fwd FPI FPI_SOS FPI_SOR  W  L
      Indiana       1  17   1   1   1      27       1 13  0
      Georgia       5  34   4  10   6      15       2 12  1
   Texas Tech       4  50   7   4   5      53       7 12  1
   Ohio State       3  21   3   2   2      30       5 12  1
       Oregon       2   8   2   3   4      17       4 11  1
    Texas A&M       6  35   5  15  10      16       3 11  1
     Ole Miss       9  54   8  17  12      41       6 11  1
       Tulane      27  77  21  56  54      77      19 11  2
James Madison      21 121  18  33  28     123      18 12  1
              Playoff SOS SOR Fwd FPI FPI_SOS FPI_SOR  W  L
         Duke      58  80  62  53  46      74      54  8  5
     Oklahoma       8  25   9  16  15      12       8 10  2
   Notre Dame      10  45  14   5   3      44      13 10  2
        Miami      12  43  13   7   7      45      14 10  2
          BYU       7  16   6  14  16      22       9 11  2
      Alabama      11  12  10   9   8       6      10 10  3
        Texas      16  10  12  21  13       8      12  9  3
         Utah      15  55  17   6   9      58      15 10  2
   Vanderbilt      14  42  11  12  14      24      11 10  2
          USC      13  13  15   8  11      29      17  9  3
     Michigan      17  22  16  19  19      28      16  9  3

Playoff, SOS, SOR, and Fwd are my playoff, schedule strength, strength of record, and predictive ranks for each team, respectively. FPI, FPI_SOS, and FPI_SOR are the ESPN FPI rank, FPI schedule strength, and FPI strength of record, respectively. Finally, W and L are wins and losses, respectively.

Based on strength of record, which is a backward looking rating that measures what a team has accomplished based on its schedule and record, the top three teams that aren’t locks are BYU, Oklahoma, and Alabama. After that are Vanderbilt and Texas. Miami and Notre Dame are next, though the order is different depending on whether it’s my strength of record ranking or the FPI strength of record.

FPI and my predictive rating are forward looking ratings, meaning that they estimate a team’s quality and future performance, not what a team has accomplished to date. The top teams using this approach would be Notre Dame, Miami, and then either Utah or Alabama. After that would be USC and Vanderbilt.

If Oklahoma can reasonably be considered a lock based on the selection committee’s ranking, then why not BYU? Their overall profiles are actually fairly comparable based on these rankings, and the case for both teams deserving to be in the playoff is based primarily on strength of record. This is a backward looking rating, meaning that it’s intended to provide guidance about which teams have accomplished the most based on their schedule and record. However,I don’t expect BYU to get serious consideration from the committee, but BYU has a strong case that they belong.

Notre Dame and Miami also have very similar profiles. If Notre Dame gets in, why not Miami? Neither has a particularly compelling argument based on strength of record, but they’re probably the bubble teams that would have the best chances of making a run in the playoff.

Alabama’s case is interesting. They’re right on the bubble both in forward and backward looking ratings, either the last team that would make the cut or the first team out. If the goal is to put the best teams in the playoff, as in the teams that have the best chances to win playoff games, then the last three teams should probably be Notre Dame, Miami, and Alabama. If the goal is to include the teams that are most deserving based on their record, the final three teams should probably be BYU, Oklahoma, and Alabama.

The remaining teams like Utah, Texas, Vanderbilt, USC, and Michigan have fairly strong profiles but don’t quite measure up. As for Duke, they have a similar profile to Tulane in terms of schedule strength and their forward looking rating. But they have a far weaker strength of record than any of the other teams in the table.

There is a real possibility that the final three teams will be Oklahoma, Notre Dame, and Alabama. Those are the final three teams in ESPN’s bowl projections. That would leave the Big 12 and ACC with just one playoff team between the two conferences, but it also makes no sense. In that scenario, the committee isn’t choosing the best remaining teams, but they’re also not choosing the teams that have accomplished the most over their schedule. Although I believe strength of record should be prioritized over picking the teams that have the best forward looking ratings, there also needs to be clarity about the selection committee’s expectations. It also doesn’t make sense why the committee seems to have consistently underrated BYU despite a very good strength of record.

I expect the 12 playoff teams will actually be Indiana, Georgia, Ohio State, Texas Tech, Oregon, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Miami, Tulane, and James Madison. And I expect the first teams out will be Alabama, Texas, Vanderbilt, BYU, and Utah. I’m making this prediction with the expectation that the committee will be inclined to move Alabama down due to losing to Georgia in a blowout even if the metrics don’t really make a strong case for doing so. I expect the committee will also drop BYU’s ranking, but they’ll probably remain ahead of Utah because both have two losses, and BYU won the head to head matchup during the season.

Week 16 Prediction

There’s one regular season game left, the annual Army-Navy game, so I’ll include a prediction for it. And here’s the standard text about how to interpret predictions, or in this case, the one prediction on my list.

Upcoming games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL. NFL games are typically decided by smaller margins than college games, the teams are more balanced in their quality, and there’s just not as much scoring in the NFL. Of course, there’s only one game to rank here, so it’s automatically #1. Thresholds for close games and blowouts are also different between college and the NFL for the same reasons.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. These margins are sometimes larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score. That’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a prediction of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This is, of course, impossible, so the score is set to zero in those instances. There’s no cap on how many points a team can be projected to score, though.

#1: Army (-1.09, 46.52%) vs. Navy (1.09, 53.48%)
Estimated score: 20.60 - 21.78, Total: 42.39
Quality: 94.03%, Team quality: 91.27%, Competitiveness: 99.80%
Blowout probability (margin >= 29.0 pts): 2.10%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.26%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 26.24%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 46.65%

The playoff bracket will be released in just a few hours. However, I’ll wait on final rankings and bowl projections at least until all of the matchups are announced before posting another article. For now, I actually plan to get back to posting more about baseball. There’s a baseball article that’s queued up right now and will be posted in just a few hours. The article is an analysis of the economic inequality in the sport and how much of a problem it really is for MLB. And for one more time in 2025, we’re just minutes away from lights out and away we go. The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in this morning, which is the end of the Formula 1 season and also the end of an era with completely new power unit regulations taking effect in 2026. Thanks for reading!

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The computer ratings in this article are based on data from collegefootballdata.com.

The Carolina Panthers aren’t playing this week, so their stadium will look a bit like the photo above. But the NFC South just got a lot more interesting. In my article last week, I mused about the possibility of the Panthers defeating the Rams. It was a matchup between contenders in their respective divisions, but it also appeared to be very lopsided in favor of the Rams. However, the Panthers won and are now within a half game of the Buccaneers. It’s rather unexpected since the Panthers were easily last in my preseason ratings, but they’ve managed to climb into contention to win the NFC South.

The NFC South feels a bit like the 1994 American League West division, where all four teams finished the season under .500. The Texas Rangers were in first place when the season-ending strike occurred, but they were also 52-62. The Montreal Expos looked like the favorite to win the National League, the Chicago White Sox appeared likely to win their division for the second straight season, and the AL West was a five alarm dumpster fire. That was the first season with three divisions per league, and the San Francisco Giants had missed a playoff spot by one game in the prior season despite a 103-59 record. The Atlanta Braves were dominant during the regular season and won the NL West in 1993 with a record of 104-58 before underperforming in the playoffs as was typical for many Braves teams from that era. In the new format that introduced a wild card spot to each league, the Giants wouldn’t have been shut out of the playoffs. That said, the 1994 AL West was almost as interesting as the 1993 NL West, but in a bad way. Could the Rangers really make the playoffs in the new format despite perhaps being expected to finish the season with a record somewhere around 75-87?

The NFC South isn’t quite as weak as the 1994 AL West, but all four teams currently have negative point differentials. The Buccaneers have played a tough schedule, and their point differential would probably be slightly positive against a neutral schedule. So the NFC South isn’t quite like the 1994 AL West, but it’s a very weak division. With the possible exception of the AFC North, the Panthers would probably be well outside of a playoff spot in any other division. Their predictive rating is 3.38 points lower than that of the Arizona Cardinals, who currently have a 3-9 record. But because the Panthers play in the NFC South, they have a very real chance to reach the playoffs whereas the Cardinals have already been eliminated from the playoffs.

By the numbers, the Buccaneers are still clearly favored to win the NFC South, and this makes sense. The Buccaneers have a better predictive rating and play the second weakest remaining schedule in the NFL, while the Panthers have the ninth most difficult remaining schedule. But the Panthers and Buccaneers haven’t played yet this season, so the Panthers will have an opportunity to directly take control of the division from the Buccaneers. In 20,000 simulations of the remainder of the season, the Buccaneers won the division 81.83% of the time while the Panthers won the NFC South in just 18.11% of the simulations. This makes sense since the Buccaneers have a half game advantage on the Panthers right now and play an easier schedule going forward. But the NFC South is an unexpectedly entertaining division, though perhaps uncomfortably similar to the 1994 AL West.

I still expect the Buccaneers to win the NFC South, but this is a race to watch over the final five weeks of the regular season. Anyway, it’s time to stop writing about bad baseball, and I’ll get to the ratings and the game predictions for this week.

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Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points. They don’t factor in wins and losses, only the margin of victory. The ratings don’t explicitly calculate the strength of schedule, though I calculate this afterwards. However, because of how the ratings are calculated, the quality of opponents does influence the ratings.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 2.02 points
Mean score: 22.31 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      12.64  -1.44  Los Angeles Rams      6.28    6.33   
   2      11.69  +0.92  Seattle Seahawks      7.31    4.40   
   3   +2 8.36   +0.81  Houston Texans        -0.03   8.34   
   4   -1 7.85   -0.97  Indianapolis Colts    7.50    0.32   
   5   -1 6.65   -1.31  Kansas City Chiefs    1.56    5.13   
   6   +3 5.53   +1.60  Buffalo Bills         5.50    0.03   
   7   -1 5.28   -1.14  Detroit Lions         5.60    -0.33  
   8   +2 4.87   +1.33  San Francisco 49ers   2.18    2.70   
   9   +2 4.85   +1.48  Jacksonville Jaguars  2.99    1.83   
  10   -2 4.04   -0.75  Denver Broncos        -0.20   4.25   
  11   +1 3.41   +0.83  Green Bay Packers     -0.10   3.52   
  12   +1 3.33   +0.81  New England Patriots  1.81    1.58   
  13   -6 2.99   -2.24  Philadelphia Eagles   -1.29   4.28   
  14   +1 1.07   -0.03  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  2.12    -1.04  
  15   +4 -0.28  +1.18  Arizona Cardinals     -0.10   -0.17  
  16   +1 -0.28  +0.86  Dallas Cowboys        6.58    -6.84  
  17   -3 -0.37  -2.56  Baltimore Ravens      1.08    -1.45  
  18   -2 -0.83  -0.02  Los Angeles Chargers  -0.68   -0.15  
  19   +2 -1.92  +1.02  Chicago Bears         1.18    -3.07  
  20   -2 -2.06  -0.85  Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.95   -1.09  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21   -1 -2.71  -0.10  Atlanta Falcons       -2.56   -0.12  
  22   +2 -3.10  +1.93  Carolina Panthers     -3.63   0.52   
  23   +2 -4.71  +0.37  Washington Commanders -1.18   -3.49  
  24   -2 -4.81  -1.24  Minnesota Vikings     -4.56   -0.21  
  25   -2 -5.00  -0.74  New York Giants       -0.56   -4.46  
  26      -5.07  +0.15  Miami Dolphins        -3.22   -1.86  
  27   +2 -7.29  +0.61  New York Jets         -3.59   -3.69  
  28   +2 -7.68  +0.73  New Orleans Saints    -7.05   -0.61  
  29   -2 -8.56  -1.54  Cleveland Browns      -7.96   -0.60  
  30   +2 -8.60  +1.72  Cincinnati Bengals    0.39    -8.97  
  31   -3 -8.75  -0.95  Tennessee Titans      -6.21   -2.57  
  32   -1 -10.60 -0.51  Las Vegas Raiders     -8.12   -2.49  

Schedule Strength

The first column is the expected losing percentage (1 minus winning percentage) for a hypothetical average NFL team in each team’s games played to date. Larger numbers mean a tougher schedule. The second column is the same thing, just for future games instead of past games.

The third column is the average opponent rating, with an adjustment for the site of games, for previously played games. The fourth column is the average opponent rating for the future games that each team will play. These two columns are the same schedule strength metrics from my previous NFL articles.

In college football, the two approaches to schedule strength would differ more just because the approach used in the first two columns limits the influence of truly lopsided blowout games. In the NFL, there just aren’t that many blowouts, and the teams are more evenly balanced. Therefore, there’s just not too much of a difference in the two approaches to measuring schedule strength.

Schedule Strength for an Average Team
Home advantage: 2.02 points
Mean score: 22.31 points
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
   1 Los Angeles Rams      .563 (5)  .580 (7)  2.22 (6)   3.15 (5)  
   2 Seattle Seahawks      .504 (14) .618 (4)  0.27 (14)  4.31 (4)  
   3 Houston Texans        .586 (3)  .510 (15) 3.29 (3)   0.15 (16) 
   4 Indianapolis Colts    .472 (21) .696 (1)  -0.95 (20) 7.33 (1)  
   5 Kansas City Chiefs    .524 (11) .446 (24) 0.73 (12)  -1.96 (24)
   6 Buffalo Bills         .466 (23) .392 (30) -1.16 (23) -4.03 (30)
   7 Detroit Lions         .462 (24) .519 (11) -1.37 (24) 1.12 (11) 
   8 San Francisco 49ers   .554 (6)  .532 (10) 2.28 (5)   1.20 (10) 
   9 Jacksonville Jaguars  .545 (8)  .513 (14) 1.70 (9)   0.33 (14) 
  10 Denver Broncos        .456 (26) .509 (16) -1.68 (26) 0.29 (15) 
  11 Green Bay Packers     .445 (29) .482 (19) -1.99 (29) -0.59 (18)
  12 New England Patriots  .363 (32) .450 (23) -4.99 (32) -1.80 (23)
  13 Philadelphia Eagles   .535 (10) .431 (27) 1.32 (10)  -2.66 (27)
  14 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .587 (2)  .367 (31) 3.40 (2)   -4.74 (31)
  15 Arizona Cardinals     .568 (4)  .619 (3)  2.54 (4)   4.87 (2)  
  16 Dallas Cowboys        .471 (22) .453 (22) -1.07 (21) -1.61 (22)
  17 Baltimore Ravens      .477 (19) .478 (20) -0.87 (19) -0.79 (20)
  18 Los Angeles Chargers  .427 (30) .634 (2)  -2.69 (30) 4.76 (3)  
  19 Chicago Bears         .415 (31) .541 (8)  -3.05 (31) 1.28 (9)  
  20 Pittsburgh Steelers   .472 (20) .460 (21) -1.07 (22) -1.41 (21)
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
  21 Atlanta Falcons       .477 (18) .585 (5)  -0.76 (18) 3.08 (6)  
  22 Carolina Panthers     .523 (12) .541 (9)  0.82 (11)  1.53 (8)  
  23 Washington Commanders .513 (13) .487 (17) 0.39 (13)  -0.42 (17)
  24 Minnesota Vikings     .498 (16) .482 (18) 0.04 (16)  -0.66 (19)
  25 New York Giants       .553 (7)  .328 (32) 1.86 (7)   -6.11 (32)
  26 Miami Dolphins        .460 (25) .438 (26) -1.42 (25) -2.31 (26)
  27 New York Jets         .452 (27) .517 (12) -1.74 (27) 0.60 (12) 
  28 New Orleans Saints    .541 (9)  .396 (29) 1.75 (8)   -3.75 (29)
  29 Cleveland Browns      .450 (28) .403 (28) -1.86 (28) -3.57 (28)
  30 Cincinnati Bengals    .487 (17) .441 (25) -0.51 (17) -2.16 (25)
  31 Tennessee Titans      .622 (1)  .515 (13) 4.43 (1)   0.43 (13) 
  32 Las Vegas Raiders     .503 (15) .583 (6)  0.07 (15)  3.00 (7)  

Simulating the Rest of the Season

These results are based on games and computer ratings through December 1, 2025. The season was simulated 20,000 times, and the results of the simulations have been aggregated to predict final records and playoff chances. Tiebreakers for making the postseason are simplified, and the simulations don’t factor in potential issues like injuries, but this is still useful for making an educated guess about the standings at the end of the regular season.

Projected Standings

First up is the projected won-loss records, points scored, and points allowed for each team. The rating column is the team’s overall rating, included as a measure of team strength.

AFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
New England Patriots  13.52 3.46  0.02  .796  454.46  324.24  3.33  
Buffalo Bills         11.63 5.35  0.02  .684  484.45  359.64  5.53  
Miami Dolphins        7.12  9.86  0.02  .420  354.91  407.91  -5.07 
New York Jets         4.54  12.45 0.02  .267  338.58  446.19  -7.29 

AFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Baltimore Ravens      8.56  8.42  0.02  .504  411.37  412.84  -0.37 
Pittsburgh Steelers   8.41  8.57  0.02  .495  392.73  404.19  -2.06 
Cincinnati Bengals    5.71  11.27 0.02  .337  398.99  524.35  -8.60 
Cleveland Browns      4.84  12.14 0.02  .285  283.46  384.04  -8.56 

AFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Jacksonville Jaguars  10.99 5.99  0.02  .647  421.02  360.22  4.85  
Houston Texans        10.42 6.56  0.02  .613  373.21  270.45  8.36  
Indianapolis Colts    10.56 6.42  0.02  .622  486.26  375.65  7.85  
Tennessee Titans      2.42  14.56 0.02  .143  243.23  445.39  -8.75 

AFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Denver Broncos        12.95 4.02  0.02  .763  388.32  304.49  4.04  
Kansas City Chiefs    9.54  7.43  0.02  .562  418.37  304.18  6.65  
Los Angeles Chargers  9.76  7.22  0.02  .575  370.35  372.15  -0.83 
Las Vegas Raiders     2.96  14.02 0.02  .175  238.68  430.60  -10.60

NFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Philadelphia Eagles   11.18 5.80  0.02  .658  384.06  336.16  2.99  
Dallas Cowboys        8.67  7.31  1.02  .540  503.06  487.34  -0.28 
Washington Commanders 4.92  12.06 0.02  .290  369.97  452.03  -4.71 
New York Giants       4.12  12.86 0.02  .243  381.24  464.90  -5.00 

NFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Green Bay Packers     11.01 4.97  1.02  .678  407.68  320.52  3.41  
Chicago Bears         11.07 5.91  0.02  .652  423.03  432.75  -1.92 
Detroit Lions         10.04 6.94  0.02  .591  493.55  396.95  5.28  
Minnesota Vikings     5.94  11.04 0.02  .350  325.95  403.23  -4.81 

NFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  10.24 6.73  0.02  .603  403.66  397.48  1.07  
Carolina Panthers     8.52  8.46  0.02  .502  320.46  389.15  -3.10 
Atlanta Falcons       5.78  11.20 0.02  .340  334.68  396.18  -2.71 
New Orleans Saints    3.98  12.99 0.03  .235  265.65  397.41  -7.68 

NFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Los Angeles Rams      12.64 4.34  0.02  .744  472.66  301.87  12.64 
Seattle Seahawks      12.44 4.55  0.02  .732  487.64  317.78  11.69 
San Francisco 49ers   11.31 5.68  0.01  .665  407.74  355.91  4.87  
Arizona Cardinals     4.88  12.10 0.02  .288  364.00  427.23  -0.28 

Playoff Chances

The next table shows each team’s chances of making the playoffs, winning their division, and having the best record in the conference. The mean playoff seed is an average that uses only the seasons when each team made the playoffs. Div% and Conf% are the probabilities of a team having the best record in their division and conference, respectively.

AFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
New England Patriots  3.33    .796   99.96%  84.16%  57.38%     1.95
Buffalo Bills         5.53    .684   94.22%  15.84%   7.18%     4.81
Miami Dolphins        -5.07   .420    0.12%   0.00%   0.00%     6.92
New York Jets         -7.29   .267    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Baltimore Ravens      -0.37   .504   53.81%  53.79%   0.00%     3.99
Pittsburgh Steelers   -2.06   .495   45.67%  45.41%   0.00%     4.00
Cincinnati Bengals    -8.60   .337    0.79%   0.78%   0.00%     4.02
Cleveland Browns      -8.56   .285    0.02%   0.02%   0.00%     4.00

AFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Jacksonville Jaguars  4.85    .647   85.89%  39.36%   2.89%     4.52
Houston Texans        8.36    .613   72.69%  29.24%   0.21%     4.90
Indianapolis Colts    7.85    .622   72.17%  31.40%   1.26%     4.72
Tennessee Titans      -8.75   .143    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Denver Broncos        4.04    .763   98.99%  93.66%  30.78%     2.07
Kansas City Chiefs    6.65    .562   39.92%   1.81%   0.00%     6.27
Los Angeles Chargers  -0.83   .575   35.73%   4.52%   0.31%     5.88
Las Vegas Raiders     -10.60  .175    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Philadelphia Eagles   2.99    .658   93.81%  91.80%   5.26%     2.90
Dallas Cowboys        -0.28   .540   15.88%   8.20%   0.00%     5.03
Washington Commanders -4.71   .290    0.01%   0.01%   0.00%     4.00
New York Giants       -5.00   .243    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Green Bay Packers     3.41    .678   88.27%  57.68%   8.67%     3.63
Chicago Bears         -1.92   .652   70.05%  33.67%   6.79%     4.37
Detroit Lions         5.28    .591   43.66%   8.64%   0.46%     5.86
Minnesota Vikings     -4.81   .350    0.02%   0.00%   0.00%     7.00

NFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  1.07    .603   82.49%  81.83%   0.32%     3.73
Carolina Panthers     -3.10   .502   18.91%  18.11%   0.00%     3.99
Atlanta Falcons       -2.71   .340    0.07%   0.07%   0.00%     4.21
New Orleans Saints    -7.68   .235    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Los Angeles Rams      12.64   .744   97.81%  53.29%  40.79%     3.13
Seattle Seahawks      11.69   .732   97.67%  41.34%  33.67%     3.70
San Francisco 49ers   4.87    .665   91.36%   5.38%   4.04%     5.64
Arizona Cardinals     -0.28   .288    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

Possible Regular Season Outcomes

To give a range of how good or bad a team’s final record might be, several percentiles are shown for each team’s final winning percentage.

AFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
New England Patriots  .796  100.00%   .706   .765   .824   .824   .882
Buffalo Bills         .684  99.94%    .588   .647   .706   .706   .765
Miami Dolphins        .420  9.66%     .353   .353   .412   .471   .500
New York Jets         .267  0.00%     .176   .235   .265   .294   .353

AFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Baltimore Ravens      .504  52.28%    .412   .471   .529   .529   .588
Pittsburgh Steelers   .495  46.59%    .412   .471   .471   .529   .588
Cincinnati Bengals    .337  0.31%     .235   .294   .353   .353   .412
Cleveland Browns      .285  0.00%     .235   .235   .294   .353   .353

AFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Jacksonville Jaguars  .647  99.63%    .588   .588   .647   .706   .706
Houston Texans        .613  97.47%    .529   .588   .588   .647   .706
Indianapolis Colts    .622  97.66%    .529   .588   .647   .647   .706
Tennessee Titans      .143  0.00%     .059   .118   .118   .176   .235

AFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Denver Broncos        .763  100.00%   .706   .706   .765   .824   .824
Kansas City Chiefs    .562  85.89%    .471   .529   .588   .588   .647
Los Angeles Chargers  .575  88.87%    .471   .529   .588   .588   .647
Las Vegas Raiders     .175  0.00%     .118   .118   .176   .176   .235

NFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Philadelphia Eagles   .658  99.67%    .588   .647   .647   .706   .706
Dallas Cowboys        .540  57.62%    .441   .500   .559   .559   .618
Washington Commanders .290  0.00%     .235   .235   .294   .353   .353
New York Giants       .243  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .294   .294

NFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Green Bay Packers     .678  99.11%    .618   .618   .676   .735   .735
Chicago Bears         .652  100.00%   .588   .588   .647   .706   .706
Detroit Lions         .591  93.19%    .529   .529   .588   .647   .647
Minnesota Vikings     .350  0.86%     .294   .294   .353   .412   .412

NFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .603  95.03%    .529   .588   .588   .647   .706
Carolina Panthers     .502  49.55%    .412   .471   .500   .529   .588
Atlanta Falcons       .340  0.33%     .294   .294   .353   .353   .412
New Orleans Saints    .235  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .294   .294

NFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Los Angeles Rams      .744  100.00%   .647   .706   .765   .765   .824
Seattle Seahawks      .732  100.00%   .647   .706   .735   .765   .824
San Francisco 49ers   .665  100.00%   .588   .647   .647   .706   .706
Arizona Cardinals     .288  0.00%     .235   .235   .294   .324   .353

Postseason Projections

The final table shows each team’s probability of reaching the playoffs, the divisional round, the conference championship, winning their conference, and winning the Super Bowl.

AFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
New England Patriots  .796    99.96%   79.22%    38.70%   16.16%  5.42%
Buffalo Bills         .684    94.22%   55.84%    27.77%   14.45%  5.59%
Miami Dolphins        .420     0.12%    0.03%     0.01%    0.01%  0.00%
New York Jets         .267     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Baltimore Ravens      .504    53.81%   21.83%     6.98%    2.43%  0.66%
Pittsburgh Steelers   .495    45.67%   16.57%     4.74%    1.68%  0.39%
Cincinnati Bengals    .337     0.79%    0.14%     0.03%    0.01%  0.00%
Cleveland Browns      .285     0.02%    0.01%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Jacksonville Jaguars  .647    85.89%   43.26%    22.41%   11.38%  4.28%
Houston Texans        .613    72.69%   42.99%    25.97%   16.12%  7.86%
Indianapolis Colts    .622    72.17%   42.23%    24.94%   14.87%  6.74%
Tennessee Titans      .143     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Denver Broncos        .763    98.99%   65.34%    33.56%   15.04%  5.34%
Kansas City Chiefs    .562    39.92%   20.40%    10.81%    6.30%  2.64%
Los Angeles Chargers  .575    35.73%   12.14%     4.08%    1.56%  0.39%
Las Vegas Raiders     .175     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Philadelphia Eagles   .658    93.81%   48.32%    21.46%    7.24%  3.13%
Dallas Cowboys        .540    15.88%    5.72%     1.55%    0.40%  0.14%
Washington Commanders .290     0.01%    0.01%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
New York Giants       .243     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Green Bay Packers     .678    88.27%   49.21%    21.39%    7.05%  3.23%
Chicago Bears         .652    70.05%   27.93%     7.84%    1.86%  0.58%
Detroit Lions         .591    43.66%   22.62%     8.83%    3.77%  1.80%
Minnesota Vikings     .350     0.02%    0.01%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .603    82.49%   29.71%    10.62%    3.31%  1.43%
Carolina Panthers     .502    18.91%    4.89%     1.21%    0.30%  0.08%
Atlanta Falcons       .340     0.07%    0.01%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
New Orleans Saints    .235     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Los Angeles Rams      .744    97.81%   83.16%    57.30%   37.01% 25.66%
Seattle Seahawks      .732    97.67%   79.20%    51.60%   31.78% 21.28%
San Francisco 49ers   .665    91.36%   49.21%    18.19%    7.28%  3.33%
Arizona Cardinals     .288     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

Week 14 Game Predictions

The thresholds for close games, blowouts, and high and low scoring games are different in the NFL than in college football. That’s because NFL teams are balanced enough in talent to usually avoid truly lopsided scores and there’s just less scoring overall.

Games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL for many of the same reasons I just mentioned. This is just for predicting which NFL games are most and least compelling each weekend.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. In the event that a margin is larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score, that’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a forecast of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This isn’t even close to possible with the current NFL ratings, even with the weakest offense against the strongest defense, but it does occur once in awhile in college football. A negative score is impossible, of course, so the score would be set to zero in those instances. However, there’s no upper limit on how many points a team can be projected to score. But with more parity between NFL teams, even the highest scoring predictions aren’t going to be nearly as crazy as what is possible with the college football ratings.

#1: Houston Texans (-0.31, 48.84%) at Kansas City Chiefs (0.31, 50.70%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 16.14 - 16.54, Total: 32.69
Quality: 92.52%, Team quality: 89.01%, Competitiveness: 99.98%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.47%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.54%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 5.31%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 50.86%

#2: Indianapolis Colts (0.97, 52.64%) at Jacksonville Jaguars (-0.97, 46.90%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 26.97 - 25.99, Total: 52.96
Quality: 89.62%, Team quality: 84.94%, Competitiveness: 99.76%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.57%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.49%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 41.66%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 8.33%

#3: Los Angeles Rams (10.89, 78.68%) at Arizona Cardinals (-10.89, 21.00%), Tie (0.33%)
Estimated score: 27.75 - 16.90, Total: 44.65
Quality: 73.44%, Team quality: 72.95%, Competitiveness: 74.43%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 34.90%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 12.61%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 21.57%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 20.98%

#4: Philadelphia Eagles (1.79, 55.04%) at Los Angeles Chargers (-1.79, 44.51%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 20.15 - 18.37, Total: 38.52
Quality: 68.29%, Team quality: 56.67%, Competitiveness: 99.20%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.85%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.38%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 11.29%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 35.10%

#5: Dallas Cowboys (-7.59, 28.59%) at Detroit Lions (7.59, 71.02%), Tie (0.39%)
Estimated score: 28.21 - 35.77, Total: 63.98
Quality: 67.39%, Team quality: 59.44%, Competitiveness: 86.60%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 28.24%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 14.93%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 70.99%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 1.59%

#6: Seattle Seahawks (12.37, 81.67%) at Atlanta Falcons (-12.37, 18.04%), Tie (0.30%)
Estimated score: 28.73 - 16.37, Total: 45.10
Quality: 63.53%, Team quality: 61.25%, Competitiveness: 68.36%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 38.43%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 11.47%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 22.50%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 20.09%

#7: Chicago Bears (-7.36, 29.17%) at Green Bay Packers (7.36, 70.43%), Tie (0.39%)
Estimated score: 18.96 - 26.29, Total: 45.25
Quality: 59.56%, Team quality: 49.18%, Competitiveness: 87.35%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 27.84%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.08%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 22.81%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 19.80%

#8: Pittsburgh Steelers (-3.71, 38.97%) at Baltimore Ravens (3.71, 60.59%), Tie (0.44%)
Estimated score: 21.81 - 25.49, Total: 47.30
Quality: 54.40%, Team quality: 40.82%, Competitiveness: 96.61%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.12%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.88%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 27.32%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 16.09%

#9: Washington Commanders (-1.92, 44.14%) at Minnesota Vikings (1.92, 55.41%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 20.33 - 22.25, Total: 42.58
Quality: 35.92%, Team quality: 21.63%, Competitiveness: 99.08%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.90%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.36%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 17.62%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 25.34%

#10: New Orleans Saints (-10.77, 21.25%) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10.77, 78.42%), Tie (0.33%)
Estimated score: 15.30 - 26.05, Total: 41.35
Quality: 33.27%, Team quality: 22.17%, Competitiveness: 74.91%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 34.63%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 12.70%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 15.50%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 28.15%

#11: Denver Broncos (12.61, 82.13%) at Las Vegas Raiders (-12.61, 17.58%), Tie (0.29%)
Estimated score: 23.60 - 10.95, Total: 34.55
Quality: 30.07%, Team quality: 20.09%, Competitiveness: 67.35%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 39.03%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 11.29%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 6.86%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 45.72%

#12: Cincinnati Bengals (-16.16, 11.77%) at Buffalo Bills (16.16, 88.01%), Tie (0.22%)
Estimated score: 21.66 - 37.80, Total: 59.45
Quality: 29.67%, Team quality: 22.31%, Competitiveness: 52.45%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 48.47%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 8.56%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 59.45%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 3.34%

#13: Miami Dolphins (0.20, 50.35%) at New York Jets (-0.20, 49.19%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 21.77 - 21.60, Total: 43.36
Quality: 29.01%, Team quality: 15.63%, Competitiveness: 99.99%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.46%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.54%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 19.06%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 23.63%

#14: Tennessee Titans (-2.22, 43.27%) at Cleveland Browns (2.22, 56.28%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 15.69 - 17.93, Total: 33.61
Quality: 18.09%, Team quality: 7.74%, Competitiveness: 98.78%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 22.05%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.30%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 6.04%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 48.30%

If the first few paragraphs of this article didn’t make it obvious, I’m looking forward to writing about baseball. I’m still working on the baseball article, but I expect to post that in the next day or two. Thanks for reading!

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The ratings in this article are based on data from Pro Football Reference.

At least for one week, The Linked Letters After Dark is back to being a late night column. It’s a few minutes before 4 AM as I write this, a bit later than I’d hoped for when I decided to post this tonight, but still properly late at night. I’ve already posted updated ratings for this week on another page, but I’ll include them in this column. More importantly, I want to discuss the teams I believe have a plausible chance of reaching the college football playoff.

I disagree with some of the selection committee’s decisions, especially placing one loss BYU behind multiple SEC teams with two losses. Instead of repeating the same complaints, my plan is to analyze the teams that I believe can plausibly reach the playoff. After the new computer ratings, I’ll split the playoff contenders into six tiers. The first five tiers are the teams that I actually think are plausible playoff contenders. The sixth tier includes teams that can make the playoff, but they need the committee’s help to reconsider their ranking instead of just reaching the playoff with a combination of winning and lots of help from other teams losing.

Let’s get to this week’s ratings, which are final ratings instead of the preliminary ratings in other editions of The Linked Letters After Dark.

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Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

The last column here is SOR, which means strength of record. Unlike all the other columns, this is a backward looking rating and evaluates the quality of a team’s wins and losses in comparison to a hypothetical team with a rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. Such a hypothetical team would typically be ranked somewhere between #10 and #15. Strength of record is just each team’s actual winning percentage minus the expected winning percentage for that hypothetical team against the same schedule. This is negative for most teams because their record is being compared against the expected record for a pretty good team.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 1.84 points
Mean score: 26.84 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
   1      90.30  +1.97  Indiana               46.91   43.18    .189
   2      86.40  +0.11  Ohio State            39.27   47.41    .174
   3      84.74  +0.88  Oregon                43.64   41.09    .176
   4      82.16  -0.04  Notre Dame            43.31   38.85   -.000
   5      81.46  +2.14  Texas Tech            41.12   40.44    .051
   6      78.21  -0.55  Utah                  42.51   35.66   -.024
   7   +4 76.06  +2.83  Miami                 34.02   42.04    .004
   8   -1 75.61  -0.85  Alabama               37.80   37.78    .068
   9   -1 74.17  -0.29  USC                   40.38   33.85   -.005
  10   +3 73.28  +0.37  BYU                   36.12   37.22    .111
  11   +1 73.25  +0.05  Washington            38.30   34.87   -.123
  12   +3 73.01  +1.15  Vanderbilt            41.91   31.11    .015
  13   -3 72.40  -0.84  Georgia               32.57   39.74    .097
  14   -5 72.31  -1.14  Texas A&M             38.73   33.59    .117
  15   +3 72.22  +1.53  Iowa                  30.67   41.62   -.068
  16   -2 71.87  -0.41  Oklahoma              29.30   42.44    .056
  17   -1 71.38  +0.34  Ole Miss              40.05   31.28    .063
  18   -1 70.91  +0.19  Penn State            36.24   34.62   -.220
  19      69.73  -0.69  Michigan              33.38   36.22   -.021
  20   +4 68.31  +1.27  South Florida         39.34   29.10   -.137
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  21      68.02  +0.20  Texas                 31.79   36.23    .005
  22      67.81  +0.41  Missouri              32.34   35.34   -.128
  23   -3 67.47  -1.80  Tennessee             41.56   25.84   -.146
  24   +4 66.81  +1.51  Arizona               32.07   34.72   -.144
  25      66.42  +0.72  North Texas           42.74   23.67   -.048
  26   -3 65.75  -1.42  Florida State         34.05   31.68   -.425
  27   -1 65.57  -0.00  Illinois              32.73   32.98   -.076
  28   -1 65.01  -0.38  Auburn                29.01   36.02   -.346
  29   +1 64.72  +0.38  LSU                   26.09   38.73   -.176
  30   -1 63.55  -1.17  Pittsburgh            34.85   28.65   -.175
  31      62.88  -0.50  Iowa State            29.41   33.49   -.197
  32  +15 62.67  +4.33  Louisville            31.66   31.04   -.208
  33   +2 62.65  +0.97  Virginia              31.83   30.82   -.101
  34   +4 62.49  +2.31  James Madison         30.24   32.43   -.055
  35   +4 61.98  +1.87  Florida               27.13   34.81   -.382
  36   -3 61.61  -0.60  SMU                   30.42   31.26   -.239
  37   +4 61.12  +1.70  TCU                   32.05   29.06   -.218
  38   -6 60.99  -1.54  Nebraska              31.24   29.61   -.253
  39   +3 60.14  +0.85  Kansas State          32.15   27.77   -.318
  40   -6 59.77  -1.92  South Carolina        25.69   34.08   -.417
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  41   -5 59.48  -1.03  Cincinnati            31.49   28.14   -.255
  42   +3 59.43  +0.96  Georgia Tech          31.28   28.04   -.163
  43  +10 59.19  +2.24  Clemson               27.87   31.21   -.325
  44   -4 58.93  -0.96  Arizona State         24.80   34.13   -.150
  45   +4 58.18  +0.83  Houston               28.51   29.58   -.143
  46  +10 58.11  +1.95  East Carolina         28.49   29.54   -.270
  47   +1 58.09  -0.00  Toledo                26.78   31.30   -.313
  48   +4 57.87  +0.91  NC State              31.30   26.46   -.222
  49   -5 57.81  -0.95  Mississippi State     32.20   25.69   -.377
  50   -7 57.72  -1.23  Arkansas              34.69   22.89   -.576
  51   -5 57.60  -0.78  Wisconsin             20.52   37.25   -.279
  52   -1 57.30  +0.18  Northwestern          23.75   33.73   -.270
  53  -16 57.14  -3.11  Kentucky              26.39   30.76   -.358
  54   +7 56.56  +2.15  Duke                  34.11   22.35   -.347
  55      56.54  +0.35  Boise State           28.16   28.38   -.220
  56   +3 56.49  +1.46  Kansas                29.90   26.59   -.376
  57   -7 56.08  -1.21  Memphis               28.43   27.74   -.289
  58   -1 55.71  -0.42  Old Dominion          26.54   29.17   -.152
  59   -5 55.28  -1.09  Wake Forest           23.14   32.25   -.255
  60   -2 55.26  -0.35  San Diego State       21.84   33.29   -.229
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  61   +1 54.93  +0.75  Rutgers               31.98   23.05   -.308
  62   -2 54.87  -0.10  Tulane                25.57   29.37   -.096
  63   +2 54.71  +1.00  Michigan State        28.02   26.79   -.422
  64      54.70  +0.89  Washington State      21.44   33.34   -.355
  65   +3 54.52  +1.40  Minnesota             25.52   29.07   -.201
  66      53.34  -0.28  Baylor                32.58   20.72   -.427
  67   -4 53.20  -0.67  UTSA                  30.57   22.59   -.389
  68   -1 52.85  -0.58  Maryland              25.06   27.74   -.477
  69   +2 52.76  +1.17  UNLV                  33.16   19.52   -.148
  70      52.64  +0.54  New Mexico            24.79   27.82   -.192
  71   +2 51.62  +0.85  UCF                   22.47   29.20   -.432
  72      51.54  +0.65  UCLA                  24.15   27.35   -.411
  73   +1 51.37  +0.62  Utah State            28.37   23.00   -.398
  74   -5 51.33  -1.39  Purdue                23.97   27.50   -.480
  75   +1 51.00  +2.25  Navy                  25.84   25.09   -.048
  76   +4 49.85  +1.69  Army                  18.74   31.09   -.392
  77   +2 49.25  +1.02  UConn                 28.11   21.15   -.242
  78   -1 49.09  +0.61  Virginia Tech         24.65   24.41   -.580
  79   +2 48.86  +0.88  Colorado              23.67   25.12   -.573
  80   -5 48.44  -1.10  West Virginia         24.24   24.20   -.462
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  81   +1 48.18  +0.90  Stanford              21.12   27.06   -.447
  82   -4 48.02  -0.36  Western Michigan      18.69   29.41   -.276
  83   +3 47.51  +1.44  Hawai’i               23.11   24.38   -.293
  84   -1 47.34  +0.45  Louisiana Tech        21.77   25.46   -.385
  85   +6 46.89  +2.65  California            22.97   23.91   -.355
  86   +3 46.86  +1.71  Fresno State          21.00   25.81   -.308
  87   -3 46.39  -0.43  Western Kentucky      23.47   22.92   -.298
  88      46.37  +0.91  Texas State           29.77   16.57   -.470
  89   -4 46.26  -0.41  Ohio                  23.86   22.37   -.250
  90   -3 46.07  +0.29  Miami (OH)            21.31   24.85   -.389
  91   -1 45.31  +0.45  Kennesaw State        23.75   21.45   -.164
  92   +4 45.15  +2.70  Boston College        24.95   19.97   -.703
  93   -1 44.08  -0.05  Temple                24.84   19.27   -.497
  94   +3 43.74  +2.01  Air Force             24.80   18.89   -.642
  95      43.65  +0.61  North Carolina        17.81   25.76   -.609
  96   -3 42.68  -1.04  Syracuse              20.80   21.85   -.550
  97   -3 42.59  -0.84  Marshall              24.90   17.68   -.525
  98   +1 40.84  -0.23  Wyoming               12.29   28.49   -.603
  99  +10 40.83  +2.69  Florida International 20.36   20.44   -.374
 100   -2 40.68  -0.61  Southern Miss         21.58   19.10   -.407
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 101   +5 40.50  +1.22  Jacksonville State    21.20   19.31   -.327
 102   +3 40.49  +1.05  Troy                  18.28   22.41   -.307
 103   -3 40.23  -0.77  Missouri State        20.35   19.74   -.356
 104      39.80  +0.25  Liberty               19.78   20.09   -.644
 105   -3 39.75  -0.30  Central Michigan      17.53   22.14   -.354
 106   -5 39.43  -0.78  Tulsa                 19.02   20.40   -.639
 107      39.16  -0.09  Oregon State          17.57   21.50   -.678
 108   +7 38.17  +1.99  Oklahoma State        16.05   22.04   -.707
 109   -6 38.15  -1.44  Florida Atlantic      24.71   13.43   -.609
 110   -2 37.73  -0.60  Nevada                14.60   23.07   -.689
 111   -1 37.08  -1.02  Louisiana             19.91   17.17   -.451
 112   +1 36.96  +0.04  Arkansas State        16.60   20.37   -.478
 113   +3 36.83  +1.29  Georgia Southern      22.32   14.38   -.429
 114   -3 36.79  -1.30  Colorado State        17.30   19.44   -.759
 115   +6 36.02  +1.18  Bowling Green         12.99   22.93   -.628
 116   +3 35.92  +0.95  UAB                   21.50   14.51   -.585
 117   +9 35.89  +2.45  Delaware              22.19   13.89   -.486
 118   -6 35.74  -1.23  San José State        20.02   15.89   -.702
 119   -5 35.49  -1.01  South Alabama         18.90   16.65   -.612
 120      34.92  -0.03  App State             17.83   17.09   -.549
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 121   +3 34.90  +0.85  Buffalo               15.29   19.55   -.574
 122   -5 34.71  -0.83  Rice                  14.45   20.20   -.514
 123   -5 33.58  -1.69  New Mexico State      13.69   19.90   -.629
 124   -1 33.33  -1.29  Northern Illinois     11.61   21.72   -.718
 125   +2 32.86  +0.24  Eastern Michigan      18.95   13.78   -.652
 126   -4 32.33  -2.31  UTEP                  16.65   15.69   -.797
 127   +1 32.13  +0.15  Akron                 15.37   16.74   -.557
 128   -3 31.64  -2.13  Coastal Carolina      17.79   13.83   -.444
 129      31.38  +1.14  Middle Tennessee      15.45   15.83   -.736
 130   +1 29.57  +0.95  Kent State            18.04   11.63   -.445
 131   -1 29.49  -0.67  Ball State            12.32   17.33   -.623
 132   +1 28.46  +1.36  Georgia State         14.68   13.55   -.811
 133   -1 28.25  +0.38  Charlotte             11.69   16.49   -.803
 134   +1 25.33  +0.73  UL Monroe             10.36   14.96   -.684
 135   -1 24.30  -1.68  Sam Houston           12.91   11.38   -.794
 136      12.65  -0.68  Massachusetts         5.67    6.98    -.926

Schedule Strength

There are two different measures of schedule strength in this table. The first two columns measure the difficulty a team’s past and future schedules would pose for a team that would be 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. The columns are the team’s expected losing percentage against that schedule, meaning that higher numbers indicate a stronger schedule. This should be somewhat similar to the schedule strength from ESPN’s FPI ratings.

The last two columns are also the past and future schedules, but they’re just the average of the opponents’ predictive ratings with an adjustment for the site of the game. Schedule strength is a factor in deciding which teams belong in the college football playoff, and these two columns aren’t always representative of the schedule strength for a team near the top of the ratings. These ratings should be closer to the schedule strength in Jeff Sagarin’s ratings, which are the rating a team would need to be expected to win exactly 50% of games against that team’s schedule.

Past and Future Schedule Strength
Home advantage: 1.84 points
Mean score: 26.84 points
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
   1 Indiana               .189 (35)  .832 (2)  56.31 (36)  86.40 (2) 
   2 Ohio State            .174 (42)  .899 (1)  55.42 (44)  90.30 (1) 
   3 Oregon                .260 (8)   ---       61.19 (5)   ---       
   4 Notre Dame            .166 (45)  ---       57.74 (27)  ---       
   5 Texas Tech            .135 (58)  .465 (5)  48.60 (76)  73.28 (5) 
   6 Utah                  .143 (55)  ---       55.48 (42)  ---       
   7 Miami                 .171 (43)  ---       55.60 (39)  ---       
   8 Alabama               .235 (17)  .437 (6)  58.27 (22)  72.40 (6) 
   9 USC                   .245 (14)  ---       60.30 (9)   ---       
  10 BYU                   .195 (32)  .715 (3)  56.48 (34)  81.46 (3) 
  11 Washington            .210 (24)  ---       58.35 (20)  ---       
  12 Vanderbilt            .182 (39)  ---       55.71 (38)  ---       
  13 Georgia               .180 (40)  .540 (4)  57.09 (29)  75.61 (4) 
  14 Texas A&M             .201 (30)  ---       57.80 (25)  ---       
  15 Iowa                  .266 (7)   ---       57.03 (30)  ---       
  16 Oklahoma              .223 (21)  ---       59.42 (12)  ---       
  17 Ole Miss              .146 (53)  ---       54.53 (48)  ---       
  18 Penn State            .280 (5)   ---       60.28 (11)  ---       
  19 Michigan              .229 (19)  ---       60.92 (6)   ---       
  20 South Florida         .113 (65)  ---       48.55 (77)  ---       
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
  21 Texas                 .255 (11)  ---       58.43 (18)  ---       
  22 Missouri              .206 (28)  ---       54.46 (49)  ---       
  23 Tennessee             .187 (36)  ---       55.20 (47)  ---       
  24 Arizona               .106 (69)  ---       52.98 (56)  ---       
  25 North Texas           .036 (112) .079 (11) 43.79 (95)  56.71 (11)
  26 Florida State         .158 (49)  ---       54.01 (52)  ---       
  27 Illinois              .257 (10)  ---       59.37 (14)  ---       
  28 Auburn                .237 (16)  ---       58.31 (21)  ---       
  29 LSU                   .240 (15)  ---       60.64 (7)   ---       
  30 Pittsburgh            .158 (48)  ---       53.45 (54)  ---       
  31 Iowa State            .136 (57)  ---       55.26 (46)  ---       
  32 Louisville            .126 (61)  ---       53.23 (55)  ---       
  33 Virginia              .065 (87)  .077 (12) 49.43 (69)  56.56 (12)
  34 James Madison         .028 (118) .002 (20) 41.08 (109) 38.65 (20)
  35 Florida               .284 (4)   ---       62.94 (4)   ---       
  36 SMU                   .094 (72)  ---       50.30 (65)  ---       
  37 TCU                   .116 (62)  ---       55.49 (41)  ---       
  38 Nebraska              .164 (46)  ---       54.20 (51)  ---       
  39 Kansas State          .182 (38)  ---       57.90 (24)  ---       
  40 South Carolina        .249 (12)  ---       59.38 (13)  ---       
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
  41 Cincinnati            .161 (47)  ---       52.39 (58)  ---       
  42 Georgia Tech          .087 (74)  ---       51.28 (62)  ---       
  43 Clemson               .092 (73)  ---       51.34 (61)  ---       
  44 Arizona State         .184 (37)  ---       57.78 (26)  ---       
  45 Houston               .107 (67)  ---       51.84 (60)  ---       
  46 East Carolina         .063 (89)  ---       45.03 (88)  ---       
  47 Toledo                .020 (128) ---       38.24 (131) ---       
  48 NC State              .194 (33)  ---       56.86 (32)  ---       
  49 Mississippi State     .207 (27)  ---       56.16 (37)  ---       
  50 Arkansas              .258 (9)   ---       58.99 (15)  ---       
  51 Wisconsin             .388 (1)   ---       66.58 (2)   ---       
  52 Northwestern          .230 (18)  ---       56.43 (35)  ---       
  53 Kentucky              .225 (20)  ---       60.29 (10)  ---       
  54 Duke                  .069 (85)  .174 (9)  51.86 (59)  62.65 (9) 
  55 Boise State           .113 (64)  .030 (14) 48.99 (70)  50.91 (14)
  56 Kansas                .207 (26)  ---       55.48 (43)  ---       
  57 Memphis               .045 (104) ---       43.95 (94)  ---       
  58 Old Dominion          .098 (71)  ---       41.88 (105) ---       
  59 Wake Forest           .078 (79)  ---       50.08 (67)  ---       
  60 San Diego State       .021 (127) ---       42.74 (101) ---       
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
  61 Rutgers               .276 (6)   ---       58.51 (17)  ---       
  62 Tulane                .071 (82)  .216 (7)  48.99 (71)  64.58 (7) 
  63 Michigan State        .245 (13)  ---       60.42 (8)   ---       
  64 Washington State      .145 (54)  ---       53.61 (53)  ---       
  65 Minnesota             .216 (23)  ---       54.31 (50)  ---       
  66 Baylor                .156 (50)  ---       55.27 (45)  ---       
  67 UTSA                  .111 (66)  ---       48.85 (75)  ---       
  68 Maryland              .190 (34)  ---       55.57 (40)  ---       
  69 UNLV                  .019 (129) .100 (10) 44.03 (93)  58.39 (10)
  70 New Mexico            .058 (95)  ---       47.16 (81)  ---       
  71 UCF                   .151 (52)  ---       50.59 (63)  ---       
  72 UCLA                  .339 (3)   ---       67.04 (1)   ---       
  73 Utah State            .102 (70)  ---       47.44 (80)  ---       
  74 Purdue                .353 (2)   ---       64.34 (3)   ---       
  75 Navy                  .134 (59)  .025 (15) 45.95 (86)  49.85 (15)
  76 Army                  .062 (91)  .031 (13) 48.90 (74)  51.00 (13)
  77 UConn                 .008 (135) ---       37.96 (133) ---       
  78 Virginia Tech         .170 (44)  ---       57.98 (23)  ---       
  79 Colorado              .177 (41)  ---       58.37 (19)  ---       
  80 West Virginia         .205 (29)  ---       56.87 (31)  ---       
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
  81 Stanford              .219 (22)  ---       58.67 (16)  ---       
  82 Western Michigan      .057 (99)  .012 (17) 43.08 (98)  46.07 (17)
  83 Hawai’i               .041 (107) ---       42.63 (103) ---       
  84 Louisiana Tech        .031 (116) ---       41.06 (110) ---       
  85 California            .061 (92)  ---       48.93 (73)  ---       
  86 Fresno State          .025 (123) ---       40.79 (113) ---       
  87 Western Kentucky      .036 (113) ---       39.40 (124) ---       
  88 Texas State           .030 (117) ---       40.56 (115) ---       
  89 Ohio                  .083 (77)  ---       40.47 (116) ---       
  90 Miami (OH)            .028 (120) .017 (16) 41.69 (107) 48.02 (16)
  91 Kennesaw State        .086 (75)  .005 (19) 41.83 (106) 42.35 (19)
  92 Boston College        .131 (60)  ---       52.66 (57)  ---       
  93 Temple                .086 (76)  ---       45.95 (85)  ---       
  94 Air Force             .025 (124) ---       44.39 (91)  ---       
  95 North Carolina        .057 (98)  ---       48.97 (72)  ---       
  96 Syracuse              .200 (31)  ---       56.70 (33)  ---       
  97 Marshall              .058 (96)  ---       41.98 (104) ---       
  98 Wyoming               .064 (88)  ---       44.98 (89)  ---       
  99 Florida International .043 (106) ---       39.25 (127) ---       
 100 Southern Miss         .009 (134) ---       38.01 (132) ---       
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
 101 Jacksonville State    .007 (136) .007 (18) 36.78 (134) 43.47 (18)
 102 Troy                  .026 (122) .211 (8)  39.74 (123) 64.33 (8) 
 103 Missouri State        .060 (94)  ---       42.97 (99)  ---       
 104 Liberty               .022 (125) ---       40.88 (111) ---       
 105 Central Michigan      .063 (90)  ---       38.71 (130) ---       
 106 Tulsa                 .028 (119) ---       44.68 (90)  ---       
 107 Oregon State          .155 (51)  ---       50.11 (66)  ---       
 108 Oklahoma State        .209 (25)  ---       57.60 (28)  ---       
 109 Florida Atlantic      .058 (97)  ---       45.17 (87)  ---       
 110 Nevada                .061 (93)  ---       48.08 (79)  ---       
 111 Louisiana             .049 (102) ---       40.32 (117) ---       
 112 Arkansas State        .022 (126) ---       39.91 (121) ---       
 113 Georgia Southern      .071 (83)  ---       42.94 (100) ---       
 114 Colorado State        .075 (80)  ---       49.61 (68)  ---       
 115 Bowling Green         .038 (109) ---       39.31 (125) ---       
 116 UAB                   .081 (78)  ---       48.14 (78)  ---       
 117 Delaware              .014 (132) ---       39.28 (126) ---       
 118 San José State        .048 (103) ---       46.93 (82)  ---       
 119 South Alabama         .055 (101) ---       39.96 (119) ---       
 120 App State             .034 (114) ---       39.77 (122) ---       
Rank Team                  SOS        Future    OppRtg      Future    
 121 Buffalo               .010 (133) ---       34.40 (136) ---       
 122 Rice                  .070 (84)  ---       46.52 (83)  ---       
 123 New Mexico State      .038 (110) ---       39.95 (120) ---       
 124 Northern Illinois     .032 (115) ---       40.74 (114) ---       
 125 Eastern Michigan      .014 (130) ---       39.19 (128) ---       
 126 UTEP                  .037 (111) ---       39.18 (129) ---       
 127 Akron                 .027 (121) ---       36.77 (135) ---       
 128 Coastal Carolina      .056 (100) ---       43.34 (97)  ---       
 129 Middle Tennessee      .014 (131) ---       40.23 (118) ---       
 130 Kent State            .139 (56)  ---       42.71 (102) ---       
 131 Ball State            .044 (105) ---       43.49 (96)  ---       
 132 Georgia State         .106 (68)  ---       46.24 (84)  ---       
 133 Charlotte             .113 (63)  ---       50.57 (64)  ---       
 134 UL Monroe             .066 (86)  ---       40.86 (112) ---       
 135 Sam Houston           .040 (108) ---       44.05 (92)  ---       
 136 Massachusetts         .074 (81)  ---       41.41 (108) ---       

Conference Ratings

To rate the overall quality of conferences, I calculate the expected outcome if each team in a conference were to play every FBS team at a neutral site. The Win% column is the average probability of winning for all of the possible games and for all the teams in the conference. It’s similar to the average rating of all the teams in the conference, but it should be less skewed by outliers.

However, the idea of the “best” conference is subjective, and another way to judge the quality of a conference is to consider how many of its teams are among the best in the FBS. What if instead of playing every team in the FBS, each conference opponent just plays a hypothetical opponent with a rating that’s 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean? In this case, the quality of a conference is determined by how its teams would be expected to perform against a hypothetical opponent ranked somewhere around #10 to #15 in the FBS. This is what I’ve done with the HighWin% column. It’s analogous to how I calculate strength of record, and each conference’s rating is impacted more when the conference has more highly rated teams.

Conference Ratings
Rank Win% Conference        HighWin%  Rating Offense Defense OffDef    
   1 .757 SEC               .287 (3)  66.50  32.95   33.52   -0.57 (7) 
   2 .716 Big Ten           .306 (2)  65.73  31.98   33.77   -1.79 (9) 
   3 .690 FBS Independents  .378 (1)  65.70  35.71   30.00   5.72 (1)  
   4 .632 Big 12            .190 (4)  59.84  29.95   29.88   0.07 (5)  
   5 .575 ACC               .119 (5)  56.25  28.05   28.16   -0.11 (6) 
   6 .436 American Athletic .066 (6)  48.46  25.42   23.03   2.39 (2)  
   7 .403 Pac-12            .030 (7)  46.93  19.50   27.42   -7.92 (11)
   8 .394 Mountain West     .025 (8)  46.48  22.45   24.00   -1.54 (8) 
   9 .279 Sun Belt          .019 (9)  39.64  20.69   18.95   1.74 (3)  
  10 .249 Conference USA    .004 (11) 38.16  19.30   18.84   0.46 (4)  
  11 .245 Mid-American      .011 (10) 36.86  16.80   20.06   -3.26 (10)

Playoff Ratings

Here are the four components of the playoff ratings:

1. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s strength of record for a hypothetical team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS average. (SOR; 55%)

2. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s predictive rating (Fwd; 30%)

3. The team’s winning percentage (Win%; 10%)

4. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s strength of schedule for a hypothetical team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS average. (SOS; 5%)

Unlike my predictive ratings, these are based heavily on strength of record, meaning that they give more weight to a team’s past accomplishments than what they’re expected to do in the future.

Playoff Ratings
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
   1      .9792  -.0021 Indiana               .985  .779  1.000  .995
   2   +1 .9754  +.0078 Oregon                .983  .944  .917   .986
   3   -1 .9736  +.0055 Ohio State            .983  .726  1.000  .990
   4   +1 .9408  -.0012 BYU                   .968  .798  .917   .923
   5   -1 .9398  -.0202 Texas A&M             .970  .817  .917   .913
   6   +1 .9357  -.0017 Alabama               .953  .904  .833   .943
   7   -1 .9332  -.0081 Georgia               .963  .749  .917   .914
   8      .9326  +.0001 Texas Tech            .946  .556  .917   .976
   9      .9211  -.0041 Oklahoma              .948  .878  .833   .908
  10   +1 .9167  -.0016 Notre Dame            .918  .693  .833   .979
  11   -1 .9159  -.0040 Ole Miss              .951  .609  .917   .903
  12   +4 .9096  +.0194 Miami                 .921  .712  .833   .947
  13      .9073  +.0110 Vanderbilt            .928  .754  .833   .920
  14   -2 .9039  -.0011 USC                   .915  .922  .750   .931
  15      .8978  +.0059 Utah                  .903  .592  .833   .961
  16   +1 .8858  +.0110 Texas                 .921  .937  .750   .857
  17   -3 .8819  -.0142 Michigan              .905  .892  .750   .882
  18      .8654  +.0192 Iowa                  .868  .952  .667   .912
  19   +2 .8356  +.0078 North Texas           .885  .156  .917   .831
  20   -1 .8331  -.0081 Washington            .813  .845  .667   .923
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  21   +1 .8320  +.0068 Illinois              .861  .941  .667   .816
  22   +1 .8091  +.0085 Missouri              .808  .832  .667   .854
  23   +1 .8087  +.0220 James Madison         .879  .137  .917   .756
  24   +3 .7950  +.0226 South Florida         .798  .454  .750   .862
  25   -5 .7927  -.0467 Tennessee             .787  .772  .667   .849
  26   +3 .7837  +.0181 Virginia              .837  .253  .833   .759
  27   +3 .7817  +.0271 Arizona               .789  .422  .750   .838
  28   -2 .7566  -.0261 LSU                   .750  .914  .583   .801
  29   +5 .7469  +.0325 Penn State            .690  .966  .500   .897
  30   -2 .7461  -.0255 Pittsburgh            .751  .660  .667   .778
  31   -6 .7375  -.0465 Arizona State         .783  .761  .667   .674
  32   +3 .7353  +.0268 Navy                  .885  .551  .818   .464
  33   -1 .7308  +.0037 Tulane                .842  .273  .833   .569
  34   +5 .7281  +.0272 Houston               .791  .428  .750   .655
  35   +3 .7212  +.0188 Iowa State            .722  .564  .667   .764
  36   -5 .7198  -.0164 Georgia Tech          .767  .341  .750   .686
  37  +10 .7093  +.0604 Louisville            .707  .514  .667   .759
  38   +2 .7012  +.0118 Old Dominion          .781  .388  .750   .592
  39   +6 .6888  +.0332 TCU                   .693  .467  .667   .726
  40   +6 .6743  +.0211 UNLV                  .785  .113  .833   .512
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  41   +8 .6699  +.0279 NC State              .686  .798  .583   .647
  42   -9 .6699  -.0474 SMU                   .661  .370  .667   .737
  43   +8 .6634  +.0347 Minnesota             .717  .860  .583   .560
  44   -8 .6614  -.0445 Nebraska              .640  .682  .583   .722
  45   +7 .6528  +.0263 Boise State           .690  .457  .667   .613
  46   -9 .6483  -.0559 Cincinnati            .637  .673  .583   .687
  47   +6 .6403  +.0216 New Mexico            .729  .228  .750   .509
  48   -7 .6266  -.0567 San Diego State       .676  .118  .750   .579
  49   -6 .6221  -.0434 Northwestern          .614  .893  .500   .633
  50   +7 .6123  +.0382 East Carolina         .613  .244  .667   .653
  51   +4 .6082  +.0160 Kennesaw State        .766  .336  .750   .317
  52  -10 .6060  -.0639 Wake Forest           .637  .302  .667   .580
  53   -9 .6054  -.0601 Wisconsin             .600  .999  .333   .640
  54   -4 .5991  -.0311 Auburn                .491  .908  .417   .806
  55   +8 .5943  +.0442 Kansas State          .538  .755  .500   .703
  56   -8 .5776  -.0656 Memphis               .585  .182  .667   .601
  57  +11 .5700  +.0680 Clemson               .527  .361  .583   .680
  58   +6 .5683  +.0243 Toledo                .545  .117  .667   .653
  59   +1 .5662  +.0109 UConn                 .657  .091  .750   .418
  60   -4 .5658  -.0241 Rutgers               .554  .962  .417   .571
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  61   +9 .5433  +.0552 Florida               .433  .970  .333   .745
  62   +3 .5394  +.0186 Ohio                  .644  .322  .667   .340
  63   -9 .5340  -.0716 Kentucky              .472  .883  .417   .629
  64   +3 .5257  +.0231 Western Michigan      .604  .223  .667   .385
  65   +9 .5252  +.0592 Duke                  .490  .268  .583   .614
  66   -4 .5211  -.0321 Florida State         .365  .659  .417   .820
  67   -9 .5201  -.0449 Mississippi State     .442  .835  .417   .646
  68   +5 .5123  +.0433 Washington State      .478  .604  .500   .565
  69      .5103  +.0140 Kansas                .442  .836  .417   .612
  70   +5 .5049  +.0429 Hawai’i               .578  .171  .667   .372
  71  -12 .4954  -.0665 South Carolina        .377  .929  .333   .694
  72  -11 .4911  -.0632 Western Kentucky      .570  .156  .667   .344
  73   +5 .4842  +.0438 Fresno State          .554  .129  .667   .355
  74   -8 .4615  -.0592 UTSA                  .422  .446  .500   .524
  75   +6 .4528  +.0462 Michigan State        .371  .922  .333   .565
  76   +6 .4415  +.0374 Troy                  .555  .131  .667   .211
  77  +11 .4391  +.0754 California            .476  .238  .583   .356
  78   -6 .4372  -.0440 Utah State            .408  .406  .500   .475
  79   -8 .4318  -.0494 Baylor                .362  .652  .417   .528
  80      .4310  -.0020 UCLA                  .387  .994  .250   .479
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  81   +8 .4259  +.0625 Army                  .417  .242  .545   .434
  82   +3 .4221  +.0404 Jacksonville State    .523  .089  .667   .211
  83      .4122  +.0120 UCF                   .354  .628  .417   .481
  84   +3 .4113  +.0397 Louisiana Tech        .428  .145  .583   .368
  85   +6 .3978  +.0365 Miami (OH)            .422  .135  .583   .336
  86  -10 .3929  -.0639 Missouri State        .475  .234  .583   .206
  87  -10 .3926  -.0590 Central Michigan      .479  .243  .583   .197
  88   -9 .3859  -.0478 Maryland              .289  .783  .333   .515
  89   +5 .3781  +.0498 Florida International .447  .177  .583   .217
  90   +3 .3759  +.0221 Stanford              .331  .869  .333   .389
  91   +1 .3652  +.0068 Purdue                .285  .996  .167   .473
  92   -2 .3646  +.0024 West Virginia         .311  .831  .333   .396
  93   -7 .3494  -.0310 Arkansas              .168  .942  .167   .643
  94  -10 .3436  -.0553 Southern Miss         .393  .094  .583   .214
  95   +5 .3239  +.0435 Texas State           .298  .140  .500   .343
  96   +6 .3050  +.0456 Georgia Southern      .359  .273  .500   .146
  97   -1 .2885  -.0102 Temple                .261  .336  .417   .288
  98   +5 .2843  +.0362 Louisiana             .326  .196  .500   .150
  99      .2778  -.0086 Colorado              .171  .735  .250   .407
 100   +1 .2743  -.0008 Virginia Tech         .164  .707  .250   .413
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
 101   +3 .2733  +.0357 Kent State            .336  .574  .417   .061
 102   -7 .2703  -.0428 Coastal Carolina      .337  .220  .500   .080
 103   +3 .2590  +.0358 Arkansas State        .288  .122  .500   .148
 104   -7 .2533  -.0407 Marshall              .225  .227  .417   .254
 105   -7 .2507  -.0364 Syracuse              .196  .816  .250   .256
 106   +4 .2464  +.0470 Delaware              .276  .102  .500   .132
 107   -2 .2216  -.0074 Rice                  .240  .269  .417   .116
 108   +1 .2027  -.0058 North Carolina        .136  .224  .333   .278
 109   -2 .1933  -.0272 App State             .197  .153  .417   .118
 110   -2 .1888  -.0236 Wyoming               .142  .246  .333   .218
 111   +9 .1837  +.0416 Air Force             .109  .128  .333   .280
 112   +3 .1775  -.0004 Akron                 .189  .132  .417   .085
 113   +8 .1760  +.0343 UAB                   .159  .315  .333   .132
 114  +10 .1756  +.0416 Boston College        .069  .536  .167   .313
 115   -4 .1756  -.0206 Buffalo               .170  .095  .417   .118
 116   -4 .1702  -.0235 Florida Atlantic      .137  .227  .333   .168
 117   -3 .1585  -.0212 Tulsa                 .111  .135  .333   .190
 118   -2 .1577  -.0136 Liberty               .107  .122  .333   .197
 119   -6 .1556  -.0250 South Alabama         .134  .215  .333   .126
 120   -2 .1509  -.0077 Oregon State          .084  .647  .167   .186
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
 121   +7 .1476  +.0357 Bowling Green         .120  .163  .333   .134
 122   +3 .1377  +.0084 Oklahoma State        .067  .842  .083   .168
 123   -6 .1375  -.0291 New Mexico State      .119  .162  .333   .101
 124   -5 .1288  -.0223 Ball State            .124  .180  .333   .060
 125   -3 .1274  -.0143 Nevada                .077  .236  .250   .161
 126   -3 .1221  -.0170 Eastern Michigan      .101  .104  .333   .093
 127   -1 .1120  -.0165 San José State        .070  .193  .250   .130
 128   -1 .0989  -.0142 Colorado State        .044  .289  .167   .146
 129      .0957  -.0162 Northern Illinois     .061  .146  .250   .098
 130      .0917  -.0136 UL Monroe             .080  .254  .250   .033
 131   +2 .0824  +.0228 Middle Tennessee      .053  .103  .250   .077
 132   -1 .0679  -.0132 UTEP                  .031  .159  .167   .087
 133   -1 .0626  -.0010 Charlotte             .029  .457  .083   .051
 134   +1 .0601  +.0022 Georgia State         .027  .422  .083   .052
 135   -1 .0512  -.0070 Sam Houston           .032  .168  .167   .028
 136      .0199  -.0009 Massachusetts         .008  .285  .000   .003

Playoff Contenders

Rivalry week didn’t produce playoff chaos in the Big Ten, Big 12, or really even the SEC. Yes, Texas A&M fell in the playoff rankings after losing to Texas, but the game almost certainly won’t change who makes the playoff. The ACC is a mess, but it’s really been a mess ever since Miami picked up a second loss and left the conference without a clear favorite. Based on the selection committee’s rankings and the conference championship schedule, I’m going to separate the contenders for playoff spots into six tiers. The first five tiers are the teams that I believe can plausibly reach the playoff with a combination of winning their way in and getting help from other teams losing.

The sixth tier includes teams that could move into a playoff spot if the committee reconsiders past decisions, but they’re also teams that can’t get into the playoff just move up with help from other teams ahead of them losing. Computer ratings like the system I use certainly can shift even when a team hasn’t played. When a team’s rating changes due to winning or losing a game, it changes the expected margins of victory or defeat in all of their other games, and that means their opponents may also have their ratings adjusted. For the most part, people ranking teams subjectively aren’t going to take this into account.

For example, Florida State looked like a potentially dominant team for the first few weeks of the season, especially with a quality win over Alabama to open the season. Even though Florida State started picking up losses as the season went on, voters in the polls probably weren’t going to adjust Alabama’s ranking downward to account for that being a worse loss than it appeared after the third weekend of the season. Although it’s really not be practical for people to make these adjustments to subjective rankings in a consistent manner, computers certainly can adjust their ratings accordingly. Right now, it seems implausible for Texas to reach the playoff. If Georgia and Ohio State win in blowouts, that might make two of Texas’ losses not appear as bad, and that might justify moving Texas up in the rankings. But it’s much easier for computers to do this in a reasonable and consistent manner. It’s not that Texas can’t reach the playoff, but they can’t do so without the committee attempting this sort of adjustment.

Tier 1: Locks

Ohio State, Indiana, Georgia, Ole Miss, Oregon, and Texas A&M

Even if Georgia picks up a second loss, they’re unlikely to fall from #3 to being completely out of the playoff. The other teams with one loss on this list aren’t playing this weekend, so they should be safe. It’s unfathomable that a loss that could knock either Ohio State or Indiana out of the playoff. Therefore, all six teams in this tier should be locks.

Tier 2: Likely safe

Texas Tech and Oklahoma

Texas Tech is ranked #4 and is heading into a rematch against BYU. If BYU won the Big 12 championship in a dominant fashion, would that lower Texas Tech’s ranking enough to knock them out of the playoff? BYU would be in as the Big 12 champion, and there are two other conference champions currently outside of the top 12 that would also get automatic bids. If BYU is ranked ahead of Texas Tech in this scenario, then Texas Tech can’t be ranked lower than #10 and still reach the playoff. If Texas Tech is still ranked ahead of BYU in this scenario, then Texas Tech can’t fall farther than #9. That means it would likely take falling six or seven spots in the rankings for Texas Tech to be left out of the playoff. The committee probably wouldn’t drop Texas Tech that far for close loss, but a blowout could possibly put Texas Tech out of the playoff if the committee is harsh enough.

Oklahoma is #8, but they’re not absolutely safe. If BYU won a close game against Texas Tech, would the committee drop Texas Tech four or more spots? That doesn’t seem like a certainty. If BYU and Alabama win their conference championship games, four teams currently ranked behind Oklahoma would have automatic bids. This could make Oklahoma the last team in the playoff. They should still be safe, but the one exception is if the committee decides to reconsider whether a team like Notre Dame or Miami should be ranked ahead of Oklahoma.

Tier 3: In danger

Notre Dame and Alabama

Notre Dame’s danger is if Alabama and BYU win their conference championship games, then Alabama stays ahead of Notre Dame and also that three teams currently ranked below Notre Dame would have automatic bids. If Texas Tech and Georgia remain ahead of Notre Dame in this scenario, which seems likely, that would leave Notre Dame as probably the first team out.

Alabama is currently in at #9, but if they lose to Georgia, it’s hard to envision the selection committee taking them as a three loss team when there are other candidates with just two losses. It’s almost certain that they’d drop behind Notre Dame. If BYU wins the Big 12, Alabama would probably be at #10 and out of the playoff. If BYU loses, Alabama probably stays ahead of them. But there’s also the likely scenario that if Alabama loses, Miami or even Texas could move ahead of them. I suppose it’s possible that Georgia wins in overtime over Alabama and the committee decides to leave them at #9. But that’s not an especially likely scenario since Miami is a very good team with two losses, and the committee will also have to consider whether Texas is more deserving. I don’t think the SEC championship is quite a must win game for Alabama, but it’s close.

Tier 4: Must win

BYU, Virginia, Tulane, and North Texas

These are four teams that must win, but all four likely control their own destiny.

For BYU, I suppose it’s plausible that an overtime loss to Texas Tech wouldn’t completely eliminate them. In that scenario, if Alabama lost decisively to Georgia and the committee decided not to drop BYU behind any other teams like Miami and Texas, they could be in. Again, this is a very unlikely scenario, and the committee certainly hasn’t done BYU any favors so far. This means that it’s almost certain that BYU must win to reach the playoff.

As for Virginia, if they win the ACC championship, they will almost certainly be the #4 ranked conference champion, and that should put them in the playoff. If they lose, there’s no chance of an at-large bid.

It seems likely that the American champion will be the highest rated Group of 5 team. Tulane is currently in the lead, ahead of North Texas and James Madison. If Tulane wins against North Texas, it’s a strong enough win that it should keep them ahead of James Madison. But if North Texas wins, they would be 12-1 with another quality win added to their profile, and they’re already one spot ahead of James Madison. That means North Texas should also stay ahead of James Madison. It seems hard to envision the eventual American champion being left out of the playoff. Although this is a must win for both teams in the American championship, they also both appear to control their own destiny.

Tier 5: Needs help

Miami, James Madison, UNLV, Duke, Boise State, and Kennesaw State

Right now, Miami is #12. If Texas Tech and Georgia both win decisively, that would probably drop both Alabama and BYU behind Miami, raising them to #10. In this scenario, that’s also the last at-large spot. It means that unless the committee reconsiders their ordering of the teams and elevates a team like Texas, Vanderbilt, or Utah ahead of them, Miami should be in.

If Duke wins the ACC and James Madison wins the Sun Belt, it seems very likely that both the American champion and James Madison would be ranked ahead of Duke. In this scenario, it would be very hard to justify ranking a five loss ACC champion ahead of James Madison, and that would almost certainly result in two Group of 5 teams reaching the playoff. If James Madison lost, then UNLV could reach the playoff should they win the Mountain West.

If James Madison and UNLV both lose, a five loss Duke team seems likely to have a good chance over the other teams that would be in contention. Boise State would have four losses, and it would probably be harder to justify placing them ahead of Duke. The same goes for Kennesaw State, even if they win Conference USA and have just three losses. Still, this depends on how the committee would evaluate Boise State and Kennesaw State with respect to Duke.

James Madison and UNLV definitely seem plausible candidates to be a second Group of 5 playoff team. Boise State and Kennesaw State seem more like long shots from the Group of 5, but they can’t be ruled out. Based on my current playoff rankings, I’d argue that Duke is probably the least deserving of any of these teams. That said, is the selection committee willing to give a playoff bid to a four loss Boise State team or a three loss Kennesaw State team over the ACC champion? Of this, I am far less certain.

Tier 6: Fringe candidates

Texas, Vanderbilt, and Utah

The difference between these three teams and Miami is that there isn’t a plausible scenario where any of these teams could just back their way into the playoff with teams ahead of them losing and falling in the rankings. In the most favorable scenario for Miami, Texas Tech and Georgia win their championship games in blowouts, moving Alabama and BYU out of the way so that Miami can move into the final playoff spot. The other teams in the fifth tier are competing for the final two automatic bids given to conference champions, so they don’t meaningfully affect the three teams in this final tier.

The only way Texas, Vanderbilt, or Utah could make the playoff is if the selection committee reconsiders their profiles for the final rankings and decides to move any of them ahead of Miami. Although I mentioned a scenario where the selection committee would compare the profiles of Texas and Alabama, that’s also a scenario where both have three losses and are competing to be the first team on the wrong side of the playoff bubble. Farther down the list, Vanderbilt and Utah are in the same situation, needing the committee to reconsider their profiles in the final rankings, but also needing to leap over even more teams. Although ESPN’s Bubble Watch currently includes Texas as having a chance to reach the playoff, this seems implausible to me since there’s no scenario where they can just back their way in to the playoff by having enough teams lose in front of them and fall in the rankings. Overall, I concur with the Bubble Watch analysis that Texas can’t possibly get enough help from the teams ahead of them. Farther down in the rankings, it gets even more challenging for Vanderbilt or Utah, both of whom have two losses but would need to be reassessed as having a stronger profile than Texas. All of this seems quite unlikely, which is why I labeled these teams as fringe playoff contenders.

Upcoming Game Predictions

Upcoming games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL. NFL games are typically decided by smaller margins than college games, the teams are more balanced in their quality, and there’s just not as much scoring in the NFL. Thresholds for close games and blowouts are also different between college and the NFL for the same reasons.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. These margins are sometimes larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score. That’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a prediction of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This is, of course, impossible, so the score is set to zero in those instances. There’s no cap on how many points a team can be projected to score, though.

#1: Indiana (3.91, 62.28%) vs. Ohio State (-3.91, 37.72%)
Estimated score: 26.34 - 22.92, Total: 49.26
Quality: 98.58%, Team quality: 99.14%, Competitiveness: 97.48%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.16%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 40.68%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 32.08%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 39.95%

#2: Georgia (-3.22, 39.83%) vs. Alabama (3.22, 60.17%)
Estimated score: 21.63 - 24.90, Total: 46.53
Quality: 97.90%, Team quality: 97.71%, Competitiveness: 98.29%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.98%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.26%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 29.69%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 42.59%

#3: BYU (-8.17, 25.62%) vs. Texas Tech (8.17, 74.38%)
Estimated score: 22.51 - 30.74, Total: 53.25
Quality: 95.08%, Team quality: 98.11%, Competitiveness: 89.30%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 4.13%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 35.05%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 35.71%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 36.17%

#4: Duke (-6.09, 31.29%) vs. Virginia (6.09, 68.71%)
Estimated score: 30.12 - 36.32, Total: 66.44
Quality: 94.36%, Team quality: 94.57%, Competitiveness: 93.96%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.96%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.20%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 48.46%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 24.78%

#5: UNLV (-5.63, 32.60%) at Boise State (5.63, 67.40%)
Estimated score: 30.70 - 36.41, Total: 67.10
Quality: 93.56%, Team quality: 92.94%, Competitiveness: 94.82%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.76%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.80%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 49.11%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 24.26%

#6: Miami (OH) (-1.95, 43.80%) vs. Western Michigan (1.95, 56.20%)
Estimated score: 18.74 - 20.67, Total: 39.41
Quality: 92.88%, Team quality: 89.80%, Competitiveness: 99.37%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.75%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.05%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 23.88%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 49.60%

#7: North Texas (9.71, 78.17%) at Tulane (-9.71, 21.83%)
Estimated score: 39.29 - 29.66, Total: 68.94
Quality: 91.46%, Team quality: 94.77%, Competitiveness: 85.17%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.27%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 32.37%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 50.94%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 22.85%

#8: Kennesaw State (2.96, 59.39%) at Jacksonville State (-2.96, 40.61%)
Estimated score: 30.36 - 27.51, Total: 57.86
Quality: 91.14%, Team quality: 87.65%, Competitiveness: 98.54%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.93%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.45%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 40.06%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 31.97%

#9: Troy (-23.84, 2.81%) at James Madison (23.84, 97.19%)
Estimated score: 11.76 - 35.59, Total: 47.35
Quality: 66.12%, Team quality: 90.57%, Competitiveness: 35.24%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 31.07%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 8.19%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 30.40%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.79%

That’s it for this edition of The Linked Letters After Dark. My plan after this is to finally focus on some baseball content as well as adding a new non-sports section to this site. I’m working on that content now, and I’ll also be posting new NFL ratings tonight. I won’t be sending out another article tonight, but they’ll be updated in the Sports Data section. Thanks for reading!

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The ratings in this article are based on data obtained from collegefootballdata.com.

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m a bit late getting this posted, and because it’s Thanksgiving, it’s just going to be a quick update to the computer ratings and game predictions for the NFL this week.

I didn’t expect I’d be using a photo related to the Carolina Panthers this season given their initial rating of last in the NFL, but they have a 6-6 record and are still in contention to win the NFC South. Although the Rams are heavy favorites according to my ratings, it’s intriguing just because the Panthers weren’t expected to be in contention to win their division.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, and let’s get to the ratings and predictions.

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Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points. They don’t factor in wins and losses, only the margin of victory. The ratings don’t explicitly calculate the strength of schedule, though I calculate this afterwards. However, because of how the ratings are calculated, the quality of opponents does influence the ratings.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 2.30 points
Mean score: 22.34 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      14.08  +1.22  Los Angeles Rams      5.69    8.39   
   2      10.77  -1.07  Seattle Seahawks      7.38    3.36   
   3      8.82   +0.09  Indianapolis Colts    8.33    0.52   
   4      7.96   +0.14  Kansas City Chiefs    1.88    6.11   
   5      7.55   -0.21  Houston Texans        -0.36   7.94   
   6      6.42   -0.47  Detroit Lions         5.68    0.74   
   7      5.23   -0.50  Philadelphia Eagles   0.25    5.00   
   8      4.79   +0.04  Denver Broncos        -0.41   5.19   
   9      3.93   -0.03  Buffalo Bills         5.62    -1.67  
  10      3.53   +0.10  San Francisco 49ers   1.67    1.88   
  11      3.37   +0.09  Jacksonville Jaguars  2.92    0.46   
  12   +2 2.59   +0.89  Green Bay Packers     -0.91   3.47   
  13   -1 2.52   -0.52  New England Patriots  1.29    1.27   
  14   +1 2.19   +0.55  Baltimore Ravens      2.70    -0.53  
  15   -2 1.09   -1.62  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  2.73    -1.62  
  16      -0.81  -0.06  Los Angeles Chargers  -1.16   0.35   
  17   +2 -1.15  +0.63  Dallas Cowboys        5.98    -7.13  
  18   -1 -1.22  -0.43  Pittsburgh Steelers   0.09    -1.29  
  19   -1 -1.46  -0.20  Arizona Cardinals     -0.24   -1.21  
  20   +2 -2.61  +0.70  Atlanta Falcons       -3.08   0.49   
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21      -2.94  +0.19  Chicago Bears         0.73    -3.66  
  22   -2 -3.57  -0.55  Minnesota Vikings     -3.27   -0.33  
  23      -4.26  +0.54  New York Giants       -0.06   -4.18  
  24      -5.04  +0.02  Carolina Panthers     -5.50   0.45   
  25      -5.07  +0.15  Washington Commanders -1.80   -3.31  
  26      -5.22  +0.03  Miami Dolphins        -3.41   -1.80  
  27   +2 -7.02  +1.31  Cleveland Browns      -7.17   0.14   
  28   +2 -7.80  +0.85  Tennessee Titans      -5.05   -2.73  
  29   -1 -7.90  -0.21  New York Jets         -4.57   -3.38  
  30   -3 -8.41  -1.11  New Orleans Saints    -7.62   -0.81  
  31      -10.09 -1.26  Las Vegas Raiders     -8.19   -1.92  
  32      -10.32 +0.55  Cincinnati Bengals    -0.19   -10.14 

Schedule Strength

The first column is the expected losing percentage (1 minus winning percentage) for a hypothetical average NFL team in each team’s games played to date. Larger numbers mean a tougher schedule. The second column is the same thing, just for future games instead of past games.

The third column is the average opponent rating, with an adjustment for the site of games, for previously played games. The fourth column is the average opponent rating for the future games that each team will play. These two columns are the same schedule strength metrics from my previous NFL articles.

In college football, the two approaches to schedule strength would differ more just because the approach used in the first two columns limits the influence of truly lopsided blowout games. In the NFL, there just aren’t that many blowouts, and the teams are more evenly balanced. Therefore, there’s just not too much of a difference in the two approaches to measuring schedule strength.

Schedule Strength for an Average Team
Home advantage: 2.30 points
Mean score: 22.34 points
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
   1 Los Angeles Rams      .573 (3)  .546 (9)  2.51 (5)   1.87 (9)  
   2 Seattle Seahawks      .511 (12) .567 (6)  0.59 (12)  2.54 (5)  
   3 Indianapolis Colts    .463 (23) .664 (1)  -1.14 (22) 6.02 (1)  
   4 Kansas City Chiefs    .535 (10) .465 (23) 1.11 (11)  -1.25 (23)
   5 Houston Texans        .567 (4)  .562 (8)  2.65 (4)   2.21 (8)  
   6 Detroit Lions         .469 (21) .522 (14) -1.08 (21) 1.30 (13) 
   7 Philadelphia Eagles   .561 (6)  .410 (28) 2.26 (6)   -3.34 (28)
   8 Denver Broncos        .465 (22) .488 (20) -1.37 (24) -0.34 (20)
   9 Buffalo Bills         .460 (25) .420 (26) -1.40 (25) -3.12 (26)
  10 San Francisco 49ers   .563 (5)  .494 (19) 2.69 (3)   -0.10 (18)
  11 Jacksonville Jaguars  .552 (7)  .496 (18) 1.95 (7)   -0.18 (19)
  12 Green Bay Packers     .427 (30) .538 (11) -2.71 (30) 1.42 (11) 
  13 New England Patriots  .361 (32) .424 (24) -5.05 (32) -2.71 (24)
  14 Baltimore Ravens      .508 (14) .421 (25) 0.36 (13)  -2.99 (25)
  15 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .598 (2)  .348 (32) 3.82 (2)   -5.40 (32)
  16 Los Angeles Chargers  .462 (24) .571 (5)  -1.33 (23) 2.38 (6)  
  17 Dallas Cowboys        .457 (26) .501 (17) -1.51 (26) 0.11 (17) 
  18 Pittsburgh Steelers   .451 (29) .511 (16) -1.86 (29) 0.41 (16) 
  19 Arizona Cardinals     .544 (9)  .616 (2)  1.70 (9)   4.75 (2)  
  20 Atlanta Falcons       .472 (20) .537 (12) -0.92 (20) 1.36 (12) 
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
  21 Chicago Bears         .406 (31) .566 (7)  -3.34 (31) 2.22 (7)  
  22 Minnesota Vikings     .479 (18) .538 (10) -0.83 (18) 1.55 (10) 
  23 New York Giants       .551 (8)  .389 (31) 1.83 (8)   -3.93 (30)
  24 Carolina Panthers     .481 (17) .586 (4)  -0.73 (17) 3.26 (4)  
  25 Washington Commanders .509 (13) .529 (13) 0.27 (14)  1.04 (14) 
  26 Miami Dolphins        .475 (19) .394 (29) -0.85 (19) -4.04 (31)
  27 Cleveland Browns      .451 (28) .411 (27) -1.83 (28) -3.24 (27)
  28 Tennessee Titans      .624 (1)  .517 (15) 4.57 (1)   0.47 (15) 
  29 New York Jets         .456 (27) .470 (22) -1.61 (27) -1.07 (22)
  30 New Orleans Saints    .533 (11) .394 (30) 1.57 (10)  -3.81 (29)
  31 Las Vegas Raiders     .499 (15) .595 (3)  0.03 (15)  3.41 (3)  
  32 Cincinnati Bengals    .484 (16) .476 (21) -0.59 (16) -0.90 (21)

NFL Season Simulation Results

This season simulation is based on games and computer ratings through November 24, 2025. The season was simulated 20,000 times, and the results of the simulations have been aggregated to predict final records and playoff chances. Tiebreakers for making the postseason are simplified, and the simulations don’t factor in potential issues like injuries, but this is still useful for making an educated guess about the standings at the end of the regular season.

In some cases, playoff probabilities will show zero even though a team isn’t mathematically eliminated. That just means it’s unlikely enough of an event that it didn’t occur in the 20,000 simulations.

Projected Standings

First up is the projected won-loss records, points scored, and points allowed for each team. The rating column is the team’s overall rating, included as a measure of team strength.

AFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
New England Patriots  13.14 3.84  0.02  .774  448.75  331.23  2.52  
Buffalo Bills         11.00 5.98  0.02  .648  487.30  386.16  3.93  
Miami Dolphins        6.81  10.16 0.03  .401  356.17  406.24  -5.22 
New York Jets         3.99  12.98 0.02  .235  329.07  441.27  -7.90 

AFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Baltimore Ravens      9.77  7.21  0.02  .575  444.02  398.50  2.19  
Pittsburgh Steelers   8.73  8.24  0.02  .514  412.44  411.48  -1.22 
Cleveland Browns      5.41  11.56 0.03  .319  298.19  378.08  -7.02 
Cincinnati Bengals    4.61  12.37 0.02  .272  386.72  555.46  -10.32

AFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Indianapolis Colts    11.43 5.55  0.03  .673  503.21  374.50  8.82  
Jacksonville Jaguars  10.46 6.51  0.02  .616  421.25  383.62  3.37  
Houston Texans        9.69  7.28  0.03  .571  370.93  280.82  7.55  
Tennessee Titans      2.80  14.18 0.02  .165  264.46  448.50  -7.80 

AFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Denver Broncos        12.78 4.19  0.03  .753  384.19  289.57  4.79  
Kansas City Chiefs    10.33 6.63  0.03  .609  421.02  292.24  7.96  
Los Angeles Chargers  9.49  7.49  0.03  .559  359.18  369.60  -0.81 
Las Vegas Raiders     3.15  13.83 0.03  .186  235.94  422.96  -10.09

NFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Philadelphia Eagles   12.22 4.76  0.02  .720  403.95  324.78  5.23  
Dallas Cowboys        7.80  8.17  1.02  .489  490.56  492.04  -1.15 
New York Giants       4.47  12.51 0.02  .263  388.32  459.86  -4.26 
Washington Commanders 5.05  11.93 0.02  .298  356.84  452.46  -5.07 

NFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Detroit Lions         10.78 6.20  0.02  .635  494.78  381.35  6.42  
Green Bay Packers     10.16 5.81  1.03  .628  392.06  324.70  2.59  
Chicago Bears         10.21 6.76  0.02  .601  413.50  446.46  -2.94 
Minnesota Vikings     6.23  10.74 0.03  .367  346.16  407.93  -3.57 

NFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  10.01 6.97  0.02  .589  414.33  400.95  1.09  
Carolina Panthers     7.50  9.47  0.02  .442  295.65  388.57  -5.04 
Atlanta Falcons       6.41  10.57 0.02  .378  330.94  384.39  -2.61 
New Orleans Saints    4.27  12.70 0.03  .252  261.56  397.26  -8.41 

NFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Los Angeles Rams      13.69 3.29  0.02  .806  469.43  271.37  14.08 
Seattle Seahawks      12.17 4.81  0.02  .717  491.43  335.96  10.77 
San Francisco 49ers   10.92 6.06  0.02  .643  404.71  367.45  3.53  
Arizona Cardinals     5.14  11.84 0.02  .303  366.16  437.44  -1.46 

Playoff Chances

The next table shows each team’s chances of making the playoffs, winning their division, and having the best record in the conference. The mean playoff seed is an average that uses only the seasons when each team made the playoffs. Div% and Conf% are the probabilities of a team having the best record in their division and conference, respectively.

AFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
New England Patriots  2.52    .774   99.56%  86.13%  47.67%     2.11
Buffalo Bills         3.93    .648   83.16%  13.87%   3.72%     5.08
Miami Dolphins        -5.22   .401    0.10%   0.00%   0.00%     7.00
New York Jets         -7.90   .235    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Baltimore Ravens      2.19    .575   72.21%  70.42%   0.18%     3.93
Pittsburgh Steelers   -1.22   .514   34.29%  29.55%   0.05%     4.25
Cleveland Browns      -7.02   .319    0.03%   0.01%   0.00%     5.50
Cincinnati Bengals    -10.32  .272    0.01%   0.01%   0.00%     4.00

AFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Indianapolis Colts    8.82    .673   89.82%  62.86%  10.84%     3.48
Jacksonville Jaguars  3.37    .616   72.65%  22.93%   2.43%     4.98
Houston Texans        7.55    .571   53.53%  14.21%   0.24%     5.38
Tennessee Titans      -7.80   .165    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Denver Broncos        4.79    .753   98.30%  86.38%  33.95%     2.33
Kansas City Chiefs    7.96    .609   63.62%   9.99%   0.66%     5.54
Los Angeles Chargers  -0.81   .559   32.70%   3.63%   0.26%     5.90
Las Vegas Raiders     -10.09  .186    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Philadelphia Eagles   5.23    .720   99.64%  99.31%  18.75%     2.13
Dallas Cowboys        -1.15   .489    7.05%   0.69%   0.00%     6.41
New York Giants       -4.26   .263    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Washington Commanders -5.07   .298    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Detroit Lions         6.42    .635   80.71%  44.84%   1.75%     4.50
Green Bay Packers     2.59    .628   73.15%  37.41%   0.76%     4.61
Chicago Bears         -2.94   .601   53.26%  17.72%   0.84%     5.29
Minnesota Vikings     -3.57   .367    0.24%   0.03%   0.00%     6.50

NFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  1.09    .589   88.31%  88.03%   0.03%     3.85
Carolina Panthers     -5.04   .442   10.73%  10.49%   0.00%     4.05
Atlanta Falcons       -2.61   .378    1.51%   1.46%   0.00%     4.10
New Orleans Saints    -8.41   .252    0.03%   0.03%   0.00%     4.00

NFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Los Angeles Rams      14.08   .806   99.91%  77.27%  62.78%     2.09
Seattle Seahawks      10.77   .717   97.75%  21.85%  14.62%     4.53
San Francisco 49ers   3.53    .643   87.72%   0.89%   0.46%     5.90
Arizona Cardinals     -1.46   .303    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

Possible Regular Season Outcomes

To give a range of how good or bad a team’s final record might be, several percentiles are shown for each team’s final winning percentage.

AFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
New England Patriots  .774  100.00%   .706   .706   .765   .824   .824
Buffalo Bills         .648  98.81%    .588   .588   .647   .706   .706
Miami Dolphins        .401  6.65%     .294   .353   .412   .471   .471
New York Jets         .235  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .294   .294

AFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Baltimore Ravens      .575  86.72%    .471   .529   .588   .647   .647
Pittsburgh Steelers   .514  57.16%    .412   .471   .529   .588   .588
Cleveland Browns      .319  0.38%     .235   .294   .294   .353   .412
Cincinnati Bengals    .272  0.04%     .176   .235   .294   .294   .353

AFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Indianapolis Colts    .673  99.46%    .588   .647   .647   .706   .765
Jacksonville Jaguars  .616  96.60%    .529   .588   .618   .647   .706
Houston Texans        .571  86.01%    .471   .529   .588   .588   .647
Tennessee Titans      .165  0.00%     .118   .118   .176   .176   .235

AFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Denver Broncos        .753  100.00%   .647   .706   .765   .824   .824
Kansas City Chiefs    .609  95.03%    .529   .588   .588   .647   .706
Los Angeles Chargers  .559  81.35%    .471   .529   .529   .588   .647
Las Vegas Raiders     .186  0.00%     .118   .118   .176   .235   .235

NFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Philadelphia Eagles   .720  99.97%    .647   .706   .706   .765   .824
Dallas Cowboys        .489  28.18%    .382   .441   .500   .559   .559
New York Giants       .263  0.00%     .176   .235   .235   .294   .353
Washington Commanders .298  0.12%     .235   .235   .294   .353   .412

NFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Detroit Lions         .635  97.76%    .529   .588   .647   .706   .706
Green Bay Packers     .628  92.44%    .559   .559   .618   .676   .735
Chicago Bears         .601  94.69%    .529   .529   .588   .647   .706
Minnesota Vikings     .367  2.36%     .294   .294   .353   .412   .471

NFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .589  89.88%    .500   .529   .588   .647   .647
Carolina Panthers     .442  15.07%    .353   .412   .412   .471   .529
Atlanta Falcons       .378  2.91%     .294   .353   .353   .412   .471
New Orleans Saints    .252  0.00%     .176   .176   .235   .294   .353

NFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Los Angeles Rams      .806  100.00%   .706   .765   .824   .824   .882
Seattle Seahawks      .717  99.97%    .647   .676   .706   .765   .794
San Francisco 49ers   .643  99.36%    .588   .588   .647   .706   .706
Arizona Cardinals     .303  0.04%     .235   .235   .294   .353   .353

Postseason Projections

The final table shows each team’s probability of reaching the playoffs, the divisional round, the conference championship, winning their conference, and winning the Super Bowl.

AFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
New England Patriots  .774    99.56%   72.89%    34.75%   13.15%  3.97%
Buffalo Bills         .648    83.16%   40.21%    17.95%    8.44%  2.79%
Miami Dolphins        .401     0.10%    0.03%     0.01%    0.00%  0.00%
New York Jets         .235     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Baltimore Ravens      .575    72.21%   35.49%    13.35%    5.70%  1.59%
Pittsburgh Steelers   .514    34.29%   13.14%     4.03%    1.43%  0.34%
Cleveland Browns      .319     0.03%    0.01%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Cincinnati Bengals    .272     0.01%    0.01%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Indianapolis Colts    .673    89.82%   60.95%    38.63%   24.62% 11.35%
Jacksonville Jaguars  .616    72.65%   33.24%    14.58%    6.79%  2.17%
Houston Texans        .571    53.53%   29.22%    16.27%    9.72%  4.08%
Tennessee Titans      .165     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Denver Broncos        .753    98.30%   68.89%    36.89%   16.57%  5.76%
Kansas City Chiefs    .609    63.62%   35.66%    19.96%   12.24%  5.61%
Los Angeles Chargers  .559    32.70%   10.27%     3.60%    1.35%  0.27%
Las Vegas Raiders     .186     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Philadelphia Eagles   .720    99.64%   67.62%    36.20%   12.74%  6.42%
Dallas Cowboys        .489     7.05%    2.10%     0.35%    0.10%  0.01%
New York Giants       .263     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Washington Commanders .298     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Detroit Lions         .635    80.71%   46.47%    19.89%    8.24%  4.44%
Green Bay Packers     .628    73.15%   32.19%    10.84%    3.45%  1.54%
Chicago Bears         .601    53.26%   14.96%     3.00%    0.61%  0.15%
Minnesota Vikings     .367     0.24%    0.06%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .589    88.31%   32.42%     9.88%    2.95%  1.26%
Carolina Panthers     .442    10.73%    2.31%     0.41%    0.06%  0.01%
Atlanta Falcons       .378     1.51%    0.43%     0.09%    0.03%  0.01%
New Orleans Saints    .252     0.03%    0.01%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Los Angeles Rams      .806    99.91%   91.46%    68.22%   45.18% 32.20%
Seattle Seahawks      .717    97.75%   70.75%    39.56%   22.33% 14.12%
San Francisco 49ers   .643    87.72%   39.22%    11.56%    4.32%  1.89%
Arizona Cardinals     .303     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

Team Expected and Actual Records

This is similar to the strength of record data I use for college football. In that case, I predict how a hypothetical team with a predictive rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean would be expected to play against a team’s schedule, and I calculate an expected winning percentage. I subtract the expected winning percentage from the team’s actual winning percentage. The hypothetical team is a benchmark for how a good team would be expected to perform against a particular schedule. Teams with better records than the benchmark are typically very good teams, and they’re generally the teams that fans would subjectively consider most deserving of being in the college football playoff.

Instead of using a hypothetical team here, I substitute in each team’s actual predictive rating and calculate the expected winning percentage. Then I subtract that from the team’s actual winning percentage. For lack of a better term, I’ve been calling this team strength of record (TeamSOR), and that’s because it’s very similar to the other strength of record calculations I do in college football. When the number gets well above zero, and I would generally use at least above .100 as a threshold here, it’s an indication that a team’s record may have benefited from luck, and that the team might not be able to sustain their success. And when the number gets well below zero, probably at least below -.100, it implies a team might have been unlucky, and that they might be a good candidate to play better going forward. The Win% column is a team’s actual winning percentage, and Predictive is the team’s predictive rating.

Strength of Record for Each Team’s Rating
Rank TeamSOR Team                  Win%  Predictive 
   1 .213    Chicago Bears         .727  -2.94 (21) 
   2 .170    Denver Broncos        .818  4.79 (8)   
   3 .145    Philadelphia Eagles   .727  5.23 (7)   
   4 .141    San Francisco 49ers   .667  3.53 (10)  
   5 .132    New England Patriots  .833  2.52 (13)  
   6 .121    Los Angeles Chargers  .636  -0.81 (16) 
   7 .117    Carolina Panthers     .500  -5.04 (24) 
   8 .116    Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .545  1.09 (15)  
   9 .102    Jacksonville Jaguars  .636  3.37 (11)  
  10 .040    Green Bay Packers     .682  2.59 (12)  
  11 .035    Los Angeles Rams      .818  14.08 (1)  
  12 .028    Pittsburgh Steelers   .545  -1.22 (18) 
  13 .024    Cincinnati Bengals    .273  -10.32 (32)
  14 -.002   Baltimore Ravens      .545  2.19 (14)  
  15 -.008   Buffalo Bills         .636  3.93 (9)   
  16 -.011   Indianapolis Colts    .727  8.82 (3)   
  17 -.012   Dallas Cowboys        .500  -1.15 (17) 
  18 -.021   Miami Dolphins        .364  -5.22 (26) 
  19 -.025   Seattle Seahawks      .727  10.77 (2)  
  20 -.056   Detroit Lions         .636  6.42 (6)   
Rank TeamSOR Team                  Win%  Predictive 
  21 -.060   Minnesota Vikings     .364  -3.57 (22) 
  22 -.074   Las Vegas Raiders     .182  -10.09 (31)
  23 -.078   New Orleans Saints    .182  -8.41 (30) 
  24 -.082   Houston Texans        .545  7.55 (5)   
  25 -.087   Washington Commanders .273  -5.07 (25) 
  26 -.091   Cleveland Browns      .273  -7.02 (27) 
  27 -.094   Atlanta Falcons       .364  -2.61 (20) 
  28 -.111   Tennessee Titans      .091  -7.80 (28) 
  29 -.130   Kansas City Chiefs    .545  7.96 (4)   
  30 -.146   Arizona Cardinals     .273  -1.46 (19) 
  31 -.149   New York Jets         .182  -7.90 (29) 
  32 -.168   New York Giants       .167  -4.26 (23) 

Week 13 Game Predictions

The thresholds for close games, blowouts, and high and low scoring games are different in the NFL than in college football. That’s because NFL teams are balanced enough in talent to usually avoid truly lopsided scores and there’s just less scoring overall.

Games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL for many of the same reasons I just mentioned. This is just for predicting which NFL games are most and least compelling each weekend.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. In the event that a margin is larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score, that’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a forecast of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This isn’t even close to possible with the current NFL ratings, even with the weakest offense against the strongest defense, but it does occur once in awhile in college football. A negative score is impossible, of course, so the score would be set to zero in those instances. However, there’s no upper limit on how many points a team can be projected to score. But with more parity between NFL teams, even the highest scoring predictions aren’t going to be nearly as crazy as what is possible with the college football ratings.

#1: Houston Texans (-3.57, 39.32%) at Indianapolis Colts (3.57, 60.23%), Tie (0.44%)
Estimated score: 20.31 - 23.88, Total: 44.18
Quality: 91.90%, Team quality: 89.51%, Competitiveness: 96.86%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 22.61%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.02%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 21.26%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 22.52%

#2: Green Bay Packers (-6.14, 32.23%) at Detroit Lions (6.14, 67.35%), Tie (0.41%)
Estimated score: 19.54 - 25.69, Total: 45.24
Quality: 78.17%, Team quality: 72.45%, Competitiveness: 91.01%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 25.59%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.87%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 23.37%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 20.45%

#3: Kansas City Chiefs (6.80, 69.11%) at Dallas Cowboys (-6.80, 30.48%), Tie (0.40%)
Estimated score: 30.19 - 23.36, Total: 53.55
Quality: 72.71%, Team quality: 65.70%, Competitiveness: 89.07%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 26.61%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.50%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 43.42%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 8.42%

#4: Buffalo Bills (2.85, 58.15%) at Pittsburgh Steelers (-2.85, 41.40%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 28.09 - 25.24, Total: 53.34
Quality: 68.86%, Team quality: 57.73%, Competitiveness: 97.99%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 22.05%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.24%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 42.85%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 8.64%

#5: Arizona Cardinals (-4.86, 35.70%) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4.86, 63.87%), Tie (0.43%)
Estimated score: 22.57 - 27.43, Total: 49.99
Quality: 58.86%, Team quality: 46.51%, Competitiveness: 94.26%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.92%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.51%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 34.23%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 12.66%

#6: Denver Broncos (7.56, 71.07%) at Washington Commanders (-7.56, 28.54%), Tie (0.39%)
Estimated score: 24.08 - 16.50, Total: 40.58
Quality: 54.88%, Team quality: 43.66%, Competitiveness: 86.67%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 27.87%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.03%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 14.97%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 30.41%

#7: Chicago Bears (-10.47, 21.73%) at Philadelphia Eagles (10.47, 77.93%), Tie (0.34%)
Estimated score: 16.91 - 27.40, Total: 44.31
Quality: 54.82%, Team quality: 46.54%, Competitiveness: 76.05%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 33.70%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 12.99%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 21.51%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 22.26%

#8: Los Angeles Rams (16.82, 89.12%) at Carolina Panthers (-16.82, 10.67%), Tie (0.21%)
Estimated score: 26.43 - 9.60, Total: 36.02
Quality: 50.61%, Team quality: 51.15%, Competitiveness: 49.56%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 50.21%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 8.09%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 9.02%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 41.89%

#9: New York Giants (-9.08, 24.85%) at New England Patriots (9.08, 74.78%), Tie (0.36%)
Estimated score: 19.85 - 28.96, Total: 48.81
Quality: 48.40%, Team quality: 37.32%, Competitiveness: 81.37%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 30.74%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 14.01%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 31.35%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 14.36%

#10: Minnesota Vikings (-16.64, 10.91%) at Seattle Seahawks (16.64, 88.88%), Tie (0.21%)
Estimated score: 14.56 - 31.19, Total: 45.75
Quality: 47.88%, Team quality: 46.72%, Competitiveness: 50.30%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 49.70%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 8.22%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 24.45%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 19.49%

#11: San Francisco 49ers (8.25, 72.78%) at Cleveland Browns (-8.25, 26.84%), Tie (0.38%)
Estimated score: 22.71 - 14.44, Total: 37.15
Quality: 45.61%, Team quality: 33.54%, Competitiveness: 84.34%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 29.12%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 14.58%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 10.29%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 38.94%

#12: Jacksonville Jaguars (8.87, 74.28%) at Tennessee Titans (-8.87, 25.36%), Tie (0.37%)
Estimated score: 26.84 - 17.98, Total: 44.81
Quality: 42.19%, Team quality: 30.23%, Competitiveness: 82.15%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 30.31%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 14.16%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 22.51%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 21.27%

#13: Atlanta Falcons (2.99, 58.56%) at New York Jets (-2.99, 40.99%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 21.49 - 18.43, Total: 39.92
Quality: 33.43%, Team quality: 19.55%, Competitiveness: 97.79%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 22.15%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.20%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 13.96%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 31.99%

#14: New Orleans Saints (-5.50, 33.95%) at Miami Dolphins (5.50, 65.63%), Tie (0.42%)
Estimated score: 15.37 - 20.89, Total: 36.27
Quality: 24.62%, Team quality: 12.68%, Competitiveness: 92.72%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 24.71%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.21%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 9.28%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 41.25%

#15: Cincinnati Bengals (-14.81, 13.60%) at Baltimore Ravens (14.81, 86.15%), Tie (0.25%)
Estimated score: 21.53 - 36.32, Total: 57.85
Quality: 23.77%, Team quality: 15.22%, Competitiveness: 57.97%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 44.61%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 9.62%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 54.99%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 4.87%

#16: Las Vegas Raiders (-11.58, 19.41%) at Los Angeles Chargers (11.58, 80.28%), Tie (0.32%)
Estimated score: 12.65 - 24.24, Total: 36.89
Quality: 23.72%, Team quality: 13.65%, Competitiveness: 71.56%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 36.29%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 12.14%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 9.99%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 39.60%

Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for reading!

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This article uses data from Pro Football Reference to calculate the ratings.

The next round of college football playoff rankings are released tonight, and there are plenty of opportunities for the rankings to shift after this coming weekend’s games. While it doesn’t seem all that likely that there will be changes in the playoff bracket following last weekend’s games, but there are a couple of teams that might have justification for moving up. For me, the bigger question is whether BYU will continue to be excluded from a playoff spot despite having just one loss.

It seems rather unlikely that a team with three losses before their conference championship game will reach the college football playoff. It should be reasonably safe to now exclude Houston and USC from contention for a playoff spot. It’s possible there might be reason to consider a team with three losses if there’s absolute chaos in the final weekend of the regular season, which can’t be ruled out at this point, but it seems unlikely.

Last weekend, Alabama and Texas A&M steamrolled FCS opponents. Georgia dominated one of the lowest rated teams in the FBS. As expected, Notre Dame won in a blowout against one of the weakest Power 4 teams. None of these games should do much to influence the playoff race because none of these games were reasonably expected to be close. Among at-large teams projected to be in the playoff from Tuesday’s rankings, Indiana, Ole Miss, and Texas Tech didn’t play.

This means that among teams currently projected in the playoff, only Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Miami, and Tulane played games that should reasonably influence the playoff. Of these games, only Oregon winning over USC and Oklahoma only holding Missouri to two field goals should really have a significant impact. Those are the two games that should have the biggest impact on strength of record. The scores in Ohio State’s win over Rutgers, Miami’s win at Virginia Tech, and Tulane’s win at Temple weren’t close, but none of the opponents in those three games were strong enough where a blowout win would be grounds for rethinking a team’s rating. There are valid arguments for moving Oregon and Oklahoma up based on their quality wins, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot else that should shift the rankings.

For me, the real question at this point is why BYU is probably still going to be in a position where they’re left out of the playoff. The justification seems to be that BYU didn’t play well in their loss to Texas Tech. But they also have a quality win over Utah and have overall played a competitive schedule. Alabama didn’t play well in their season opener against Florida State, but they’re still a playoff team on the basis of the rest of the season. Oklahoma has put together a string of quality wins, but they didn’t play well in their 23-6 loss to Texas. Why don’t those games knock Alabama and Oklahoma out of the playoff?

The answer is that deciding which teams are most deserving requires examining their results over the entire season. With the exception of conference championship games in some circumstances, one game isn’t enough to decide if a team belongs or doesn’t belong. That’s exactly why there are statistical metrics like strength of record. They are backward looking ratings used to evaluate a team’s accomplishments over an entire season in an objective manner. My strength of record calculation ranks BYU (#5) ahead of Alabama (#8), Oklahoma (#9), Texas Tech (#10), and Notre Dame (#12). ESPN FPI’s strength of record puts BYU (#6) ahead of Oklahoma (#8), Alabama (#9), Texas Tech (#10), and Notre Dame (#12). Bill Connelly has his own backward looking measure that is somewhat similar to strength of record and places BYU (#9) behind Texas Tech (#4) and Notre Dame (#7), but they’re ahead of Oklahoma (#13) and Alabama (#14). Justin Williams wrote for The Athletic that BYU’s metrics are comparable to Oklahoma, Alabama, Notre Dame, and Oregon. He points out that we don’t know the exact metrics the selection committee uses, so it’s possible that they might have a metric that does rank BYU lower. But there are good reasons to rank BYU’s accomplishments comparably to other teams that are currently in playoff spots. This is based on the consensus of multiple rating systems, not just one single rating that might be an outlier. If the reason for putting BYU last among these teams really is the loss to Texas Tech, that reasoning doesn’t make sense and defeats the purpose of metrics like strength of record.

The rankings will be released this evening, but I’m not expecting there to be any differences in which teams are in the playoff as of this week’s rankings.

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Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

The last column here is SOR, which means strength of record. Unlike all the other columns, this is a backward looking rating and evaluates the quality of a team’s wins and losses in comparison to a hypothetical team with a rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. Such a hypothetical team would typically be ranked somewhere between #10 and #15. Strength of record is just each team’s actual winning percentage minus the expected winning percentage for that hypothetical team against the same schedule. This is negative for most teams because their record is being compared against the expected record for a pretty good team.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 1.93 points
Mean score: 26.85 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
   1      88.33  -0.14  Indiana               45.94   42.48    .201
   2      86.29  -0.56  Ohio State            39.12   47.17    .158
   3      83.86  +0.35  Oregon                43.88   39.91    .142
   4   +1 82.20  +1.27  Notre Dame            42.26   39.98    .002
   5   +1 79.32  -0.88  Texas Tech            40.27   38.98    .056
   6   -2 78.75  -3.31  Utah                  43.14   35.62   -.036
   7      76.46  -0.76  Alabama               37.83   38.63    .069
   8      74.46  -1.10  USC                   41.33   33.21   -.002
   9      73.45  -2.05  Texas A&M             39.86   33.62    .194
  10      73.24  -2.26  Georgia               33.90   39.36    .111
  11      73.23  -2.00  Miami                 33.38   40.00   -.020
  12   +2 73.19  +0.51  Washington            39.07   34.05   -.105
  13   -1 72.92  -1.04  BYU                   34.95   38.06    .116
  14   -1 72.28  -0.67  Oklahoma              29.20   43.12    .064
  15   +2 71.85  +1.14  Vanderbilt            41.69   30.17   -.001
  16   -1 71.04  -1.22  Ole Miss              40.32   30.72    .072
  17   +4 70.72  +1.50  Penn State            35.62   34.99   -.251
  18   -2 70.68  -1.23  Iowa                  29.00   41.39   -.089
  19   +1 70.43  +0.88  Michigan              34.11   36.31    .008
  20   -1 69.27  -0.29  Tennessee             42.95   26.48   -.089
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  21   +1 67.82  -0.69  Texas                 32.40   35.59   -.018
  22   +2 67.41  -1.01  Missouri              32.87   34.48   -.137
  23   -5 67.17  -2.46  Florida State         34.06   33.18   -.396
  24   +2 67.05  -0.10  South Florida         38.41   28.52   -.158
  25   +2 65.70  -0.31  North Texas           42.51   23.18   -.056
  26   -3 65.57  -2.91  Illinois              33.13   32.44   -.086
  27   +4 65.39  +1.07  Auburn                28.97   36.29   -.315
  28   +1 65.30  +0.23  Arizona               31.67   33.59   -.168
  29   -1 64.72  -0.38  Pittsburgh            35.79   28.99   -.146
  30   -5 64.34  -2.88  LSU                   25.63   38.71   -.139
  31   +4 63.38  +0.39  Iowa State            30.23   33.27   -.221
  32   -2 62.53  -2.10  Nebraska              31.39   31.14   -.213
  33   +8 62.21  +1.50  SMU                   29.87   32.33   -.188
  34   +4 61.68  +0.18  South Carolina        26.59   35.18   -.360
  35   -2 61.67  -1.39  Virginia              32.79   28.88   -.118
  36      60.51  -1.69  Cincinnati            31.78   28.93   -.201
  37   -3 60.26  -2.77  Kentucky              27.91   32.38   -.308
  38   +1 60.18  -1.11  James Madison         28.08   32.02   -.067
  39   -7 60.11  -3.20  Florida               25.27   34.78   -.423
  40   +5 59.89  -0.10  Arizona State         25.46   34.28   -.093
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  41   +5 59.42  -0.24  TCU                   30.64   28.39   -.241
  42   +7 59.29  +0.63  Kansas State          32.47   26.82   -.355
  43   +1 58.94  -1.09  Arkansas              36.00   22.84   -.542
  44   -2 58.76  -1.59  Mississippi State     32.98   26.02   -.337
  45   -5 58.46  -2.55  Georgia Tech          31.86   26.51   -.127
  46  +11 58.38  +2.33  Wisconsin             21.29   37.05   -.217
  47  -10 58.34  -3.71  Louisville            29.85   28.34   -.240
  48      58.09  -0.89  Toledo                28.14   29.88   -.336
  49   +2 57.35  -0.95  Houston               28.29   29.08   -.169
  50      57.29  -1.18  Memphis               29.14   28.31   -.229
  51   +1 57.12  -0.38  Northwestern          23.72   33.37   -.221
  52   +4 56.95  +0.89  NC State              30.35   26.59   -.245
  53   -6 56.95  -2.62  Clemson               26.69   30.30   -.373
  54   +6 56.37  +1.13  Wake Forest           22.60   33.69   -.193
  55   +3 56.19  +0.49  Boise State           28.76   27.67   -.245
  56  -13 56.16  -4.08  East Carolina         28.63   27.55   -.294
  57   +2 56.13  +0.77  Old Dominion          27.36   28.68   -.171
  58   -4 55.61  -0.95  San Diego State       22.16   33.34   -.166
  59   -6 55.04  -2.19  Kansas                29.51   25.62   -.375
  60   +5 54.97  +0.86  Tulane                26.36   28.55   -.104
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  61   -6 54.41  -1.93  Duke                  31.96   22.47   -.388
  62      54.19  -0.90  Rutgers               30.93   23.27   -.276
  63  +11 53.87  +3.15  UTSA                  30.51   23.19   -.335
  64      53.81  -0.53  Washington State      20.43   33.32   -.391
  65   +3 53.71  +1.06  Michigan State        26.82   26.87   -.461
  66   -3 53.61  -1.14  Baylor                33.31   20.26   -.378
  67   -6 53.42  -1.76  Maryland              24.62   28.90   -.429
  68   -2 53.12  -0.77  Minnesota             25.40   27.32   -.226
  69   +1 52.72  +0.14  Purdue                24.38   28.30   -.504
  70   +3 52.10  +1.32  New Mexico            24.33   27.77   -.211
  71   +6 51.58  +1.43  UNLV                  32.51   18.92   -.162
  72   -3 50.89  -1.71  UCLA                  24.75   26.14   -.403
  73   -6 50.77  -2.16  UCF                   21.31   29.69   -.431
  74   +2 50.75  +0.49  Utah State            28.62   22.23   -.347
  75   -3 49.54  -1.27  West Virginia         24.94   24.54   -.469
  76   +3 48.74  -0.47  Navy                  25.39   23.47   -.064
  77   +3 48.48  -0.63  Virginia Tech         25.42   23.17   -.569
  78   +3 48.37  -0.66  Western Michigan      18.65   29.73   -.301
  79   -1 48.23  -1.68  UConn                 27.81   20.50   -.244
  80   -5 48.16  -2.17  Army                  17.54   30.73   -.442
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  81  -10 47.97  -2.83  Colorado              24.01   23.98   -.549
  82   +6 47.29  +0.35  Stanford              20.08   27.13   -.459
  83      46.89  -1.55  Louisiana Tech        20.99   26.02   -.421
  84   +8 46.81  +1.58  Western Kentucky      23.15   23.60   -.234
  85   -1 46.67  -1.75  Ohio                  24.15   22.52   -.272
  86   -4 46.07  -2.69  Hawai’i               22.62   23.37   -.323
  87   +6 45.78  +0.62  Miami (OH)            20.05   25.77   -.423
  88   +1 45.45  -1.17  Texas State           29.07   16.41   -.512
  89   -3 45.15  -1.85  Fresno State          19.79   25.37   -.337
  90   +1 44.86  -0.42  Kennesaw State        22.65   22.24   -.179
  91   -6 44.24  -3.01  California            20.54   23.85   -.409
  92   -2 44.14  -1.84  Temple                24.82   19.32   -.481
  93   -6 43.72  -3.23  Syracuse              21.87   21.84   -.510
  94      43.43  -1.59  Marshall              26.72   16.68   -.481
  95      43.04  -1.12  North Carolina        17.43   25.86   -.590
  96   +3 42.46  -0.63  Boston College        24.46   18.00   -.773
  97      41.74  -1.80  Air Force             23.48   18.16   -.703
  98   -2 41.29  -2.38  Southern Miss         22.16   19.03   -.352
  99   -1 41.07  -2.47  Wyoming               12.60   28.47   -.567
 100      41.00  -0.14  Missouri State        20.08   20.89   -.295
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 101   +5 40.21  +0.31  Tulsa                 19.41   20.78   -.607
 102   +1 40.05  -0.43  Central Michigan      18.52   21.44   -.295
 103   +4 39.59  -0.20  Florida Atlantic      26.26   13.32   -.580
 104   +1 39.55  -0.54  Liberty               18.78   20.85   -.615
 105   -3 39.45  -1.18  Troy                  18.03   21.57   -.336
 106   -5 39.29  -1.50  Jacksonville State    20.37   19.07   -.358
 107   -3 39.25  -0.89  Oregon State          17.61   21.64   -.661
 108   +6 38.33  +1.00  Nevada                14.99   23.34   -.663
 109   +4 38.14  +0.37  Florida International 18.71   19.55   -.407
 110      38.10  -0.52  Louisiana             20.17   17.92   -.495
 111   -3 38.10  -0.79  Colorado State        17.59   20.46   -.736
 112      36.97  -1.17  San José State        20.46   16.59   -.675
 113   -4 36.92  -1.80  Arkansas State        16.09   20.87   -.518
 114   +5 36.51  +0.76  South Alabama         19.25   17.22   -.577
 115   +9 36.18  +0.90  Oklahoma State        15.37   20.92   -.702
 116   -5 35.54  -2.77  Georgia Southern      23.11   12.38   -.470
 117      35.54  -0.48  Rice                  14.77   20.72   -.503
 118   +7 35.26  +0.07  New Mexico State      14.95   20.43   -.589
 119   +3 34.97  -0.53  UAB                   21.17   13.88   -.636
 120   +6 34.94  -0.15  App State             17.14   17.81   -.510
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 121   -6 34.84  -2.19  Bowling Green         11.55   23.08   -.690
 122   +1 34.64  -0.69  UTEP                  16.81   17.85   -.778
 123   -2 34.62  -0.94  Northern Illinois     11.68   22.95   -.688
 124   -4 34.06  -1.58  Buffalo               14.52   19.27   -.537
 125   -9 33.77  -2.70  Coastal Carolina      17.63   16.13   -.403
 126   -8 33.45  -2.56  Delaware              19.83   13.69   -.530
 127      32.63  -1.16  Eastern Michigan      18.96   13.72   -.616
 128      31.98  -0.36  Akron                 15.59   16.32   -.553
 129   +2 30.24  +0.52  Middle Tennessee      14.80   15.38   -.801
 130   -1 30.15  -0.65  Ball State            11.36   18.80   -.586
 131   -1 28.63  -1.63  Kent State            16.88   11.94   -.481
 132   +2 27.87  +0.56  Charlotte             12.40   15.59   -.794
 133      27.10  -0.35  Georgia State         14.68   12.42   -.805
 134   -2 25.98  -1.72  Sam Houston           13.28   12.69   -.775
 135      24.60  +0.12  UL Monroe             9.71    14.78   -.651
 136      13.33  -0.39  Massachusetts         5.23    8.10    -.922

Schedule Strength

There are two different measures of schedule strength in this table. The first two columns measure the difficulty a team’s past and future schedules would pose for a team that would be 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. The columns are the team’s expected losing percentage against that schedule, meaning that higher numbers indicate a stronger schedule. This should be somewhat similar to the schedule strength from ESPN’s FPI ratings.

The last two columns are also the past and future schedules, but they’re just the average of the opponents’ predictive ratings with an adjustment for the site of the game. Schedule strength is a factor in deciding which teams belong in the college football playoff, and these two columns aren’t always representative of the schedule strength for a team near the top of the ratings. These ratings should be closer to the schedule strength in Jeff Sagarin’s ratings, which are the rating a team would need to be expected to win exactly 50% of games against that team’s schedule.

Past and Future Schedule Strength
Home advantage: 1.93 points
Mean score: 26.85 points
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
   1 Indiana               .201 (30)  .060 (62)  56.17 (32)  54.65 (61) 
   2 Ohio State            .158 (48)  .448 (13)  53.92 (49)  72.35 (13) 
   3 Oregon                .233 (18)  .537 (8)   59.22 (12)  75.12 (8)  
   4 Notre Dame            .183 (34)  .023 (74)  58.16 (16)  49.22 (74) 
   5 Texas Tech            .147 (54)  .035 (72)  47.89 (74)  51.47 (72) 
   6 Utah                  .146 (55)  .086 (49)  55.05 (40)  56.96 (49) 
   7 Alabama               .250 (14)  .297 (25)  57.83 (18)  67.32 (25) 
   8 USC                   .271 (10)  .022 (75)  61.22 (5)   48.96 (75) 
   9 Texas A&M             .194 (31)  .367 (18)  56.83 (26)  69.75 (18) 
  10 Georgia               .202 (29)  .106 (45)  57.26 (25)  58.46 (45) 
  11 Miami                 .162 (46)  .278 (26)  54.00 (48)  66.65 (26) 
  12 Washington            .168 (42)  .739 (3)   56.32 (31)  81.93 (3)  
  13 BYU                   .207 (28)  .022 (76)  56.46 (30)  48.85 (76) 
  14 Oklahoma              .246 (15)  .176 (33)  59.19 (13)  62.41 (33) 
  15 Vanderbilt            .181 (36)  .412 (16)  54.73 (43)  71.20 (16) 
  16 Ole Miss              .163 (44)  .143 (40)  54.31 (47)  60.69 (40) 
  17 Penn State            .294 (5)   .076 (54)  59.59 (9)   56.12 (54) 
  18 Iowa                  .275 (9)   .222 (29)  56.08 (33)  64.46 (29) 
  19 Michigan              .190 (33)  .798 (2)   59.09 (14)  84.36 (2)  
  20 Tennessee             .183 (35)  .372 (17)  54.38 (45)  69.92 (17) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  21 Texas                 .255 (13)  .422 (14)  58.12 (17)  71.52 (14) 
  22 Missouri              .227 (21)  .146 (39)  54.34 (46)  60.87 (39) 
  23 Florida State         .149 (53)  .169 (34)  52.56 (53)  62.04 (34) 
  24 South Florida         .114 (65)  .001 (123) 49.42 (65)  33.61 (123)
  25 North Texas           .035 (114) .005 (95)  43.55 (94)  42.21 (95) 
  26 Illinois              .278 (6)   .066 (59)  59.53 (10)  55.19 (58) 
  27 Auburn                .230 (19)  .518 (10)  57.54 (22)  74.53 (10) 
  28 Arizona               .105 (68)  .164 (35)  51.69 (56)  61.82 (35) 
  29 Pittsburgh            .127 (59)  .415 (15)  51.02 (57)  71.30 (15) 
  30 LSU                   .225 (22)  .508 (11)  59.52 (11)  74.21 (11) 
  31 Iowa State            .142 (56)  .002 (110) 55.87 (35)  38.11 (110)
  32 Nebraska              .151 (52)  .337 (22)  52.62 (52)  68.75 (22) 
  33 SMU                   .085 (75)  .013 (84)  49.42 (66)  46.17 (84) 
  34 South Carolina        .276 (7)   .064 (61)  59.97 (8)   55.02 (60) 
  35 Virginia              .063 (91)  .014 (81)  48.86 (68)  46.55 (81) 
  36 Cincinnati            .163 (45)  .155 (37)  51.02 (58)  61.35 (37) 
  37 Kentucky              .238 (16)  .135 (42)  60.15 (7)   60.27 (42) 
  38 James Madison         .024 (125) .001 (117) 41.14 (115) 35.70 (117)
  39 Florida               .304 (4)   .241 (28)  63.08 (3)   65.24 (28) 
  40 Arizona State         .180 (37)  .197 (32)  56.77 (27)  63.37 (32) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  41 TCU                   .123 (61)  .108 (44)  55.19 (39)  58.58 (44) 
  42 Kansas State          .191 (32)  .012 (85)  57.74 (19)  46.04 (85) 
  43 Arkansas              .276 (8)   .247 (27)  58.81 (15)  65.48 (27) 
  44 Mississippi State     .208 (25)  .348 (19)  55.45 (37)  69.11 (19) 
  45 Georgia Tech          .055 (97)  .476 (12)  48.81 (70)  73.24 (12) 
  46 Wisconsin             .420 (1)   .064 (60)  67.13 (1)   55.05 (59) 
  47 Louisville            .124 (60)  .104 (46)  51.73 (55)  58.33 (46) 
  48 Toledo                .027 (122) .005 (97)  38.15 (130) 41.98 (97) 
  49 Houston               .104 (70)  .069 (56)  50.96 (59)  55.54 (56) 
  50 Memphis               .044 (106) .015 (80)  43.31 (98)  46.81 (80) 
  51 Northwestern          .234 (17)  .301 (24)  55.40 (38)  67.50 (24) 
  52 NC State              .210 (24)  .004 (101) 57.68 (20)  41.11 (101)
  53 Clemson               .081 (77)  .203 (30)  49.50 (64)  63.61 (30) 
  54 Wake Forest           .079 (78)  .078 (52)  48.85 (69)  56.34 (52) 
  55 Boise State           .118 (63)  .044 (71)  48.19 (73)  52.68 (70) 
  56 East Carolina         .070 (83)  .005 (98)  45.62 (83)  41.52 (98) 
  57 Old Dominion          .102 (71)  .000 (132) 42.79 (101) 25.17 (132)
  58 San Diego State       .016 (131) .054 (66)  41.40 (112) 54.03 (65) 
  59 Kansas                .171 (40)  .591 (6)   52.94 (51)  76.83 (6)  
  60 Tulane                .078 (80)  .000 (131) 50.95 (60)  25.94 (131)
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  61 Duke                  .067 (87)  .058 (63)  50.90 (61)  54.44 (62) 
  62 Rutgers               .270 (11)  .339 (21)  57.36 (24)  68.79 (21) 
  63 UTSA                  .120 (62)  .013 (83)  48.80 (71)  46.23 (83) 
  64 Washington State      .155 (51)  .002 (112) 54.79 (42)  37.32 (112)
  65 Michigan State        .267 (12)  .049 (69)  60.53 (6)   53.42 (69) 
  66 Baylor                .168 (41)  .068 (58)  54.85 (41)  55.42 (57) 
  67 Maryland              .208 (26)  .052 (67)  55.81 (36)  53.71 (66) 
  68 Minnesota             .228 (20)  .080 (51)  53.74 (50)  56.45 (51) 
  69 Purdue                .314 (3)   .841 (1)   61.98 (4)   86.41 (1)  
  70 New Mexico            .062 (93)  .051 (68)  46.61 (81)  53.68 (68) 
  71 UNLV                  .019 (129) .003 (103) 44.12 (90)  40.26 (103)
  72 UCLA                  .324 (2)   .577 (7)   65.98 (2)   76.39 (7)  
  73 UCF                   .114 (66)  .528 (9)   47.72 (75)  74.85 (9)  
  74 Utah State            .108 (67)  .057 (64)  46.58 (82)  54.26 (63) 
  75 West Virginia         .167 (43)  .608 (5)   54.53 (44)  77.39 (5)  
  76 Navy                  .136 (58)  .068 (57)  44.58 (86)  53.69 (67) 
  77 Virginia Tech         .159 (47)  .202 (31)  56.64 (29)  63.60 (31) 
  78 Western Michigan      .062 (92)  .001 (121) 44.07 (92)  34.56 (121)
  79 UConn                 .006 (135) ---        37.05 (133) ---        
  80 Army                  .058 (95)  .047 (70)  47.62 (76)  52.27 (71) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  81 Colorado              .178 (38)  .153 (38)  57.61 (21)  61.22 (38) 
  82 Stanford              .177 (39)  .694 (4)   56.06 (34)  80.27 (4)  
  83 Louisiana Tech        .034 (116) .006 (94)  41.31 (113) 42.93 (94) 
  84 Western Kentucky      .039 (112) .004 (100) 38.84 (129) 41.22 (100)
  85 Ohio                  .091 (73)  .001 (116) 40.95 (117) 35.99 (116)
  86 Hawai’i               .041 (109) .003 (107) 42.54 (102) 39.14 (107)
  87 Miami (OH)            .032 (118) .000 (128) 42.95 (99)  28.22 (128)
  88 Texas State           .033 (117) .001 (120) 41.15 (114) 34.58 (120)
  89 Fresno State          .026 (124) .002 (108) 40.69 (118) 38.90 (108)
  90 Kennesaw State        .094 (72)  .005 (99)  41.70 (108) 41.48 (99) 
  91 California            .045 (105) .136 (41)  46.70 (80)  60.28 (41) 
  92 Temple                .065 (89)  .305 (23)  43.50 (95)  67.63 (23) 
  93 Syracuse              .217 (23)  .004 (102) 57.36 (23)  40.53 (102)
  94 Marshall              .065 (88)  .001 (122) 42.53 (103) 33.61 (122)
  95 North Carolina        .046 (104) .113 (43)  47.14 (78)  58.88 (43) 
  96 Boston College        .136 (57)  .011 (86)  52.35 (54)  45.65 (86) 
  97 Air Force             .024 (126) .003 (105) 44.20 (88)  40.02 (105)
  98 Southern Miss         .011 (133) .002 (111) 37.78 (131) 37.52 (111)
  99 Wyoming               .069 (84)  .018 (77)  44.30 (87)  48.00 (77) 
 100 Missouri State        .069 (86)  .010 (88)  42.91 (100) 44.96 (88) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
 101 Tulsa                 .029 (120) .001 (124) 45.24 (84)  33.04 (124)
 102 Central Michigan      .069 (85)  .076 (53)  37.20 (132) 56.16 (53) 
 103 Florida Atlantic      .056 (96)  .056 (65)  43.83 (93)  54.23 (64) 
 104 Liberty               .022 (127) .006 (93)  40.20 (120) 42.93 (93) 
 105 Troy                  .027 (123) .007 (92)  39.23 (127) 43.22 (92) 
 106 Jacksonville State    .006 (136) .010 (89)  35.59 (135) 44.88 (89) 
 107 Oregon State          .158 (49)  .071 (55)  49.03 (67)  55.74 (55) 
 108 Nevada                .064 (90)  .025 (73)  47.55 (77)  49.65 (73) 
 109 Florida International .048 (103) .000 (130) 40.18 (122) 25.98 (130)
 110 Louisiana             .050 (101) .000 (133) 41.76 (107) 22.67 (133)
 111 Colorado State        .083 (76)  .003 (106) 49.79 (62)  39.81 (106)
 112 San José State        .053 (98)  .007 (91)  46.70 (79)  43.22 (91) 
 113 Arkansas State        .028 (121) .001 (114) 40.19 (121) 36.87 (114)
 114 South Alabama         .060 (94)  .016 (79)  39.24 (126) 47.38 (79) 
 115 Oklahoma State        .207 (27)  .157 (36)  56.71 (28)  61.45 (36) 
 116 Georgia Southern      .075 (82)  .011 (87)  42.52 (104) 45.36 (87) 
 117 Rice                  .042 (108) .344 (20)  44.19 (89)  68.98 (20) 
 118 New Mexico State      .048 (102) .000 (127) 41.52 (110) 28.31 (127)
 119 UAB                   .091 (74)  .005 (96)  48.56 (72)  42.14 (96) 
 120 App State             .035 (115) .001 (119) 40.06 (123) 34.99 (119)
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
 121 Bowling Green         .038 (113) .000 (134) 41.13 (116) 15.26 (134)
 122 UTEP                  .040 (110) .001 (118) 39.33 (125) 35.38 (118)
 123 Northern Illinois     .040 (111) .000 (129) 42.37 (105) 26.70 (129)
 124 Buffalo               .009 (134) .009 (90)  32.99 (136) 44.74 (90) 
 125 Coastal Carolina      .052 (99)  .103 (47)  41.62 (109) 58.25 (47) 
 126 Delaware              .016 (132) .000 (126) 39.64 (124) 32.71 (126)
 127 Eastern Michigan      .020 (128) .013 (82)  38.85 (128) 46.45 (82) 
 128 Akron                 .031 (119) ---        36.71 (134) ---        
 129 Middle Tennessee      .017 (130) .002 (113) 40.45 (119) 37.19 (113)
 130 Ball State            .050 (100) .017 (78)  43.42 (96)  47.71 (78) 
 131 Kent State            .156 (50)  .001 (115) 43.34 (97)  36.55 (115)
 132 Charlotte             .115 (64)  .085 (50)  49.61 (63)  56.90 (50) 
 133 Georgia State         .104 (69)  .100 (48)  45.02 (85)  58.06 (48) 
 134 Sam Houston           .043 (107) .002 (109) 44.07 (91)  38.14 (109)
 135 UL Monroe             .076 (81)  .003 (104) 41.49 (111) 40.03 (104)
 136 Massachusetts         .078 (79)  .000 (125) 42.00 (106) 32.91 (125)

Conference Ratings

To rate the overall quality of conferences, I calculate the expected outcome if each team in a conference were to play every FBS team at a neutral site. The Win% column is the average probability of winning for all of the possible games and for all the teams in the conference. It’s similar to the average rating of all the teams in the conference, but it should be less skewed by outliers.

However, the idea of the “best” conference is subjective, and another way to judge the quality of a conference is to consider how many of its teams are among the best in the FBS. What if instead of playing every team in the FBS, each conference opponent just plays a hypothetical opponent with a rating that’s 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean? In this case, the quality of a conference is determined by how its teams would be expected to perform against a hypothetical opponent ranked somewhere around #10 to #15 in the FBS. This is what I’ve done with the HighWin% column. It’s analogous to how I calculate strength of record, and each conference’s rating is impacted more when the conference has more highly rated teams.

Conference Ratings
Rank Win% Conference        HighWin%  Rating Offense Defense OffDef    
   1 .770 SEC               .307 (3)  67.02  33.40   33.65   -0.25 (6) 
   2 .719 Big Ten           .310 (2)  65.53  31.92   33.57   -1.66 (9) 
   3 .684 FBS Independents  .383 (1)  65.22  35.03   30.24   4.80 (1)  
   4 .629 Big 12            .188 (4)  59.33  29.84   29.50   0.33 (4)  
   5 .563 ACC               .113 (5)  55.28  27.59   27.71   -0.12 (5) 
   6 .435 American Athletic .063 (6)  48.16  25.52   22.65   2.87 (2)  
   7 .400 Pac-12            .028 (7)  46.53  19.02   27.48   -8.46 (11)
   8 .392 Mountain West     .024 (8)  46.14  22.33   23.81   -1.48 (8) 
   9 .281 Sun Belt          .017 (9)  39.53  20.66   18.85   1.81 (3)  
  10 .249 Conference USA    .004 (11) 38.01  18.70   19.35   -0.65 (7) 
  11 .248 Mid-American      .012 (10) 36.86  16.56   20.27   -3.71 (10)

Playoff Ratings

Here are the four components of the playoff ratings:

1. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s strength of record for a hypothetical team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS average. (SOR; 55%)

2. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s predictive rating (Fwd; 30%)

3. The team’s winning percentage (Win%; 10%)

4. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s strength of schedule for a hypothetical team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS average. (SOS; 5%)

Unlike my predictive ratings, these are based heavily on strength of record, meaning that they give more weight to a team’s past accomplishments than what they’re expected to do in the future.

Playoff Ratings
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
   1      .9813  +.0023 Indiana               .986  .814   1.000  .993
   2      .9681  +.0003 Ohio State            .979  .654   1.000  .990
   3   +1 .9676  +.0135 Oregon                .975  .895   .909   .985
   4   -1 .9600  -.0068 Texas A&M             .985  .791   1.000  .928
   5   +1 .9420  -.0008 BYU                   .968  .830   .909   .923
   6   -1 .9413  -.0075 Georgia               .967  .815   .909   .926
   7      .9375  -.0008 Alabama               .952  .928   .818   .953
   8      .9325  -.0014 Texas Tech            .946  .607   .909   .969
   9   +2 .9252  +.0122 Oklahoma              .950  .920   .818   .917
  10   -1 .9199  -.0057 Ole Miss              .953  .675   .909   .903
  11   -1 .9183  +.0004 Notre Dame            .917  .755   .818   .980
  12      .9051  -.0066 USC                   .915  .955   .727   .937
  13   +2 .8963  +.0139 Vanderbilt            .916  .744   .818   .912
  14   +2 .8961  +.0137 Michigan              .921  .777   .818   .896
  15   -2 .8919  +.0022 Utah                  .891  .601   .818   .966
  16   -2 .8902  +.0005 Miami                 .903  .672   .818   .926
  17   +1 .8748  +.0034 Texas                 .905  .934   .727   .860
  18   +2 .8462  +.0208 Iowa                  .845  .959   .636   .899
  19   +2 .8412  +.0196 Washington            .829  .694   .727   .926
  20   -1 .8394  +.0132 Tennessee             .845  .755   .727   .881
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
  21   +2 .8278  +.0095 North Texas           .876  .156   .909   .825
  22   -5 .8252  -.0494 Illinois              .849  .962   .636   .822
  23   -1 .8006  -.0177 Missouri              .794  .883   .636   .853
  24   +2 .7867  +.0027 James Madison         .866  .126   .909   .711
  25   +2 .7839  +.0099 Arizona State         .842  .742   .727   .704
  26   -1 .7827  -.0013 LSU                   .791  .877   .636   .800
  27   +2 .7724  +.0123 South Florida         .768  .459   .727   .848
  28   +3 .7716  +.0255 Pittsburgh            .784  .516   .727   .807
  29   -1 .7657  -.0071 Virginia              .815  .245   .818   .745
  30   +4 .7546  +.0239 Arizona               .756  .415   .727   .818
  31   -7 .7363  -.0545 Georgia Tech          .805  .215   .818   .669
  32   +4 .7271  +.0208 Tulane                .830  .300   .818   .579
  33   +6 .7173  +.0381 SMU                   .729  .328   .727   .756
  34   +9 .7144  +.0546 Penn State            .637  .975   .455   .899
  35   +2 .7085  +.0099 Navy                  .868  .557   .800   .410
  36   -3 .7059  -.0275 Nebraska              .695  .624   .636   .763
  37   -5 .7042  -.0404 Cincinnati            .712  .674   .636   .718
  38   +3 .7024  +.0361 Iowa State            .682  .586   .636   .781
  39   -9 .7009  -.0520 Houston               .755  .412   .727   .641
  40   +2 .6894  +.0276 Old Dominion          .752  .402   .727   .610
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
  41   -1 .6833  +.0146 San Diego State       .759  .109   .818   .596
  42   +4 .6700  +.0309 Wake Forest           .722  .307   .727   .616
  43   +5 .6656  +.0428 Northwestern          .683  .897   .545   .635
  44   +9 .6655  +.0771 Wisconsin             .689  1.000  .364   .667
  45   +6 .6557  +.0502 TCU                   .653  .497   .636   .693
  46   +3 .6533  +.0367 UNLV                  .763  .116   .818   .487
  47  -12 .6489  -.0716 Louisville            .655  .502   .636   .666
  48   -3 .6432  -.0028 Memphis               .672  .181   .727   .640
  49   +6 .6420  +.0597 NC State              .648  .840   .545   .631
  50   +2 .6301  +.0387 Auburn                .535  .890   .455   .819
  51  -13 .6287  -.0565 Minnesota             .675  .886   .545   .529
  52   +2 .6265  +.0437 Boise State           .647  .477   .636   .611
  53   +6 .6186  +.0474 New Mexico            .698  .240   .727   .501
  54   -7 .6056  -.0300 Kentucky              .548  .905   .455   .713
  55   +5 .5921  +.0220 Kennesaw State        .741  .366   .727   .311
  56   +2 .5899  +.0164 Rutgers               .599  .953   .455   .558
  57  -13 .5741  -.0803 East Carolina         .571  .270   .636   .610
  58   -2 .5650  -.0146 Mississippi State     .500  .835   .455   .677
  59   +6 .5619  +.0387 South Carolina        .462  .960   .364   .745
  60   +3 .5553  +.0151 UConn                 .649  .089   .750   .396
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
  61   -4 .5543  -.0241 Western Kentucky      .664  .166   .727   .360
  62  -12 .5532  -.0589 Florida State         .404  .616   .455   .849
  63   +3 .5501  +.0279 Kansas State          .471  .779   .455   .689
  64   +4 .5440  +.0317 Toledo                .501  .135   .636   .660
  65   +7 .5207  +.0206 Ohio                  .605  .356   .636   .356
  66  +13 .5207  +.0727 UTSA                  .504  .484   .545   .549
  67   +8 .5026  +.0301 Western Michigan      .558  .241   .636   .400
  68   +5 .5019  +.0081 Clemson               .441  .314   .545   .631
  69   -7 .4963  -.0447 Kansas                .439  .707   .455   .581
  70   -9 .4880  -.0614 Florida               .362  .981   .273   .709
  71   -1 .4813  -.0277 Baylor                .434  .694   .455   .542
  72  +11 .4812  +.0522 Utah State            .484  .427   .545   .464
  73   -2 .4690  -.0357 Washington State      .413  .641   .455   .548
  74   +6 .4661  +.0216 Duke                  .417  .257   .545   .564
  75  -11 .4620  -.0707 Hawai’i               .523  .171   .636   .341
  76   -9 .4568  -.0574 Missouri State        .568  .265   .636   .224
  77   +7 .4516  +.0398 Central Michigan      .569  .266   .636   .205
  78   -9 .4404  -.0700 Fresno State          .500  .132   .636   .318
  79   -3 .4337  -.0268 Maryland              .354  .834   .364   .537
  80   -3 .4330  -.0217 UCLA                  .393  .989   .273   .468
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
  81   +4 .4066  +.0161 Michigan State        .306  .950   .273   .545
  82   +6 .4041  +.0321 Troy                  .501  .135   .636   .194
  83   +4 .4002  +.0270 UCF                   .350  .458   .455   .465
  84  -10 .3989  -.0737 Southern Miss         .475  .099   .636   .230
  85   -7 .3817  -.0670 Jacksonville State    .466  .088   .636   .191
  86      .3804  -.0083 Arkansas              .200  .960   .182   .681
  87   +7 .3717  +.0297 Louisiana Tech        .366  .151   .545   .362
  88   -7 .3637  -.0773 California            .384  .185   .545   .296
  89   -7 .3635  -.0695 Army                  .334  .227   .500   .395
  90   -1 .3622  -.0098 West Virginia         .294  .693   .364   .431
  91   +7 .3614  +.0558 Miami (OH)            .363  .146   .545   .333
  92   +1 .3584  +.0156 Purdue                .247  .986   .182   .518
  93   +4 .3538  +.0445 Stanford              .308  .731   .364   .372
  94   +7 .3283  +.0530 Florida International .387  .192   .545   .170
  95   -5 .3130  -.0466 Coastal Carolina      .394  .206   .545   .105
  96   -5 .2988  -.0528 Temple                .278  .250   .455   .294
  97   -5 .2940  -.0547 Marshall              .278  .250   .455   .277
  98   +2 .2870  +.0085 Syracuse              .239  .860   .273   .284
  99   -4 .2864  -.0452 Colorado              .192  .734   .273   .390
 100   +6 .2804  +.0391 Texas State           .236  .150   .455   .325
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
 101   +1 .2752  +.0057 Virginia Tech         .171  .657   .273   .403
 102   -6 .2594  -.0532 Georgia Southern      .292  .290   .455   .129
 103   +8 .2481  +.0399 Louisiana             .258  .199   .455   .170
 104   -5 .2376  -.0540 Kent State            .278  .644   .364   .054
 105      .2290  -.0180 Rice                  .248  .175   .455   .129
 106   -3 .2232  -.0416 Arkansas State        .229  .135   .455   .150
 107   +6 .2206  +.0441 App State             .239  .155   .455   .120
 108   -4 .2125  -.0487 Wyoming               .173  .267   .364   .226
 109   -1 .2085  -.0263 North Carolina        .150  .187   .364   .268
 110   -3 .1994  -.0356 Delaware              .215  .108   .455   .101
 111   -2 .1962  -.0379 Buffalo               .206  .093   .455   .109
 112   -2 .1937  -.0213 Florida Atlantic      .159  .219   .364   .196
 113  +10 .1806  +.0458 South Alabama         .163  .232   .364   .143
 114   +5 .1796  +.0377 Tulsa                 .134  .140   .364   .208
 115   +2 .1779  +.0331 Akron                 .188  .144   .417   .085
 116   -4 .1713  -.0186 Liberty               .127  .121   .364   .196
 117   +9 .1666  +.0394 New Mexico State      .151  .192   .364   .125
 118   -2 .1585  +.0020 Oregon State          .092  .652   .182   .190
 119   -5 .1510  -.0130 Ball State            .154  .201   .364   .067
 120   -5 .1421  -.0159 Air Force             .067  .126   .273   .240
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
 121   -3 .1417  -.0018 UAB                   .110  .355   .273   .121
 122   +8 .1417  +.0408 Nevada                .091  .249   .273   .173
 123   -3 .1392  -.0027 Eastern Michigan      .126  .118   .364   .092
 124      .1339  +.0029 Boston College        .037  .559   .091   .255
 125      .1292  -.0016 Oklahoma State        .067  .832   .091   .138
 126   -5 .1285  -.0106 San José State        .083  .208   .273   .151
 127   +2 .1131  -.0013 Colorado State        .051  .319   .182   .169
 128   -6 .1119  -.0236 Bowling Green         .074  .162   .273   .119
 129   -2 .1119  -.0148 Northern Illinois     .075  .168   .273   .116
 130   -2 .1054  -.0151 UL Monroe             .099  .294   .273   .030
 131      .0811  -.0055 UTEP                  .035  .170   .182   .116
 132   +2 .0636  +.0153 Charlotte             .030  .462   .091   .049
 133   +2 .0596  +.0211 Middle Tennessee      .029  .111   .182   .068
 134   -2 .0581  -.0077 Sam Houston           .036  .178   .182   .037
 135   -2 .0579  -.0035 Georgia State         .028  .412   .091   .044
 136      .0207  -.0019 Massachusetts         .008  .301   .000   .004

Week 14 Game Predictions

Upcoming games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL. NFL games are typically decided by smaller margins than college games, the teams are more balanced in their quality, and there’s just not as much scoring in the NFL. Thresholds for close games and blowouts are also different between college and the NFL for the same reasons.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. These margins are sometimes larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score. That’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a prediction of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This is, of course, impossible, so the score is set to zero in those instances. There’s no cap on how many points a team can be projected to score, though.

#1: Vanderbilt (0.66, 52.10%) at Tennessee (-0.66, 47.90%)
Estimated score: 41.09 - 40.59, Total: 81.68
Quality: 98.12%, Team quality: 97.23%, Competitiveness: 99.93%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.60%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.58%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 63.39%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 14.30%

#2: Texas A&M (3.70, 61.70%) at Texas (-3.70, 38.30%)
Estimated score: 30.15 - 26.59, Total: 56.75
Quality: 97.40%, Team quality: 97.23%, Competitiveness: 97.73%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.06%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 40.97%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 38.92%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 32.87%

#3: Cincinnati (-0.84, 47.31%) at TCU (0.84, 52.69%)
Estimated score: 29.27 - 29.52, Total: 58.79
Quality: 96.48%, Team quality: 94.83%, Competitiveness: 99.88%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.61%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.55%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 40.90%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 31.04%

#4: Kentucky (-0.01, 49.95%) at Louisville (0.01, 50.05%)
Estimated score: 25.45 - 25.29, Total: 50.74
Quality: 96.39%, Team quality: 94.63%, Competitiveness: 100.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.59%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.63%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 33.31%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.46%

#5: Arizona (3.48, 61.02%) at Arizona State (-3.48, 38.98%)
Estimated score: 23.27 - 19.68, Total: 42.96
Quality: 96.34%, Team quality: 95.52%, Competitiveness: 97.99%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.01%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.16%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 26.57%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 46.06%

#6: Florida State (5.13, 66.00%) at Florida (-5.13, 34.00%)
Estimated score: 25.16 - 19.90, Total: 45.07
Quality: 95.73%, Team quality: 95.76%, Competitiveness: 95.67%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.52%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 39.49%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 28.32%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 43.97%

#7: Miami (6.58, 70.16%) at Pittsburgh (-6.58, 29.84%)
Estimated score: 30.27 - 23.61, Total: 53.88
Quality: 95.56%, Team quality: 96.90%, Competitiveness: 92.95%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.15%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 37.60%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 36.20%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.50%

#8: Wake Forest (0.03, 50.09%) at Duke (-0.03, 49.91%)
Estimated score: 26.00 - 26.08, Total: 52.09
Quality: 95.53%, Team quality: 93.37%, Competitiveness: 100.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.59%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.63%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 34.54%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 37.18%

#9: Iowa (6.22, 69.16%) at Nebraska (-6.22, 30.84%)
Estimated score: 23.74 - 17.81, Total: 41.55
Quality: 95.50%, Team quality: 96.42%, Competitiveness: 93.67%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.98%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.10%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 25.43%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 47.46%

#10: Houston (1.81, 55.78%) at Baylor (-1.81, 44.22%)
Estimated score: 33.91 - 32.04, Total: 65.95
Quality: 95.38%, Team quality: 93.40%, Competitiveness: 99.45%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.70%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.23%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 47.96%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 25.03%

#11: Maryland (-0.28, 49.10%) vs. Michigan State (0.28, 50.90%)
Estimated score: 24.60 - 24.77, Total: 49.36
Quality: 95.08%, Team quality: 92.71%, Competitiveness: 99.99%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.59%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.63%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 32.07%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 39.78%

#12: San Diego State (1.58, 55.06%) at New Mexico (-1.58, 44.94%)
Estimated score: 20.27 - 18.80, Total: 39.06
Quality: 95.02%, Team quality: 92.82%, Competitiveness: 99.58%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.67%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.33%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 23.47%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 49.94%

#13: Wisconsin (3.33, 60.55%) at Minnesota (-3.33, 39.45%)
Estimated score: 19.86 - 16.15, Total: 36.01
Quality: 95.01%, Team quality: 93.48%, Competitiveness: 98.16%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.97%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.29%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 21.20%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 52.98%

#14: Missouri (6.53, 70.03%) at Arkansas (-6.53, 29.97%)
Estimated score: 35.91 - 29.33, Total: 65.24
Quality: 94.76%, Team quality: 95.62%, Competitiveness: 93.05%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.13%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 37.66%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 47.25%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 25.59%

#15: Oregon (8.74, 75.88%) at Washington (-8.74, 24.12%)
Estimated score: 35.71 - 26.97, Total: 62.68
Quality: 94.67%, Team quality: 98.29%, Competitiveness: 87.83%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 4.46%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 34.15%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 44.72%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 27.69%

#16: Boise State (3.51, 61.10%) at Utah State (-3.51, 38.90%)
Estimated score: 32.41 - 28.77, Total: 61.17
Quality: 94.39%, Team quality: 92.65%, Competitiveness: 97.96%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.01%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.14%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 43.23%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 28.97%

#17: Clemson (-6.67, 29.60%) at South Carolina (6.67, 70.40%)
Estimated score: 17.39 - 24.10, Total: 41.49
Quality: 93.96%, Team quality: 94.56%, Competitiveness: 92.77%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.20%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 37.47%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 25.38%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 47.51%

#18: Alabama (9.14, 76.87%) at Auburn (-9.14, 23.13%)
Estimated score: 27.43 - 18.14, Total: 45.58
Quality: 93.58%, Team quality: 97.20%, Competitiveness: 86.75%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 4.76%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 33.45%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 28.76%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 43.47%

#19: LSU (-9.87, 21.37%) at Oklahoma (9.87, 78.63%)
Estimated score: 8.38 - 18.29, Total: 26.68
Quality: 92.51%, Team quality: 96.70%, Competitiveness: 84.67%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.35%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 32.12%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 15.08%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 62.10%

#20: Ole Miss (10.35, 79.73%) at Mississippi State (-10.35, 20.27%)
Estimated score: 40.18 - 30.07, Total: 70.24
Quality: 91.51%, Team quality: 95.95%, Competitiveness: 83.25%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.77%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 31.23%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 52.23%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 21.74%

#21: Louisiana Tech (3.97, 62.50%) at Missouri State (-3.97, 37.50%)
Estimated score: 25.98 - 21.88, Total: 47.85
Quality: 91.25%, Team quality: 88.32%, Competitiveness: 97.40%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.14%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 40.73%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 30.73%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.24%

#22: Army (-7.64, 26.96%) at UTSA (7.64, 73.04%)
Estimated score: 20.23 - 27.59, Total: 47.83
Quality: 91.25%, Team quality: 91.58%, Competitiveness: 90.59%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.74%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 35.99%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 30.70%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.27%

#23: Boston College (-3.19, 39.88%) at Syracuse (3.19, 60.12%)
Estimated score: 28.50 - 31.68, Total: 60.18
Quality: 91.22%, Team quality: 87.87%, Competitiveness: 98.31%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.94%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.39%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 42.25%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 29.82%

#24: Northwestern (-10.38, 20.21%) at Illinois (10.38, 79.79%)
Estimated score: 17.16 - 27.57, Total: 44.73
Quality: 90.91%, Team quality: 95.04%, Competitiveness: 83.17%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.79%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 31.18%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 28.04%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 44.31%

#25: Kennesaw State (3.38, 60.71%) at Liberty (-3.38, 39.29%)
Estimated score: 27.68 - 24.35, Total: 52.03
Quality: 90.82%, Team quality: 87.38%, Competitiveness: 98.10%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.98%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.24%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 34.49%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 37.23%

#26: Air Force (1.71, 55.48%) at Colorado State (-1.71, 44.52%)
Estimated score: 28.90 - 27.24, Total: 56.14
Quality: 90.34%, Team quality: 86.07%, Competitiveness: 99.51%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.69%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.27%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 38.35%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 33.41%

#27: Western Kentucky (5.60, 67.36%) at Jacksonville State (-5.60, 32.64%)
Estimated score: 29.97 - 24.58, Total: 54.55
Quality: 90.09%, Team quality: 87.80%, Competitiveness: 94.86%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.70%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.93%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 36.83%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.88%

#28: Troy (-3.77, 38.09%) at Southern Miss (3.77, 61.91%)
Estimated score: 24.87 - 28.40, Total: 53.27
Quality: 89.93%, Team quality: 86.31%, Competitiveness: 97.64%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.08%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 40.91%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 35.64%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 36.06%

#29: Wyoming (-6.93, 28.87%) at Hawai’i (6.93, 71.13%)
Estimated score: 15.11 - 21.97, Total: 37.08
Quality: 89.40%, Team quality: 88.04%, Competitiveness: 92.20%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.34%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 37.08%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 21.98%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 51.91%

#30: Navy (-10.48, 19.98%) at Memphis (10.48, 80.02%)
Estimated score: 22.96 - 33.48, Total: 56.43
Quality: 89.03%, Team quality: 92.28%, Competitiveness: 82.87%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.89%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 30.99%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 38.63%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 33.15%

#31: Fresno State (6.25, 69.23%) at San José State (-6.25, 30.77%)
Estimated score: 29.09 - 22.91, Total: 51.99
Quality: 88.92%, Team quality: 86.65%, Competitiveness: 93.63%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.99%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.06%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 34.45%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 37.27%

#32: Arkansas State (0.04, 50.14%) at App State (-0.04, 49.86%)
Estimated score: 24.17 - 24.09, Total: 48.25
Quality: 88.70%, Team quality: 83.54%, Competitiveness: 100.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.59%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.63%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 31.08%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 40.86%

#33: Ohio State (13.93, 86.86%) at Michigan (-13.93, 13.14%)
Estimated score: 28.68 - 14.75, Total: 43.43
Quality: 88.26%, Team quality: 98.17%, Competitiveness: 71.35%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 9.85%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 24.24%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 26.96%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 45.59%

#34: UTEP (-0.73, 47.65%) at Delaware (0.73, 52.35%)
Estimated score: 29.00 - 29.79, Total: 58.80
Quality: 87.75%, Team quality: 82.24%, Competitiveness: 99.91%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.61%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.57%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 40.90%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 31.04%

#35: UAB (-7.17, 28.21%) at Tulsa (7.17, 71.79%)
Estimated score: 26.27 - 33.34, Total: 59.61
Quality: 86.81%, Team quality: 84.48%, Competitiveness: 91.66%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.47%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 36.71%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 41.70%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 30.32%

#36: Colorado (-13.24, 14.36%) at Kansas State (13.24, 85.64%)
Estimated score: 23.07 - 36.30, Total: 59.37
Quality: 85.71%, Team quality: 92.38%, Competitiveness: 73.79%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 8.92%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 25.61%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 41.46%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 30.53%

#37: Georgia (14.77, 88.24%) vs. Georgia Tech (-14.77, 11.76%)
Estimated score: 34.23 - 19.35, Total: 53.58
Quality: 85.71%, Team quality: 96.01%, Competitiveness: 68.31%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 11.06%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 22.60%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 35.92%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.78%

#38: UNLV (11.32, 81.86%) at Nevada (-11.32, 18.14%)
Estimated score: 35.05 - 23.88, Total: 58.93
Quality: 85.70%, Team quality: 88.57%, Competitiveness: 80.23%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 6.71%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 29.37%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 41.03%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 30.92%

#39: Penn State (14.61, 87.98%) at Rutgers (-14.61, 12.02%)
Estimated score: 38.23 - 23.75, Total: 61.98
Quality: 85.46%, Team quality: 95.17%, Competitiveness: 68.91%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 10.82%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 22.92%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 44.02%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 28.29%

#40: Georgia Southern (-9.82, 21.50%) at Marshall (9.82, 78.50%)
Estimated score: 32.32 - 42.15, Total: 74.47
Quality: 85.31%, Team quality: 85.55%, Competitiveness: 84.84%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.30%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 32.22%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 56.42%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 18.77%

#41: South Alabama (-10.88, 19.10%) at Texas State (10.88, 80.90%)
Estimated score: 28.73 - 39.67, Total: 68.39
Quality: 84.78%, Team quality: 86.39%, Competitiveness: 81.65%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 6.26%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 30.23%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 50.39%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 23.12%

#42: Ohio (10.68, 80.47%) at Buffalo (-10.68, 19.53%)
Estimated score: 30.76 - 19.81, Total: 50.57
Quality: 84.76%, Team quality: 86.04%, Competitiveness: 82.25%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 6.08%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 30.60%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 33.16%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.62%

#43: Middle Tennessee (-6.95, 28.81%) at New Mexico State (6.95, 71.19%)
Estimated score: 20.25 - 27.38, Total: 47.63
Quality: 84.67%, Team quality: 81.16%, Competitiveness: 92.16%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.35%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 37.05%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 30.54%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.46%

#44: Kent State (-7.92, 26.21%) at Northern Illinois (7.92, 73.79%)
Estimated score: 19.82 - 27.54, Total: 47.36
Quality: 83.37%, Team quality: 80.28%, Competitiveness: 89.90%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.91%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 35.52%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 30.30%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.72%

#45: Virginia Tech (-15.12, 11.21%) at Virginia (15.12, 88.79%)
Estimated score: 22.43 - 37.43, Total: 59.86
Quality: 83.27%, Team quality: 92.81%, Competitiveness: 67.02%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 11.60%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 21.92%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 41.94%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 30.10%

#46: East Carolina (14.65, 88.05%) at Florida Atlantic (-14.65, 11.95%)
Estimated score: 41.19 - 26.52, Total: 67.71
Quality: 82.17%, Team quality: 89.82%, Competitiveness: 68.77%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 10.87%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 22.85%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 49.71%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 23.65%

#47: SMU (16.04, 90.14%) at California (-16.04, 9.86%)
Estimated score: 31.91 - 16.02, Total: 47.92
Quality: 81.38%, Team quality: 92.05%, Competitiveness: 63.60%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 13.10%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 20.17%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 30.79%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.18%

#48: North Carolina (-15.84, 10.15%) at NC State (15.84, 89.85%)
Estimated score: 16.72 - 32.30, Total: 49.03
Quality: 80.91%, Team quality: 90.71%, Competitiveness: 64.36%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 12.76%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 20.55%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 31.77%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 40.11%

#49: Western Michigan (13.82, 86.67%) at Eastern Michigan (-13.82, 13.33%)
Estimated score: 30.80 - 17.04, Total: 47.85
Quality: 80.91%, Team quality: 85.91%, Competitiveness: 71.75%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 9.69%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 24.47%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 30.72%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.25%

#50: Toledo (16.11, 90.23%) at Central Michigan (-16.11, 9.77%)
Estimated score: 32.58 - 16.45, Total: 49.03
Quality: 80.22%, Team quality: 90.27%, Competitiveness: 63.35%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 13.22%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 20.04%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 31.77%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 40.10%

#51: Florida International (12.16, 83.59%) vs. Sam Houston (-12.16, 16.41%)
Estimated score: 32.87 - 20.58, Total: 53.45
Quality: 79.38%, Team quality: 80.35%, Competitiveness: 77.49%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 7.62%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.73%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 35.80%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.90%

#52: Oregon State (-16.49, 9.24%) at Washington State (16.49, 90.76%)
Estimated score: 10.17 - 26.60, Total: 36.77
Quality: 78.87%, Team quality: 89.02%, Competitiveness: 61.90%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 13.89%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 19.32%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 21.75%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 52.22%

#53: UL Monroe (-15.44, 10.73%) at Louisiana (15.44, 89.27%)
Estimated score: 17.66 - 33.21, Total: 50.87
Quality: 74.69%, Team quality: 79.54%, Competitiveness: 65.86%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 12.10%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 21.32%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 33.42%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.34%

#54: Ball State (-17.56, 7.91%) at Miami (OH) (17.56, 92.09%)
Estimated score: 11.47 - 29.06, Total: 40.53
Quality: 74.20%, Team quality: 84.01%, Competitiveness: 57.89%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 15.87%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 17.39%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 24.62%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 48.47%

#55: Utah (21.79, 96.01%) at Kansas (-21.79, 3.99%)
Estimated score: 43.40 - 21.71, Total: 65.11
Quality: 72.92%, Team quality: 95.90%, Competitiveness: 42.16%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 25.47%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 10.69%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 47.12%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 25.70%

#56: Temple (-23.49, 2.95%) at North Texas (23.49, 97.05%)
Estimated score: 27.52 - 51.00, Total: 78.53
Quality: 67.51%, Team quality: 92.12%, Competitiveness: 36.25%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 30.05%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 8.53%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 60.38%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 16.16%

#57: UCF (-24.07, 2.65%) at BYU (24.07, 97.35%)
Estimated score: 9.13 - 33.07, Total: 42.20
Quality: 67.39%, Team quality: 94.42%, Competitiveness: 34.34%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 31.69%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 7.87%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 25.95%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 46.82%

#58: Bowling Green (19.58, 94.23%) at Massachusetts (-19.58, 5.77%)
Estimated score: 29.33 - 9.96, Total: 39.29
Quality: 64.52%, Team quality: 73.12%, Competitiveness: 50.24%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 20.12%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 13.96%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 23.65%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 49.71%

#59: UCLA (-25.50, 2.02%) at USC (25.50, 97.98%)
Estimated score: 17.42 - 43.00, Total: 60.42
Quality: 64.35%, Team quality: 94.55%, Competitiveness: 29.80%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 35.89%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 6.40%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 42.48%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 29.62%

#60: James Madison (24.48, 97.55%) at Coastal Carolina (-24.48, 2.45%)
Estimated score: 37.84 - 13.42, Total: 51.26
Quality: 63.68%, Team quality: 88.47%, Competitiveness: 33.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 32.87%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 7.43%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 33.78%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 37.97%

#61: Iowa State (25.26, 97.89%) at Oklahoma State (-25.26, 2.11%)
Estimated score: 35.19 - 9.91, Total: 45.10
Quality: 62.66%, Team quality: 89.75%, Competitiveness: 30.54%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 35.17%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 6.63%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 28.35%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 43.94%

#62: Texas Tech (27.85, 98.74%) at West Virginia (-27.85, 1.26%)
Estimated score: 41.61 - 13.77, Total: 55.38
Quality: 59.24%, Team quality: 94.85%, Competitiveness: 23.11%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 43.14%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 4.43%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 37.62%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.11%

#63: Charlotte (-29.03, 0.98%) at Tulane (29.03, 99.02%)
Estimated score: 9.74 - 38.59, Total: 48.32
Quality: 52.48%, Team quality: 84.74%, Competitiveness: 20.13%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 46.89%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 3.64%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 31.14%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 40.79%

#64: Georgia State (-30.96, 0.64%) at Old Dominion (30.96, 99.36%)
Estimated score: 11.88 - 42.75, Total: 54.63
Quality: 48.34%, Team quality: 84.56%, Competitiveness: 15.80%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 53.08%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 2.59%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 36.91%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.80%

#65: Notre Dame (32.99, 99.60%) at Stanford (-32.99, 0.40%)
Estimated score: 41.01 - 7.92, Total: 48.93
Quality: 47.49%, Team quality: 94.48%, Competitiveness: 12.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 59.48%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 1.77%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 31.68%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 40.20%

#66: Indiana (33.69, 99.66%) at Purdue (-33.69, 0.34%)
Estimated score: 43.51 - 9.71, Total: 53.23
Quality: 46.38%, Team quality: 95.88%, Competitiveness: 10.85%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 61.65%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 1.54%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 35.60%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 36.11%

#67: Rice (-33.44, 0.36%) at South Florida (33.44, 99.64%)
Estimated score: 12.13 - 45.50, Total: 57.63
Quality: 44.80%, Team quality: 89.41%, Competitiveness: 11.25%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 60.89%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 1.62%
High scoring probability (total >= 68.0 pts): 39.77%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 32.08%

I’ll post more content later this week including NFL ratings ahead of the Thanksgiving games. Thanks for reading!

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The ratings in this article are based on data from collegefootballdata.com.

From a playoff standpoint, there’s much more uncertainty in the AFC than in the NFC, so my summary this week will focus on AFC races. But I am intrigued by the matchup between two division leaders when the Buccaneers visit the Rams, and whether this game can help to narrow the playoff race in the NFC South. And the Steelers-Bears game is as close of a matchup as it gets, and the outcome also has serious playoff implications. But let’s begin in the AFC.

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Tonight’s game when the Bills play at the Texans is a game that will have a significant impact on the playoff chances for both teams. My ratings favor the Texans, who have improved to 5-5 and have an impressive predictive rating due to their +57 point differential. I’ve asked the question of whether the Texans are for real ever since they surged to near the top of the predictive ratings despite a mediocre record. They’ve won two straight games, and my predictive ratings favor them to win against the Bills. A win tonight would be another step toward showing that the predictive rating is right about the Texans and that they have a strong chance of reaching the playoffs. My season simulator effectively makes the Texans’ playoff chances a toss-up, and a win tonight would certainly shift the probabilities in favor of the Texans. The Bills are currently a strong favorite to get one of the AFC wild card spots, but this outcome could make that much less certain.

The results of simulating the season indicate that the AFC North will probably only get its division winner in the playoffs, with the Steelers and Ravens only having low probabilities of getting a wild card spot. The Patriots and Broncos are clear favorites to win their respective divisions. The Colts are the favorite to win the AFC South with an estimated 73.64% chance of winning the division. This means that more likely than not, the Jaguars and Texans will be seeking wild card bids. The main contenders for the three wild card spots in the AFC appear to be the Bills, Jaguars, Texans, Chiefs, and Chargers. The Bills have a high probability of picking up one of the wild card spots, leaving two spots for the other four teams.

The Jaguars-Cardinals game is also very intriguing and has significant playoff implications. The Cardinals have just a 3-7 record, but their strength of schedule and point differential boost them to the #18 predictive rating. The Jaguars have actually played a tougher schedule and have a +14 point differential with a 6-4 record. But the 2.37 point home advantage makes the prediction closer when the Jaguars play at the Cardinals this weekend. If the Texans can win tonight against Buffalo and then the Cardinals win against the Jaguars on Sunday, that would certainly improve the Jaguars’ chances of reaching the playoffs. However, if the opposite occurs, that would help to solidify the Jaguars as likely being the second playoff team from the AFC South. If both the Texans and Jaguars win, that would help both of their chances against the possibility of three AFC West teams reaching the playoffs. The combination of these two games, both of which are very competitive, may very well help to decide the wild card teams from this division.

As for the AFC West, my ratings favor the Chiefs to finish in second ahead of the Chargers. Although the Chargers are off this weekend, the Chiefs are slight favorites when they host the Colts on Sunday. The Chiefs have a better predictive rating than the Chargers, and some of this is due to having played the #13 schedule to date while the Chargers have faced the #22 schedule. The Chargers have a better record at 7-4, but they have only a +8 point differential. The Chiefs have a mediocre 5-5 record but a +74 point differential. Another factor in the playoff probabilities is that the Chiefs have the #17 future schedule but the Chargers will face the #4 toughest schedule over the remainder of the season. If the Chiefs win at home against the Colts, a prediction that tips in the Chiefs’ favor due to the 2.37 point home advantage, that will help to tighten the AFC West race. However, a Colts win would give the Chargers a full two game advantage over the Chiefs. And the Chargers won 27-21 against the Chiefs in Los Angeles in the opening week of the season giving them an early edge in the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Colts-Chiefs game this week is another game that can significantly tip the playoff chances of multiple teams and help clarify the AFC playoff scenario.

If there’s one more game that’s likely to significantly tip playoff chances for two teams, it’s the Steelers visiting the Bears. The Bears are currently atop the NFC North at 7-3 but have just the #21 predictive rating due to a -6 point differential. The Bears have won a lot of one score games while also getting blown out 52-21 when they visited the Lions earlier in the season. Although neither the Steelers nor the Bears have impressive predictive ratings, the Steelers-Bears game is as close to a toss-up as it gets. If the Bears win, this will keep them on top of the NFC North and increase their playoff chances at the expense of the Lions, Packers, and 49ers. The Bears have a 48.79% chance of reaching the playoffs, but this would improve by winning against the Steelers. But this game also has implications for the AFC North and whether the Steelers can remain ahead of the Ravens. The Jets visit the Ravens this weekend, but Baltimore is heavily favored in that game and likely to extend their winning streak to five games. The Steelers-Bears game is almost completely even in terms of the probability of which team wins, but this game has significant implications for two playoff races.

Finally, in a game between two NFC teams, the Buccaneers are heavy underdogs when they visit the Rams this weekend, but outside of the Steelers-Bears game, this matchup seems to have the best chances of changing the playoff scenarios in the NFC. It actually seems surprising to see the Buccaneers given a 91.65% chance of winning the NFC South despite having a 6-4 record, while the Panthers have a 7.88% chance of a division title with a 6-5 record. The Panthers and Buccaneers have yet to play each other, so the head-to-head tiebreaker remains undetermined. The Panthers are given just a 20.81% probability of winning at San Francisco on Monday night. While both NFC West teams are strongly favored against their respective NFC South opponents, the playoff probabilities could become closer in the NFC South if the Panthers and Rams win.

Predictive Ratings

These ratings are updated through games played on November 17, 2025 and are now determined solely by 2025 regular season games.

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points. They don’t factor in wins and losses, only the margin of victory. The ratings don’t explicitly calculate the strength of schedule, though I calculate this afterwards. However, because of how the ratings are calculated, the quality of opponents does influence the ratings.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 2.37 points
Mean score: 22.36 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      12.86  +1.57  Los Angeles Rams      5.13    7.75   
   2      11.84  +1.26  Seattle Seahawks      7.59    4.24   
   3      8.73   +0.15  Indianapolis Colts    8.79    -0.08  
   4   +1 7.81   -0.00  Kansas City Chiefs    2.19    5.63   
   5   +1 7.76   +0.63  Houston Texans        -0.24   8.00   
   6   -2 6.89   -1.22  Detroit Lions         5.27    1.64   
   7      5.73   +0.84  Philadelphia Eagles   0.77    4.94   
   8      4.75   -0.04  Denver Broncos        -0.65   5.41   
   9      3.96   +0.68  Buffalo Bills         5.44    -1.46  
  10   +5 3.43   +2.37  San Francisco 49ers   2.22    1.20   
  11   +5 3.28   +3.41  Jacksonville Jaguars  2.38    0.88   
  12   -1 3.04   +0.20  New England Patriots  1.93    1.13   
  13   -3 2.71   -0.46  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  3.69    -0.98  
  14      1.69   -0.11  Green Bay Packers     -0.99   2.68   
  15   -3 1.64   -0.67  Baltimore Ravens      3.23    -1.59  
  16   -3 -0.75  -2.67  Los Angeles Chargers  -1.12   0.36   
  17   +1 -0.79  +0.20  Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.51   -0.30  
  18   -1 -1.27  -1.10  Arizona Cardinals     -0.59   -0.74  
  19   +2 -1.78  +1.31  Dallas Cowboys        5.86    -7.67  
  20   -1 -3.02  -1.27  Minnesota Vikings     -2.51   -0.49  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21   -1 -3.13  -0.56  Chicago Bears         0.04    -3.18  
  22      -3.31  -0.14  Atlanta Falcons       -3.75   0.41   
  23      -4.80  -0.48  New York Giants       -0.94   -3.90  
  24   +2 -5.05  +1.12  Carolina Panthers     -5.12   0.03   
  25   -1 -5.22  -0.56  Washington Commanders -1.84   -3.37  
  26   -1 -5.25  -0.48  Miami Dolphins        -3.71   -1.54  
  27   +2 -7.30  +0.03  New Orleans Saints    -7.06   -0.24  
  28   -1 -7.68  -0.61  New York Jets         -3.69   -3.98  
  29   +1 -8.33  -0.66  Cleveland Browns      -8.16   -0.16  
  30   +1 -8.66  +0.49  Tennessee Titans      -6.01   -2.66  
  31   -3 -8.83  -1.59  Las Vegas Raiders     -7.71   -1.15  
  32      -10.87 -1.66  Cincinnati Bengals    0.02    -10.88 

Schedule Strength

The first column is the expected losing percentage (1 minus winning percentage) for a hypothetical average NFL team in each team’s games played to date. Larger numbers mean a tougher schedule. The second column is the same thing, just for future games instead of past games.

The third column is the average opponent rating, with an adjustment for the site of games, for previously played games. The fourth column is the average opponent rating for the future games that each team will play. These two columns are the same schedule strength metrics from my previous NFL articles.

In college football, the two approaches to schedule strength would differ more just because the approach used in the first two columns limits the influence of truly lopsided blowout games. In the NFL, there just aren’t that many blowouts, and the teams are more evenly balanced. Therefore, there’s just not too much of a difference in the two approaches to measuring schedule strength.

Schedule Strength for an Average Team
Home advantage: 2.37 points
Mean score: 22.36 points
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
   1 Los Angeles Rams      .586 (3)  .545 (8)  2.99 (3)   1.84 (6)  
   2 Seattle Seahawks      .536 (10) .527 (12) 1.42 (10)  1.05 (12) 
   3 Indianapolis Colts    .428 (30) .683 (1)  -2.46 (29) 6.79 (1)  
   4 Kansas City Chiefs    .522 (13) .496 (17) 0.66 (14)  -0.16 (17)
   5 Houston Texans        .567 (5)  .563 (5)  2.65 (5)   2.29 (5)  
   6 Detroit Lions         .483 (17) .485 (21) -0.62 (17) -0.19 (18)
   7 Philadelphia Eagles   .561 (6)  .427 (26) 2.23 (7)   -2.66 (27)
   8 Denver Broncos        .463 (21) .487 (20) -1.43 (23) -0.34 (21)
   9 Buffalo Bills         .434 (28) .471 (23) -2.34 (28) -1.25 (23)
  10 San Francisco 49ers   .591 (2)  .454 (25) 3.68 (2)   -1.56 (25)
  11 Jacksonville Jaguars  .557 (7)  .495 (18) 2.12 (8)   -0.24 (20)
  12 New England Patriots  .372 (32) .393 (29) -4.63 (32) -3.83 (29)
  13 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .577 (4)  .423 (27) 2.91 (4)   -2.39 (26)
  14 Green Bay Packers     .432 (29) .511 (15) -2.55 (30) 0.48 (15) 
  15 Baltimore Ravens      .530 (12) .392 (31) 1.12 (12)  -4.09 (32)
  16 Los Angeles Chargers  .462 (22) .575 (4)  -1.31 (21) 2.57 (4)  
  17 Pittsburgh Steelers   .445 (25) .498 (16) -2.09 (26) -0.03 (16)
  18 Arizona Cardinals     .546 (9)  .600 (3)  1.82 (9)   3.95 (3)  
  19 Dallas Cowboys        .444 (26) .515 (14) -1.91 (25) 0.61 (14) 
  20 Minnesota Vikings     .457 (24) .545 (7)  -1.60 (24) 1.81 (7)  
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
  21 Chicago Bears         .410 (31) .535 (10) -3.16 (31) 1.14 (10) 
  22 Atlanta Falcons       .494 (16) .523 (13) -0.17 (16) 0.89 (13) 
  23 New York Giants       .534 (11) .456 (24) 1.21 (11)  -1.49 (24)
  24 Carolina Panthers     .461 (23) .620 (2)  -1.41 (22) 4.38 (2)  
  25 Washington Commanders .507 (15) .530 (11) 0.25 (15)  1.10 (11) 
  26 Miami Dolphins        .470 (19) .410 (28) -1.03 (19) -3.48 (28)
  27 New Orleans Saints    .556 (8)  .387 (32) 2.36 (6)   -4.02 (31)
  28 New York Jets         .439 (27) .494 (19) -2.23 (27) -0.22 (19)
  29 Cleveland Browns      .467 (20) .393 (30) -1.27 (20) -3.89 (30)
  30 Tennessee Titans      .617 (1)  .548 (6)  4.28 (1)   1.66 (8)  
  31 Las Vegas Raiders     .521 (14) .541 (9)  0.81 (13)  1.40 (9)  
  32 Cincinnati Bengals    .481 (18) .474 (22) -0.71 (18) -0.99 (22)

NFL Season Simulation

This season simulation is based on games and computer ratings through November 10, 2025. The season was simulated 20,000 times, and the results of the simulations have been aggregated to predict final records and playoff chances. Tiebreakers for making the postseason are simplified, and the simulations don’t factor in potential issues like injuries, but this is still useful for making an educated guess about the standings at the end of the regular season.

Projected Standings

First up is the projected won-loss records, points scored, and points allowed for each team. The rating column is the team’s overall rating, included as a measure of team strength.

AFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
New England Patriots  13.04 3.94  0.02  .768  461.38  334.43  3.04  
Buffalo Bills         11.32 5.65  0.02  .667  486.88  387.97  3.96  
Miami Dolphins        6.72  10.26 0.02  .396  353.81  407.54  -5.25 
New York Jets         4.20  12.77 0.03  .248  342.19  452.35  -7.68 

AFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Baltimore Ravens      9.46  7.52  0.03  .557  454.80  414.18  1.64  
Pittsburgh Steelers   9.37  7.60  0.03  .552  406.32  397.37  -0.79 
Cincinnati Bengals    4.85  12.13 0.02  .286  392.51  566.40  -10.87
Cleveland Browns      4.67  12.29 0.04  .276  282.69  384.96  -8.33 

AFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Indianapolis Colts    11.84 5.13  0.03  .697  509.25  380.80  8.73  
Jacksonville Jaguars  10.05 6.92  0.03  .592  416.85  378.96  3.28  
Houston Texans        9.37  7.59  0.04  .552  374.35  281.59  7.76  
Tennessee Titans      2.81  14.16 0.03  .166  248.99  448.94  -8.66 

AFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Denver Broncos        12.77 4.20  0.03  .752  383.03  288.70  4.75  
Kansas City Chiefs    9.86  7.11  0.03  .581  425.05  298.46  7.81  
Los Angeles Chargers  9.46  7.52  0.03  .557  359.34  371.08  -0.75 
Las Vegas Raiders     3.83  13.13 0.04  .226  244.00  408.70  -8.83 

NFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Philadelphia Eagles   12.92 4.06  0.03  .761  414.97  325.11  5.73  
Dallas Cowboys        7.07  8.91  1.03  .446  490.01  503.88  -1.78 
New York Giants       4.51  12.47 0.02  .266  376.01  458.72  -4.80 
Washington Commanders 5.02  11.95 0.03  .296  356.94  454.03  -5.22 

NFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Detroit Lions         10.72 6.26  0.02  .631  491.41  366.85  6.89  
Green Bay Packers     9.72  6.25  1.03  .602  391.06  338.65  1.69  
Chicago Bears         9.72  7.25  0.03  .573  403.92  439.16  -3.13 
Minnesota Vikings     6.68  10.29 0.03  .394  360.73  407.44  -3.02 

NFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  10.42 6.55  0.03  .614  430.16  393.01  2.71  
Carolina Panthers     7.62  9.35  0.02  .449  301.76  398.49  -5.05 
Atlanta Falcons       5.78  11.19 0.03  .341  320.05  393.00  -3.31 
New Orleans Saints    4.90  12.06 0.04  .289  271.42  388.13  -7.30 

NFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Los Angeles Rams      13.31 3.66  0.02  .784  459.77  285.05  12.86 
Seattle Seahawks      12.25 4.72  0.02  .721  496.46  321.61  11.84 
San Francisco 49ers   10.69 6.29  0.02  .630  412.54  375.27  3.43  
Arizona Cardinals     5.61  11.36 0.02  .331  363.88  431.71  -1.27 

Playoff Chances

The next table shows each team’s chances of making the playoffs, winning their division, and having the best record in the conference. The mean playoff seed is an average that uses only the seasons when each team made the playoffs. Div% and Conf% are the probabilities of a team having the best record in their division and conference, respectively.

AFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
New England Patriots  3.04    .768   99.37%  80.28%  41.55%     2.38
Buffalo Bills         3.96    .667   89.42%  19.72%   6.78%     4.75
Miami Dolphins        -5.25   .396    0.17%   0.00%   0.00%     6.82
New York Jets         -7.68   .248    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Baltimore Ravens      1.64    .557   58.65%  54.14%   0.11%     4.09
Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.79   .552   53.37%  45.79%   0.43%     4.17
Cincinnati Bengals    -10.87  .286    0.09%   0.06%   0.00%     5.00
Cleveland Browns      -8.33   .276    0.01%   0.01%   0.00%     4.00

AFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Indianapolis Colts    8.73    .697   94.36%  73.64%  19.25%     3.05
Jacksonville Jaguars  3.28    .592   66.81%  15.90%   1.46%     5.33
Houston Texans        7.76    .552   49.41%  10.46%   0.18%     5.55
Tennessee Titans      -8.66   .166    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Denver Broncos        4.75    .752   98.56%  89.24%  29.58%     2.36
Kansas City Chiefs    7.81    .581   52.45%   6.84%   0.48%     5.75
Los Angeles Chargers  -0.75   .557   37.34%   3.91%   0.18%     5.96
Las Vegas Raiders     -8.83   .226    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Philadelphia Eagles   5.73    .761   99.90%  99.84%  44.16%     1.71
Dallas Cowboys        -1.78   .446    4.24%   0.15%   0.00%     6.64
New York Giants       -4.80   .266    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--
Washington Commanders -5.22   .296    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

NFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Detroit Lions         6.89    .631   85.10%  53.08%   1.16%     4.35
Green Bay Packers     1.69    .602   70.03%  32.03%   0.43%     4.99
Chicago Bears         -3.13   .573   48.79%  14.49%   0.42%     5.54
Minnesota Vikings     -3.02   .394    2.01%   0.41%   0.00%     6.19

NFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  2.71    .614   92.73%  91.65%   0.58%     3.73
Carolina Panthers     -5.05   .449   10.71%   7.88%   0.00%     4.68
Atlanta Falcons       -3.31   .341    0.46%   0.38%   0.00%     4.50
New Orleans Saints    -7.30   .289    0.09%   0.09%   0.00%     4.00

NFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Los Angeles Rams      12.86   .784   99.78%  68.42%  39.34%     2.63
Seattle Seahawks      11.84   .721   98.73%  30.06%  13.46%     4.25
San Francisco 49ers   3.43    .630   87.37%   1.51%   0.43%     5.92
Arizona Cardinals     -1.27   .331    0.05%   0.00%   0.00%     6.90

Possible Regular Season Outcomes

To give a range of how good or bad a team’s final record might be, several percentiles are shown for each team’s final winning percentage.

AFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
New England Patriots  .768  100.00%   .706   .706   .765   .824   .824
Buffalo Bills         .667  99.36%    .588   .647   .647   .706   .765
Miami Dolphins        .396  5.72%     .294   .353   .412   .441   .471
New York Jets         .248  0.01%     .176   .176   .235   .294   .353

AFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Baltimore Ravens      .557  78.78%    .471   .529   .559   .588   .647
Pittsburgh Steelers   .552  75.35%    .471   .529   .529   .588   .647
Cincinnati Bengals    .286  0.14%     .176   .235   .294   .353   .353
Cleveland Browns      .276  0.12%     .176   .235   .294   .324   .353

AFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Indianapolis Colts    .697  99.72%    .588   .647   .706   .765   .765
Jacksonville Jaguars  .592  90.76%    .529   .529   .588   .647   .706
Houston Texans        .552  76.92%    .471   .529   .529   .588   .647
Tennessee Titans      .166  0.00%     .088   .118   .176   .235   .235

AFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Denver Broncos        .752  100.00%   .647   .706   .765   .824   .824
Kansas City Chiefs    .581  87.12%    .471   .529   .588   .647   .647
Los Angeles Chargers  .557  79.83%    .471   .529   .529   .588   .647
Las Vegas Raiders     .226  0.00%     .147   .176   .235   .294   .294

NFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Philadelphia Eagles   .761  100.00%   .647   .706   .765   .824   .824
Dallas Cowboys        .446  13.32%    .353   .382   .441   .500   .559
New York Giants       .266  0.00%     .176   .235   .265   .294   .353
Washington Commanders .296  0.07%     .235   .235   .294   .353   .382

NFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Detroit Lions         .631  96.91%    .529   .588   .647   .706   .706
Green Bay Packers     .602  83.62%    .500   .559   .618   .676   .676
Chicago Bears         .573  84.28%    .471   .529   .588   .647   .647
Minnesota Vikings     .394  6.91%     .294   .353   .412   .441   .471

NFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .614  94.55%    .529   .588   .588   .647   .706
Carolina Panthers     .449  19.18%    .353   .412   .471   .471   .529
Atlanta Falcons       .341  1.22%     .235   .294   .353   .412   .412
New Orleans Saints    .289  0.11%     .176   .235   .294   .353   .382

NFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Los Angeles Rams      .784  99.99%    .706   .765   .765   .824   .882
Seattle Seahawks      .721  99.91%    .647   .706   .706   .765   .824
San Francisco 49ers   .630  97.84%    .529   .588   .647   .647   .706
Arizona Cardinals     .331  0.76%     .235   .294   .353   .353   .412

Postseason Projections

The final table shows each team’s probability of reaching the playoffs, the divisional round, the conference championship, winning their conference, and winning the Super Bowl.

AFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
New England Patriots  .768    99.37%   70.83%    35.30%   13.88%  4.72%
Buffalo Bills         .667    89.42%   46.71%    21.11%    9.68%  3.40%
Miami Dolphins        .396     0.17%    0.03%     0.01%    0.01%  0.01%
New York Jets         .248     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Baltimore Ravens      .557    58.65%   28.16%     9.74%    4.22%  1.25%
Pittsburgh Steelers   .552    53.37%   21.89%     6.73%    2.41%  0.59%
Cincinnati Bengals    .286     0.09%    0.01%     0.01%    0.00%  0.00%
Cleveland Browns      .276     0.01%    0.01%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Indianapolis Colts    .697    94.36%   67.99%    44.23%   26.99% 12.75%
Jacksonville Jaguars  .592    66.81%   28.98%    12.34%    6.00%  2.00%
Houston Texans        .552    49.41%   27.30%    14.75%    8.84%  3.91%
Tennessee Titans      .166     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Denver Broncos        .752    98.56%   67.81%    36.46%   16.96%  6.38%
Kansas City Chiefs    .581    52.45%   28.70%    15.75%    9.65%  4.45%
Los Angeles Chargers  .557    37.34%   11.57%     3.58%    1.38%  0.29%
Las Vegas Raiders     .226     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Philadelphia Eagles   .761    99.90%   79.21%    42.87%   15.05%  7.29%
Dallas Cowboys        .446     4.24%    1.10%     0.20%    0.03%  0.01%
New York Giants       .266     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%
Washington Commanders .296     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Detroit Lions         .631    85.10%   48.69%    20.35%    9.28%  5.17%
Green Bay Packers     .602    70.03%   26.13%     7.56%    2.67%  1.01%
Chicago Bears         .573    48.79%   11.86%     2.30%    0.58%  0.17%
Minnesota Vikings     .394     2.01%    0.45%     0.08%    0.02%  0.01%

NFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .614    92.73%   38.51%    13.15%    4.50%  1.94%
Carolina Panthers     .449    10.71%    2.27%     0.34%    0.07%  0.01%
Atlanta Falcons       .341     0.46%    0.13%     0.03%    0.01%  0.00%
New Orleans Saints    .289     0.09%    0.03%     0.01%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Los Angeles Rams      .784    99.78%   84.08%    58.37%   37.03% 25.24%
Seattle Seahawks      .721    98.73%   71.75%    43.64%   26.62% 17.52%
San Francisco 49ers   .630    87.37%   35.79%    11.12%    4.14%  1.88%
Arizona Cardinals     .331     0.05%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

Week 12 Game Predictions

The thresholds for close games, blowouts, and high and low scoring games are different in the NFL than in college football. That’s because NFL teams are balanced enough in talent to usually avoid truly lopsided scores and there’s just less scoring overall.

Games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL for many of the same reasons I just mentioned. This is just for predicting which NFL games are most and least compelling each weekend.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. In the event that a margin is larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score, that’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a forecast of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This isn’t even close to possible with the current NFL ratings, even with the weakest offense against the strongest defense, but it does occur once in awhile in college football. A negative score is impossible, of course, so the score would be set to zero in those instances. However, there’s no upper limit on how many points a team can be projected to score. But with more parity between NFL teams, even the highest scoring predictions aren’t going to be nearly as crazy as what is possible with the college football ratings.

#1: Indianapolis Colts (-1.45, 45.48%) at Kansas City Chiefs (1.45, 54.06%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 24.34 - 25.82, Total: 50.16
Quality: 93.38%, Team quality: 90.47%, Competitiveness: 99.49%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 20.86%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.56%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 34.62%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 12.47%

#2: Buffalo Bills (-6.17, 32.11%) at Houston Texans (6.17, 67.47%), Tie (0.41%)
Estimated score: 18.62 - 24.76, Total: 43.38
Quality: 82.63%, Team quality: 78.70%, Competitiveness: 91.08%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 25.25%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.93%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 19.74%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 24.17%

#3: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-12.51, 17.44%) at Los Angeles Rams (12.51, 82.26%), Tie (0.30%)
Estimated score: 17.12 - 29.66, Total: 46.77
Quality: 73.72%, Team quality: 76.73%, Competitiveness: 68.04%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 38.33%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 11.53%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 26.65%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 17.67%

#4: Philadelphia Eagles (5.14, 64.69%) at Dallas Cowboys (-5.14, 34.89%), Tie (0.43%)
Estimated score: 29.62 - 24.47, Total: 54.09
Quality: 69.22%, Team quality: 59.49%, Competitiveness: 93.71%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 23.86%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 16.44%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 44.85%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 7.93%

#5: Jacksonville Jaguars (2.18, 56.22%) at Arizona Cardinals (-2.18, 43.33%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 24.30 - 22.08, Total: 46.37
Quality: 67.55%, Team quality: 55.85%, Competitiveness: 98.84%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.19%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.43%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 25.77%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 18.37%

#6: Minnesota Vikings (-7.08, 29.71%) at Green Bay Packers (7.08, 69.89%), Tie (0.40%)
Estimated score: 15.98 - 23.03, Total: 39.02
Quality: 53.15%, Team quality: 41.21%, Competitiveness: 88.40%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 26.69%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 15.41%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 12.71%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 34.19%

#7: Pittsburgh Steelers (-0.03, 49.69%) at Chicago Bears (0.03, 49.85%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 23.85 - 23.88, Total: 47.73
Quality: 52.20%, Team quality: 37.71%, Competitiveness: 100.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 20.59%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.66%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 28.80%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 16.08%

#8: New York Giants (-14.06, 14.65%) at Detroit Lions (14.06, 85.09%), Tie (0.27%)
Estimated score: 18.60 - 32.72, Total: 51.31
Quality: 45.47%, Team quality: 39.10%, Competitiveness: 61.50%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 42.38%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 10.31%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 37.55%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 10.97%

#9: Carolina Panthers (-10.85, 20.81%) at San Francisco 49ers (10.85, 78.85%), Tie (0.33%)
Estimated score: 14.85 - 25.73, Total: 40.58
Quality: 45.15%, Team quality: 35.07%, Competitiveness: 74.88%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 34.27%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 12.82%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 14.99%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 30.40%

#10: Seattle Seahawks (18.13, 91.04%) at Tennessee Titans (-18.13, 8.78%), Tie (0.19%)
Estimated score: 31.43 - 13.29, Total: 44.72
Quality: 36.74%, Team quality: 33.38%, Competitiveness: 44.53%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 53.79%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 7.22%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 22.32%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 21.46%

#11: Atlanta Falcons (1.63, 54.60%) at New Orleans Saints (-1.63, 44.94%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 17.66 - 16.07, Total: 33.73
Quality: 33.81%, Team quality: 19.73%, Competitiveness: 99.35%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 20.93%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.53%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 6.86%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 48.02%

#12: New York Jets (-11.69, 19.07%) at Baltimore Ravens (11.69, 80.61%), Tie (0.32%)
Estimated score: 19.08 - 30.75, Total: 49.83
Quality: 33.58%, Team quality: 23.01%, Competitiveness: 71.48%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 36.27%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 12.18%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 33.82%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 12.91%

#13: New England Patriots (11.54, 80.31%) at Cincinnati Bengals (-11.54, 19.37%), Tie (0.32%)
Estimated score: 33.99 - 22.44, Total: 56.43
Quality: 30.08%, Team quality: 19.43%, Competitiveness: 72.07%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 35.92%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 12.29%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 51.18%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 5.92%

#14: Cleveland Browns (-1.87, 44.25%) at Las Vegas Raiders (1.87, 55.29%), Tie (0.46%)
Estimated score: 14.16 - 15.99, Total: 30.15
Quality: 19.23%, Team quality: 8.47%, Competitiveness: 99.15%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.03%
Close game probability (margin <= 3.0 pts): 17.50%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 4.31%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 57.65%

I’ll be posting my critique of this week’s college football playoff rankings soon, much of which will involve the statistical case that BYU should have a playoff spot. But until then, thanks for reading!

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These ratings are based on data from Pro Football Reference.

With Duke losing last weekend, it’s a lot harder to envision an ACC champion with four losses on the season. And that also makes it much less likely that the Group of 5 gets two teams in the playoff. Although there’s still a nonzero probability of the Group of 5 getting a second team in the playoff, it seems a lot safer to predict that four of the five automatic bids will go to the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC.

For now, there are three undefeated teams left: Indiana, Ohio State, and Texas A&M. Then there are six more Power 4 teams with just one loss: Oregon, Georgia, BYU, Texas Tech, Ole Miss, and Georgia Tech. The highest ranked Group of 5 team in my playoff ratings is North Texas, which also gives them a playoff bid. Assuming all of those teams reach the playoff and the committee doesn’t leave a one loss team like BYU out, then there are just two spots left. The Power 4 teams with two losses are Alabama, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, USC, Utah, Miami, Vanderbilt, Michigan, Virginia, and Houston. It seems unlikely that the committee would overlook all of these teams in favor of one with three losses.

Alabama still has a good strength of record and high predictive rating, so it’s hard to imagine them being left out of the playoff. But winning against Alabama was a quality win for Oklahoma, and they do have a better strength of record than Notre Dame. So there’s an argument for the Sooners moving ahead of Notre Dame in this week’s playoff rankings. The committee will probably move Oklahoma ahead of Alabama, too. My guess is that the selection committee puts all of these teams in ahead of BYU, a decision that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. If Oklahoma is the final team in, BYU has a better strength of record and a better predictive rating according to my system. They’re also ahead in ESPN’s FPI strength of record. Although Notre Dame has a higher predictive rating than BYU, their strength of record is lower due to two losses. My guess is the playoff committee will choose Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A&M, Georgia, Oregon, Texas Tech, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Alabama, Georgia Tech, and North Texas. I would put BYU in Oklahoma’s spot, then move Notre Dame out of the playoff.

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Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

The last column here is SOR, which means strength of record. Unlike all the other columns, this is a backward looking rating and evaluates the quality of a team’s wins and losses in comparison to a hypothetical team with a rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. Such a hypothetical team would typically be ranked somewhere between #10 and #15. Strength of record is just each team’s actual winning percentage minus the expected winning percentage for that hypothetical team against the same schedule. This is negative for most teams because their record is being compared against the expected record for a pretty good team.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 1.97 points
Mean score: 26.87 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
   1      88.47  -1.02  Indiana               45.90   42.48    .194
   2      86.85  -0.09  Ohio State            39.90   47.04    .159
   3      83.51  +0.22  Oregon                43.79   39.74    .099
   4      82.06  +0.18  Utah                  43.46   38.63   -.046
   5   +1 80.93  +1.82  Notre Dame            40.43   40.37    .005
   6   -1 80.20  +0.75  Texas Tech            40.83   39.35    .060
   7      77.22  -0.54  Alabama               37.52   39.62    .076
   8   +1 75.56  -0.20  USC                   41.86   33.73    .013
   9   -1 75.50  -1.53  Texas A&M             42.09   33.51    .211
  10      75.50  +1.77  Georgia               35.74   39.84    .124
  11      75.24  +1.81  Miami                 33.83   41.41   -.027
  12      73.95  +1.66  BYU                   36.14   37.87    .117
  13   +1 72.95  +1.41  Oklahoma              30.50   42.45    .033
  14   +4 72.68  +2.12  Washington            38.70   34.00   -.126
  15   +2 72.26  +1.37  Ole Miss              40.70   31.53    .084
  16   -3 71.91  +0.03  Iowa                  29.91   41.98   -.120
  17   -2 70.71  -0.37  Vanderbilt            41.25   29.46   -.015
  18   +2 69.63  +0.22  Florida State         36.66   32.92   -.344
  19   +2 69.55  +0.59  Tennessee             44.24   25.26   -.105
  20   -1 69.55  -0.79  Michigan              32.47   37.00   -.006
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  21   +4 69.22  +1.53  Penn State            35.27   33.75   -.296
  22   -6 68.51  -2.56  Texas                 31.07   37.47   -.020
  23   +1 68.48  +0.50  Illinois              34.68   33.80   -.012
  24   +2 68.41  +1.68  Missouri              34.38   33.76   -.109
  25   -2 67.22  -1.01  LSU                   28.04   39.16   -.150
  26   -4 67.15  -1.39  South Florida         38.88   28.19   -.170
  27   +1 66.01  +1.04  North Texas           42.19   23.68   -.066
  28   -1 65.10  -0.56  Pittsburgh            35.36   29.56   -.173
  29   +1 65.07  +0.89  Arizona               31.77   33.16   -.189
  30   -1 64.63  -0.32  Nebraska              33.23   31.40   -.183
  31      64.32  +0.52  Auburn                26.65   37.64   -.341
  32      63.31  -0.07  Florida               27.68   35.61   -.373
  33   +6 63.07  +1.75  Virginia              33.32   29.71   -.113
  34   +6 63.03  +1.86  Kentucky              29.17   33.85   -.289
  35   -2 62.99  +0.02  Iowa State            30.28   32.76   -.251
  36   -1 62.20  -0.54  Cincinnati            32.97   29.23   -.155
  37   -1 62.05  +0.27  Louisville            32.32   29.75   -.180
  38  +10 61.50  +2.59  South Carolina        25.38   36.24   -.389
  39   +8 61.29  +2.34  James Madison         28.26   32.97   -.073
  40   -6 61.01  -1.78  Georgia Tech          33.06   27.99   -.059
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  41   +1 60.71  +0.08  SMU                   29.55   31.16   -.212
  42   -5 60.35  -1.03  Mississippi State     33.73   26.60   -.327
  43   +1 60.25  +0.15  East Carolina         29.31   30.96   -.234
  44   +2 60.03  +0.89  Arkansas              35.19   24.87   -.533
  45   -4 59.99  -1.09  Arizona State         24.72   35.09   -.100
  46   -8 59.66  -1.67  TCU                   32.32   27.34   -.286
  47   -2 59.57  +0.01  Clemson               27.77   31.83   -.397
  48   +4 58.98  +1.61  Toledo                28.62   30.45   -.367
  49   -6 58.66  -1.54  Kansas State          30.46   28.03   -.365
  50   -1 58.48  +0.20  Memphis               30.03   28.52   -.227
  51   -1 58.30  +0.11  Houston               30.17   28.11   -.097
  52   +3 57.51  +0.74  Northwestern          21.97   35.49   -.261
  53   +1 57.22  +0.44  Kansas                30.57   26.58   -.338
  54  +10 56.56  +2.38  San Diego State       23.76   32.86   -.183
  55   -4 56.34  -1.84  Duke                  32.87   23.47   -.419
  56   -3 56.06  -1.31  NC State              31.88   24.29   -.291
  57   +3 56.05  +1.33  Wisconsin             20.42   35.72   -.270
  58   -2 55.70  -0.23  Boise State           27.28   28.54   -.279
  59   +8 55.36  +1.64  Old Dominion          27.17   28.22   -.188
  60   -3 55.24  -0.44  Wake Forest           20.85   34.47   -.210
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  61   +2 55.18  +0.65  Maryland              24.88   30.19   -.406
  62   -3 55.09  +0.36  Rutgers               31.79   23.10   -.292
  63   -5 54.76  -0.33  Baylor                34.47   20.32   -.349
  64   +8 54.35  +3.04  Washington State      20.51   33.69   -.350
  65   -4 54.10  -0.55  Tulane                26.87   27.33   -.114
  66   -1 53.89  -0.09  Minnesota             24.07   29.73   -.158
  67   -5 52.93  -1.67  UCF                   22.59   30.34   -.474
  68      52.64  -0.65  Michigan State        26.91   25.86   -.461
  69      52.60  -0.20  UCLA                  25.29   27.22   -.388
  70   -4 52.58  -1.20  Purdue                24.62   27.94   -.513
  71   +3 50.81  -0.27  Colorado              24.63   26.13   -.511
  72   +5 50.80  +0.75  West Virginia         25.43   25.36   -.461
  73   -3 50.78  -1.70  New Mexico            25.87   25.09   -.242
  74   +2 50.73  +0.44  UTSA                  27.75   22.88   -.374
  75   +3 50.34  +0.31  Army                  17.96   32.32   -.379
  76   -5 50.27  -1.13  Utah State            28.22   22.05   -.388
  77   -2 50.15  -0.14  UNLV                  32.58   17.58   -.183
  78   +1 49.91  -0.04  UConn                 27.57   22.39   -.265
  79   +9 49.21  +2.18  Navy                  25.61   23.58   -.072
  80   +2 49.11  +0.99  Virginia Tech         25.31   23.60   -.569
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  81      49.04  +0.39  Western Michigan      17.72   31.37   -.330
  82   -2 48.76  -0.20  Hawai’i               24.50   24.24   -.264
  83  -10 48.45  -2.68  Louisiana Tech        21.33   27.01   -.458
  84   -1 48.42  +0.36  Ohio                  24.96   23.51   -.300
  85   +4 47.24  +0.51  California            22.08   24.84   -.346
  86   +8 47.00  +2.50  Fresno State          21.08   25.96   -.273
  87      46.95  -0.08  Syracuse              22.37   24.54   -.537
  88   -2 46.94  -0.18  Stanford              19.83   27.00   -.501
  89   +9 46.63  +3.10  Texas State           30.88   15.75   -.568
  90   +1 45.97  +0.39  Temple                26.13   19.79   -.429
  91   -7 45.29  -2.04  Kennesaw State        21.99   23.34   -.200
  92      45.23  -0.19  Western Kentucky      23.60   21.73   -.184
  93      45.16  -0.23  Miami (OH)            19.07   26.25   -.471
  94   +1 45.01  +0.53  Marshall              28.20   16.81   -.425
  95   +2 44.16  -0.29  North Carolina        17.73   26.38   -.553
  96  -11 43.66  -3.46  Southern Miss         22.17   21.51   -.287
  97   -1 43.54  -0.92  Air Force             26.14   17.49   -.680
  98   -8 43.54  -2.09  Wyoming               14.08   29.46   -.516
  99   +2 43.08  +1.76  Boston College        24.70   18.18   -.776
 100   +5 41.14  +0.86  Missouri State        18.74   22.46   -.229
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 101   +3 40.79  +0.30  Jacksonville State    21.49   19.27   -.293
 102   -2 40.63  -1.82  Troy                  18.77   21.83   -.369
 103   +3 40.48  +0.50  Central Michigan      19.62   20.66   -.331
 104   -1 40.14  -0.48  Oregon State          18.14   22.10   -.664
 105   -3 40.09  -0.68  Liberty               18.42   21.55   -.580
 106   +5 39.90  +2.31  Tulsa                 18.85   20.89   -.666
 107   +3 39.79  +1.64  Florida Atlantic      25.34   14.45   -.543
 108   +8 38.89  +1.82  Colorado State        16.68   22.15   -.728
 109   -2 38.72  -0.60  Arkansas State        16.22   22.43   -.472
 110   -1 38.62  +0.41  Louisiana             19.76   18.83   -.544
 111   -3 38.31  -0.07  Georgia Southern      25.10   13.20   -.421
 112  -13 38.14  -5.13  San José State        21.52   16.55   -.654
 113   +4 37.77  +0.83  Florida International 19.42   18.34   -.456
 114  +12 37.33  +4.46  Nevada                14.48   22.82   -.742
 115   +4 37.04  +0.53  Bowling Green         12.90   24.01   -.651
 116   +2 36.47  -0.06  Coastal Carolina      18.38   18.12   -.361
 117   +5 36.02  +0.68  Rice                  14.70   21.33   -.478
 118   -6 36.01  -1.43  Delaware              20.06   15.84   -.492
 119   +1 35.75  -0.15  South Alabama         18.26   17.95   -.642
 120   -6 35.64  -1.47  Buffalo               14.83   20.83   -.491
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 121   +6 35.56  +2.83  Northern Illinois     11.13   24.50   -.656
 122   +1 35.49  +0.20  UAB                   21.70   13.92   -.626
 123   -8 35.33  -1.75  UTEP                  16.43   18.88   -.757
 124      35.28  +1.81  Oklahoma State        15.12   20.19   -.680
 125   -4 35.19  -0.18  New Mexico State      13.74   21.39   -.652
 126  -13 35.09  -2.10  App State             18.02   17.12   -.565
 127   +2 33.79  +1.88  Eastern Michigan      19.58   14.21   -.613
 128   -3 32.35  -1.07  Akron                 15.77   16.52   -.600
 129   -1 30.80  -1.19  Ball State            11.96   18.70   -.563
 130      30.26  +1.08  Kent State            18.02   12.37   -.424
 131      29.72  +0.67  Middle Tennessee      14.73   14.85   -.887
 132   +1 27.70  +0.88  Sam Houston           14.68   13.21   -.754
 133   +1 27.45  +0.69  Georgia State         14.96   12.41   -.790
 134   -2 27.30  -0.02  Charlotte             12.71   14.76   -.827
 135      24.47  -1.37  UL Monroe             11.22   13.33   -.620
 136      13.72  -2.64  Massachusetts         5.24    8.35    -.914

Schedule Strength

There are two different measures of schedule strength in this table. The first two columns measure the difficulty a team’s past and future schedules would pose for a team that would be 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. The columns are the team’s expected losing percentage against that schedule, meaning that higher numbers indicate a stronger schedule. This should be somewhat similar to the schedule strength from ESPN’s FPI ratings.

The last two columns are also the past and future schedules, but they’re just the average of the opponents’ predictive ratings with an adjustment for the site of the game. Schedule strength is a factor in deciding which teams belong in the college football playoff, and these two columns aren’t always representative of the schedule strength for a team near the top of the ratings. These ratings should be closer to the schedule strength in Jeff Sagarin’s ratings, which are the rating a team would need to be expected to win exactly 50% of games against that team’s schedule.

Past and Future Schedule Strength
Home advantage: 1.97 points
Mean score: 26.87 points
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
   1 Indiana               .194 (32)  .050 (73)  56.55 (31)  54.55 (62) 
   2 Ohio State            .159 (45)  .217 (33)  54.56 (48)  62.32 (29) 
   3 Oregon                .199 (29)  .479 (5)   57.93 (25)  74.12 (4)  
   4 Utah                  .154 (48)  .087 (59)  56.28 (33)  57.94 (47) 
   5 Notre Dame            .205 (27)  .013 (96)  60.41 (11)  46.94 (82) 
   6 Texas Tech            .151 (49)  .037 (80)  48.92 (72)  52.77 (68) 
   7 Alabama               .276 (10)  .123 (48)  63.21 (5)   38.85 (114)
   8 USC                   .213 (22)  .416 (8)   59.37 (18)  68.05 (16) 
   9 Texas A&M             .211 (24)  .182 (35)  62.31 (6)   37.84 (117)
  10 Georgia               .224 (18)  .066 (67)  61.45 (9)   43.17 (101)
  11 Miami                 .173 (42)  .146 (44)  55.34 (40)  59.07 (44) 
  12 BYU                   .217 (21)  .111 (52)  57.18 (27)  57.57 (49) 
  13 Oklahoma              .233 (17)  .234 (32)  59.22 (19)  65.85 (25) 
  14 Washington            .174 (41)  .379 (10)  57.18 (28)  68.05 (16) 
  15 Ole Miss              .175 (40)  .156 (41)  55.45 (39)  62.32 (28) 
  16 Iowa                  .280 (9)   .139 (47)  56.27 (34)  58.63 (45) 
  17 Vanderbilt            .185 (37)  .264 (27)  55.04 (45)  66.29 (24) 
  18 Florida State         .156 (46)  .154 (42)  52.80 (54)  61.66 (35) 
  19 Tennessee             .195 (31)  .266 (26)  55.03 (46)  67.01 (19) 
  20 Michigan              .194 (34)  .435 (7)   59.39 (17)  71.02 (7)  
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  21 Penn State            .304 (6)   .119 (50)  59.56 (16)  59.86 (41) 
  22 Texas                 .280 (8)   .274 (24)  59.58 (15)  65.80 (26) 
  23 Illinois              .288 (7)   .073 (61)  60.06 (12)  56.78 (53) 
  24 Missouri              .191 (35)  .327 (16)  53.02 (53)  68.46 (12) 
  25 LSU                   .250 (13)  .255 (31)  62.27 (7)   59.09 (43) 
  26 South Florida         .130 (57)  .001 (129) 51.09 (63)  35.75 (123)
  27 North Texas           .034 (115) .004 (112) 44.34 (94)  41.00 (108)
  28 Pittsburgh            .127 (59)  .310 (20)  51.15 (61)  68.12 (15) 
  29 Arizona               .111 (68)  .093 (55)  52.44 (56)  57.37 (50) 
  30 Nebraska              .117 (64)  .366 (12)  51.32 (59)  70.56 (8)  
  31 Auburn                .259 (12)  .258 (29)  60.75 (10)  56.78 (52) 
  32 Florida               .327 (2)   .281 (22)  64.34 (3)   67.62 (18) 
  33 Virginia              .069 (90)  .012 (98)  50.23 (66)  47.14 (80) 
  34 Kentucky              .211 (23)  .312 (19)  59.87 (14)  68.35 (14) 
  35 Iowa State            .149 (52)  .029 (83)  57.02 (29)  46.25 (88) 
  36 Cincinnati            .145 (53)  .277 (23)  50.26 (65)  66.81 (20) 
  37 Louisville            .120 (63)  .148 (43)  51.83 (58)  61.87 (33) 
  38 South Carolina        .311 (4)   .041 (77)  63.96 (4)   46.05 (90) 
  39 James Madison         .027 (123) .018 (90)  40.88 (120) 45.41 (91) 
  40 Georgia Tech          .041 (109) .348 (14)  48.87 (73)  69.32 (10) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  41 SMU                   .088 (75)  .068 (65)  49.67 (69)  54.65 (60) 
  42 Mississippi State     .219 (20)  .358 (13)  56.74 (30)  70.30 (9)  
  43 East Carolina         .066 (91)  .020 (86)  45.25 (88)  47.22 (79) 
  44 Arkansas              .267 (11)  .306 (21)  58.74 (22)  68.46 (13) 
  45 Arizona State         .200 (28)  .104 (54)  58.92 (21)  57.94 (48) 
  46 TCU                   .114 (65)  .119 (49)  55.32 (41)  60.25 (38) 
  47 Clemson               .103 (70)  .090 (57)  54.78 (47)  39.28 (112)
  48 Toledo                .033 (117) .002 (118) 40.04 (126) 35.64 (124)
  49 Kansas State          .135 (54)  .396 (9)   56.29 (32)  66.44 (23) 
  50 Memphis               .046 (103) .013 (97)  44.17 (96)  47.24 (78) 
  51 Houston               .103 (71)  .077 (60)  51.09 (62)  57.21 (51) 
  52 Northwestern          .239 (16)  .204 (34)  55.70 (38)  62.17 (30) 
  53 Kansas                .162 (44)  .440 (6)   52.51 (55)  72.53 (6)  
  54 San Diego State       .017 (128) .019 (88)  43.28 (102) 44.46 (99) 
  55 Duke                  .081 (79)  .025 (85)  53.10 (52)  49.70 (75) 
  56 NC State              .209 (25)  .143 (45)  58.01 (24)  54.93 (59) 
  57 Wisconsin             .430 (1)   .157 (40)  67.63 (1)   61.19 (37) 
  58 Boise State           .121 (62)  .017 (92)  49.37 (70)  44.58 (98) 
  59 Old Dominion          .112 (67)  .001 (123) 44.19 (95)  32.88 (130)
  60 Wake Forest           .090 (74)  .045 (74)  51.24 (60)  46.17 (89) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  61 Maryland              .194 (33)  .158 (39)  55.32 (42)  60.11 (39) 
  62 Rutgers               .208 (26)  .572 (3)   55.26 (43)  78.04 (3)  
  63 Baylor                .151 (50)  .166 (36)  53.91 (50)  61.69 (34) 
  64 Washington State      .150 (51)  .088 (58)  55.09 (44)  50.71 (71) 
  65 Tulane                .086 (76)  .007 (108) 52.13 (57)  36.64 (122)
  66 Minnesota             .242 (14)  .063 (68)  54.27 (49)  55.79 (57) 
  67 UCF                   .126 (60)  .269 (25)  50.29 (64)  54.62 (61) 
  68 Michigan State        .239 (15)  .263 (28)  59.89 (13)  64.53 (27) 
  69 UCLA                  .312 (3)   .480 (4)   65.75 (2)   74.12 (4)  
  70 Purdue                .305 (5)   .830 (1)   62.25 (8)   86.50 (1)  
  71 Colorado              .189 (36)  .106 (53)  58.95 (20)  59.32 (42) 
  72 West Virginia         .175 (39)  .610 (2)   55.90 (35)  78.23 (2)  
  73 New Mexico            .058 (93)  .030 (82)  46.78 (81)  50.05 (73) 
  74 UTSA                  .126 (61)  .053 (70)  48.82 (74)  53.32 (66) 
  75 Army                  .065 (92)  .019 (87)  49.74 (67)  46.61 (87) 
  76 Utah State            .112 (66)  .031 (81)  46.79 (80)  51.35 (70) 
  77 UNLV                  .017 (129) .007 (109) 44.62 (92)  43.05 (102)
  78 UConn                 .008 (135) .004 (114) 37.94 (132) 41.76 (106)
  79 Navy                  .128 (58)  .073 (62)  45.13 (89)  55.39 (58) 
  80 Virginia Tech         .131 (56)  .333 (15)  55.86 (36)  69.15 (11) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  81 Western Michigan      .070 (88)  .001 (125) 45.48 (87)  36.64 (121)
  82 Hawai’i               .036 (113) .018 (89)  42.32 (113) 46.85 (85) 
  83 Louisiana Tech        .042 (108) .003 (115) 42.80 (105) 40.61 (109)
  84 Ohio                  .100 (72)  .001 (132) 44.97 (91)  24.68 (135)
  85 California            .054 (98)  .057 (69)  47.73 (78)  53.83 (64) 
  86 Fresno State          .027 (122) .009 (106) 41.15 (119) 44.20 (100)
  87 Syracuse              .163 (43)  .374 (11)  55.84 (37)  62.01 (32) 
  88 Stanford              .199 (30)  .321 (18)  58.58 (23)  62.12 (31) 
  89 Texas State           .032 (118) .000 (135) 43.72 (100) 28.14 (134)
  90 Temple                .071 (87)  .162 (38)  43.06 (103) 60.06 (40) 
  91 Kennesaw State        .100 (73)  .003 (117) 42.50 (109) 40.61 (109)
  92 Western Kentucky      .016 (130) .165 (37)  36.60 (134) 55.97 (56) 
  93 Miami (OH)            .029 (120) .001 (131) 43.90 (98)  33.22 (129)
  94 Marshall              .075 (82)  .001 (126) 43.77 (99)  36.70 (120)
  95 North Carolina        .047 (101) .068 (64)  47.59 (79)  56.20 (55) 
  96 Southern Miss         .013 (131) .001 (120) 39.00 (129) 38.19 (115)
  97 Air Force             .020 (126) .010 (103) 44.57 (93)  44.83 (94) 
  98 Wyoming               .084 (78)  .013 (95)  46.28 (83)  43.05 (102)
  99 Boston College        .133 (55)  .018 (91)  53.20 (51)  48.92 (77) 
 100 Missouri State        .071 (86)  .012 (102) 42.44 (110) 46.87 (83) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
 101 Jacksonville State    .007 (136) .004 (113) 36.33 (135) 41.50 (107)
 102 Troy                  .031 (119) .004 (111) 41.41 (118) 35.56 (126)
 103 Central Michigan      .069 (89)  .037 (79)  38.68 (130) 44.62 (96) 
 104 Oregon State          .154 (47)  .067 (66)  49.73 (68)  56.32 (54) 
 105 Liberty               .020 (127) .015 (94)  40.12 (125) 46.87 (83) 
 106 Tulsa                 .034 (116) .017 (93)  45.48 (86)  42.91 (104)
 107 Florida Atlantic      .057 (96)  .052 (71)  43.93 (97)  53.11 (67) 
 108 Colorado State        .072 (85)  .043 (75)  49.31 (71)  49.62 (76) 
 109 Arkansas State        .028 (121) .001 (124) 41.58 (117) 36.85 (119)
 110 Louisiana             .056 (97)  .001 (122) 42.89 (104) 31.60 (132)
 111 Georgia Southern      .079 (81)  .027 (84)  42.73 (106) 50.19 (72) 
 112 San José State        .046 (102) .051 (72)  46.41 (82)  51.78 (69) 
 113 Florida International .044 (105) .001 (127) 40.79 (121) 33.26 (128)
 114 Nevada                .058 (94)  .012 (101) 47.95 (76)  46.85 (85) 
 115 Bowling Green         .049 (99)  .000 (136) 43.63 (101) 23.03 (136)
 116 Coastal Carolina      .039 (110) .142 (46)  40.51 (123) 61.40 (36) 
 117 Rice                  .022 (125) .257 (30)  42.33 (112) 66.58 (22) 
 118 Delaware              .008 (134) .039 (78)  38.67 (131) 45.28 (92) 
 119 South Alabama         .058 (95)  .010 (104) 39.91 (128) 45.14 (93) 
 120 Buffalo               .009 (133) .008 (107) 32.94 (136) 44.82 (95) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
 121 Northern Illinois     .044 (106) .006 (110) 42.62 (107) 37.68 (118)
 122 UAB                   .074 (83)  .111 (51)  47.78 (77)  53.52 (65) 
 123 UTEP                  .043 (107) .001 (128) 40.45 (124) 35.60 (125)
 124 Oklahoma State        .220 (19)  .093 (56)  57.56 (26)  57.96 (46) 
 125 New Mexico State      .048 (100) .001 (133) 42.18 (114) 32.52 (131)
 126 App State             .035 (114) .003 (116) 40.73 (122) 39.90 (111)
 127 Eastern Michigan      .024 (124) .012 (100) 40.00 (127) 47.07 (81) 
 128 Akron                 .036 (112) .002 (119) 37.75 (133) 39.01 (113)
 129 Ball State            .037 (111) .072 (63)  42.55 (108) 54.04 (63) 
 130 Kent State            .176 (38)  .001 (121) 45.06 (90)  38.02 (116)
 131 Middle Tennessee      .013 (132) .001 (134) 42.15 (115) 31.44 (133)
 132 Sam Houston           .046 (104) .001 (130) 46.04 (85)  34.73 (127)
 133 Georgia State         .110 (69)  .041 (76)  46.17 (84)  49.96 (74) 
 134 Charlotte             .073 (84)  .325 (17)  48.13 (75)  66.77 (21) 
 135 UL Monroe             .080 (80)  .010 (105) 41.80 (116) 44.59 (97) 
 136 Massachusetts         .086 (77)  .012 (99)  42.33 (111) 42.73 (105)

Conference Ratings

To rate the overall quality of conferences, I calculate the expected outcome if each team in a conference were to play every FBS team at a neutral site. The Win% column is the average probability of winning for all of the possible games and for all the teams in the conference. It’s similar to the average rating of all the teams in the conference, but it should be less skewed by outliers.

However, the idea of the “best” conference is subjective, and another way to judge the quality of a conference is to consider how many of its teams are among the best in the FBS. What if instead of playing every team in the FBS, each conference opponent just plays a hypothetical opponent with a rating that’s 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean? In this case, the quality of a conference is determined by how its teams would be expected to perform against a hypothetical opponent ranked somewhere around #10 to #15 in the FBS. This is what I’ve done with the HighWin% column. It’s analogous to how I calculate strength of record, and each conference’s rating is impacted more when the conference has more highly rated teams.

Conference Ratings
Rank Win% Conference        HighWin%  Rating Offense Defense OffDef    
   1 .776 SEC               .312 (2)  68.15  33.96   34.18   -0.22 (6) 
   2 .714 Big Ten           .301 (3)  65.91  31.98   33.90   -1.92 (9) 
   3 .686 FBS Independents  .357 (1)  65.42  34.00   31.38   2.62 (1)  
   4 .632 Big 12            .190 (4)  60.31  30.37   29.91   0.47 (4)  
   5 .571 ACC               .118 (5)  56.56  28.21   28.30   -0.09 (5) 
   6 .429 American Athletic .061 (6)  48.62  25.57   23.04   2.53 (2)  
   7 .397 Pac-12            .025 (7)  47.24  19.32   27.89   -8.57 (11)
   8 .386 Mountain West     .021 (8)  46.72  23.02   23.73   -0.72 (7) 
   9 .284 Sun Belt          .016 (9)  40.53  21.24   19.32   1.92 (3)  
  10 .249 Mid-American      .011 (10) 37.79  16.88   20.90   -4.03 (10)
  11 .243 Conference USA    .004 (11) 38.56  18.72   19.82   -1.10 (8) 

Playoff Ratings

Here are the four components of the playoff ratings:

1. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s strength of record for a hypothetical team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS average. (SOR; 55%)

2. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s predictive rating (Fwd; 30%)

3. The team’s winning percentage (Win%; 10%)

4. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s strength of schedule for a hypothetical team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS average. (SOS; 5%)

Unlike my predictive ratings, these are based heavily on strength of record, meaning that they give more weight to a team’s past accomplishments than what they’re expected to do in the future.

Playoff Ratings
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
   1      .9789  -.0034 Indiana               .985  .790   1.000  .993
   2   +1 .9679  -.0041 Ohio State            .978  .656   1.000  .990
   3   -1 .9668  -.0058 Texas A&M             .987  .841   1.000  .939
   4   +1 .9541  -.0022 Oregon                .962  .806   .900   .982
   5   +1 .9488  +.0090 Georgia               .970  .874   .900   .939
   6   +1 .9428  +.0037 BYU                   .968  .857   .900   .926
   7   -3 .9382  -.0202 Alabama               .954  .959   .800   .952
   8      .9338  -.0022 Texas Tech            .947  .624   .909   .969
   9      .9256  +.0118 Ole Miss              .957  .722   .909   .908
  10   +1 .9179  +.0161 Notre Dame            .918  .824   .800   .973
  11   +6 .9130  +.0369 Oklahoma              .934  .894   .800   .915
  12      .9116  +.0171 USC                   .923  .845   .800   .940
  13   +2 .8897  +.0097 Utah                  .881  .636   .800   .977
  14      .8897  +.0091 Miami                 .896  .714   .800   .937
  15   -2 .8824  -.0044 Vanderbilt            .905  .759   .800   .889
  16      .8824  +.0032 Michigan              .911  .789   .800   .873
  17   +1 .8746  +.0065 Illinois              .907  .970   .700   .857
  18   -8 .8714  -.0312 Texas                 .902  .963   .700   .858
  19   +2 .8262  +.0171 Tennessee             .827  .793   .700   .873
  20   -1 .8253  -.0207 Iowa                  .811  .963   .600   .904
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
  21   +4 .8215  +.0205 Washington            .804  .717   .700   .913
  22   +4 .8183  +.0191 Missouri              .823  .780   .700   .856
  23   -1 .8183  +.0103 North Texas           .865  .155   .900   .816
  24      .7908  -.0117 Georgia Tech          .870  .173   .900   .711
  25   +4 .7840  +.0126 LSU                   .776  .926   .600   .837
  26   +5 .7839  +.0241 James Madison         .858  .135   .900   .718
  27      .7740  -.0032 Arizona State         .832  .809   .700   .687
  28   +5 .7728  +.0268 Virginia              .819  .269   .818   .757
  29   -9 .7601  -.0677 South Florida         .750  .531   .700   .836
  30   +2 .7529  +.0008 Houston               .835  .407   .800   .645
  31   -1 .7461  -.0138 Pittsburgh            .747  .517   .700   .799
  32   -9 .7446  -.0579 Cincinnati            .769  .598   .700   .739
  33   +1 .7334  -.0055 Nebraska              .733  .470   .700   .790
  34   +4 .7307  +.0475 Arizona               .725  .445   .700   .798
  35   -7 .7204  -.0522 Louisville            .737  .486   .700   .735
  36   -1 .7063  +.0069 Tulane                .817  .335   .800   .533
  37   +6 .6987  +.0450 Navy                  .859  .520   .800   .401
  38   -1 .6852  -.0042 Minnesota             .766  .913   .600   .528
  39      .6792  +.0017 SMU                   .692  .342   .700   .704
  40   +8 .6687  +.0454 San Diego State       .733  .112   .800   .600
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
  41   -1 .6663  -.0034 Iowa State            .634  .614   .600   .756
  42   +4 .6618  +.0334 Old Dominion          .726  .447   .700   .568
  43   +8 .6599  +.0442 Penn State            .564  .981   .400   .869
  44   +6 .6544  +.0362 East Carolina         .661  .258   .700   .693
  45   -9 .6460  -.0524 Memphis               .671  .188   .727   .649
  46   +3 .6391  +.0165 Wake Forest           .695  .350   .700   .564
  47   +7 .6356  +.0540 Kentucky              .575  .842   .500   .757
  48   -7 .6227  -.0371 Northwestern          .618  .906   .500   .624
  49   +4 .6166  +.0176 UNLV                  .733  .112   .800   .426
  50   +9 .6122  +.0437 Florida State         .486  .647   .500   .874
  51   -6 .6055  -.0320 TCU                   .580  .458   .600   .679
  52   +3 .5914  +.0103 Auburn                .490  .939   .400   .784
  53   +9 .5885  +.0233 Wisconsin             .605  1.000  .300   .586
  54  -10 .5828  -.0692 Boise State           .591  .491   .600   .577
  55   -3 .5824  -.0243 NC State              .572  .837   .500   .586
  56   -9 .5796  -.0466 Mississippi State     .513  .861   .455   .696
  57   +6 .5784  +.0186 Western Kentucky      .732  .111   .800   .300
  58   +3 .5735  +.0081 Rutgers               .570  .834   .500   .560
  59   +1 .5712  +.0054 New Mexico            .649  .229   .700   .443
  60  -18 .5701  -.0880 Kennesaw State        .709  .393   .700   .302
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
  61   -5 .5494  -.0275 Florida               .438  .990   .300   .763
  62   +2 .5410  +.0056 Kansas                .495  .670   .500   .617
  63   +4 .5402  +.0257 UConn                 .613  .093   .727   .420
  64   +1 .5327  +.0024 Hawai’i               .615  .160   .700   .389
  65   +5 .5232  +.0209 South Carolina        .413  .984   .300   .723
  66   +5 .5222  +.0251 Kansas State          .452  .554   .500   .654
  67   +5 .5142  +.0278 Missouri State        .668  .274   .700   .211
  68   +7 .5124  +.0602 Toledo                .448  .150   .600   .662
  69   +5 .5103  +.0511 Fresno State          .601  .136   .700   .344
  70   -2 .5090  -.0054 Baylor                .477  .623   .500   .551
  71  +13 .5047  +.0838 Washington State      .476  .620   .500   .540
  72  -14 .5001  -.0691 Ohio                  .557  .395   .600   .380
  73   +4 .4938  +.0524 Clemson               .401  .410   .500   .677
  74  -17 .4726  -.0998 Southern Miss         .578  .104   .700   .264
  75   +7 .4725  +.0449 Western Michigan      .509  .273   .600   .396
  76   -3 .4605  -.0135 Maryland              .386  .790   .400   .563
  77   +4 .4548  +.0236 UCLA                  .414  .984   .300   .492
  78   +9 .4487  +.0330 Jacksonville State    .569  .093   .700   .204
  79   +7 .4481  +.0307 UTSA                  .436  .511   .500   .441
  80  -11 .4445  -.0669 Duke                  .365  .312   .500   .594
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
  81   -1 .4410  +.0095 California            .482  .215   .600   .350
  82   -3 .4330  +.0014 Army                  .428  .253   .556   .431
  83  -17 .4289  -.0869 Utah State            .414  .448   .500   .429
  84   +6 .4118  +.0316 Central Michigan      .507  .269   .600   .198
  85   -7 .3905  -.0417 Michigan State        .304  .907   .300   .494
  86   +3 .3887  -.0042 Arkansas              .209  .949   .200   .688
  87   +4 .3731  +.0067 UCF                   .285  .514   .400   .502
  88  -12 .3720  -.0697 Troy                  .445  .146   .600   .201
  89   -1 .3720  -.0316 West Virginia         .303  .722   .364   .444
  90   -7 .3596  -.0631 Coastal Carolina      .458  .169   .600   .131
  91   +3 .3515  +.0040 Temple                .350  .273   .500   .318
  92   +6 .3487  +.0554 Marshall              .356  .289   .500   .295
  93   -1 .3429  -.0111 Purdue                .233  .981   .182   .492
  94   -9 .3419  -.0759 Louisiana Tech        .307  .176   .500   .381
  95      .3316  -.0040 Colorado              .236  .774   .300   .444
  96   +6 .3126  +.0442 Georgia Southern      .363  .307   .500   .159
  97      .3093  +.0064 Stanford              .248  .805   .300   .342
  98   -5 .3056  -.0449 Miami (OH)            .289  .141   .500   .299
  99   +8 .2916  +.0495 Kent State            .358  .726   .400   .061
 100   +1 .2786  -.0042 Syracuse              .204  .673   .300   .342
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
 101   +8 .2753  +.0503 Florida International .311  .183   .500   .150
 102   +3 .2695  +.0058 Virginia Tech         .170  .536   .300   .398
 103   +1 .2648  -.0021 Arkansas State        .287  .138   .500   .166
 104   -8 .2612  -.0563 Wyoming               .230  .327   .400   .261
 105   +3 .2470  +.0051 Rice                  .279  .124   .500   .124
 106   +9 .2413  +.0602 Texas State           .170  .148   .400   .334
 107   -8 .2350  -.0559 Delaware              .260  .094   .500   .124
 108   -5 .2348  -.0335 North Carolina        .187  .192   .400   .275
 109   -9 .2341  -.0549 Buffalo               .261  .095   .500   .119
 110   -4 .2150  -.0280 Florida Atlantic      .197  .223   .400   .185
 111   +2 .2082  +.0083 Louisiana             .196  .220   .400   .164
 112   -2 .1898  -.0319 Liberty               .158  .118   .400   .191
 113   -2 .1765  -.0287 App State             .173  .156   .400   .112
 114   -2 .1640  -.0391 Ball State            .175  .161   .400   .065
 115   +1 .1580  -.0221 Air Force             .079  .120   .300   .261
 116   +1 .1565  -.0205 Oregon State          .089  .637   .182   .191
 117   +1 .1447  -.0288 Akron                 .139  .160   .364   .080
 118   +1 .1435  -.0080 UAB                   .117  .285   .300   .117
 119  +10 .1419  +.0404 Tulsa                 .088  .153   .300   .187
 120   +8 .1419  +.0390 Eastern Michigan      .128  .128   .364   .096
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS    Win%   Fwd 
 121   -7 .1391  -.0587 San José State        .096  .189   .300   .156
 122      .1355  +.0021 Bowling Green         .098  .198   .300   .139
 123   +4 .1348  +.0307 South Alabama         .104  .226   .300   .120
 124      .1311  +.0071 Boston College        .036  .542   .091   .251
 125   -4 .1308  -.0063 Oklahoma State        .079  .864   .100   .114
 126   -3 .1273  +.0011 New Mexico State      .098  .195   .300   .113
 127   +3 .1266  +.0405 Northern Illinois     .095  .183   .300   .118
 128   -8 .1205  -.0302 UL Monroe             .122  .312   .300   .026
 129   -4 .1144  +.0036 Colorado State        .054  .279   .200   .169
 130   +2 .1009  +.0402 Nevada                .048  .229   .200   .143
 131   -5 .0865  -.0219 UTEP                  .042  .179   .200   .115
 132   +2 .0658  +.0188 Sam Houston           .043  .188   .200   .042
 133   -2 .0614  -.0052 Georgia State         .031  .439   .100   .041
 134   -1 .0483  -.0061 Charlotte             .022  .283   .100   .040
 135      .0386  -.0001 Middle Tennessee      .012  .103   .100   .056
 136      .0226  -.0027 Massachusetts         .009  .333   .000   .004

Playoff Cost/Benefit Opportunity

There are many ways to calculate schedule strength, and a difficult schedule for one team might be an easy schedule for another. The difficulty of the schedule depends on who is playing it. In this case, the FutureDiff column is the difficulty of the schedule for the team playing it. It is the team’s expected losing percentage against that schedule.

Strength of record is the biggest factor in the playoff ratings. It’s based on a team’s actual winning percentage compared to the expected winning percentage for a hypothetical FBS team with a predictive rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. There are two characteristics of a team that is likely to improve their strength of record:

1. They are expected to improve their winning percentage over the remainder of the season (DiffChg; negative values are more favorable)

2. The expected winning percentage for a team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean is lower over the remainder of the season (SOSChg; positive values are more favorable)

The Opportunity column is calculated by subtracting DiffChg from SOSChg, and it attempts to measure how likely a team is to improve their strength of record (positive is better). Because strength of record is the biggest component of the playoff ratings, the Opportunity column is a forward looking predictor of how a team might move up or down in the playoff ratings. I describe this as comparing the costs, the chance of losing additional games, to the benefits, the increased schedule strength.

Future Schedule Cost/Benefit Opportunity
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
   1 Indiana               .003 (136)  -.0563  -.1438  -.0875 (90) 
   2 Ohio State            .055 (129)  .0172   .0589   .0418 (40)  
   3 Texas A&M             .171 (114)  -.0273  -.0290  -.0017 (55) 
   4 Oregon                .223 (106)  .1197   .2796   .1599 (13)  
   5 Georgia               .060 (127)  -.1493  -.1577  -.0084 (58) 
   6 BYU                   .122 (122)  -.1072  -.1064  .0009 (51)  
   7 Alabama               .094 (125)  -.1281  -.1534  -.0253 (66) 
   8 Texas Tech            .013 (133)  -.0855  -.1142  -.0287 (68) 
   9 Ole Miss              .210 (108)  -.0065  -.0191  -.0126 (61) 
  10 Notre Dame            .003 (135)  -.1131  -.1923  -.0792 (87) 
  11 Oklahoma              .282 (98)   .0132   .0015   -.0117 (60) 
  12 USC                   .406 (84)   .2056   .2037   -.0019 (56) 
  13 Utah                  .026 (131)  -.0540  -.0670  -.0130 (62) 
  14 Miami                 .139 (120)  -.0267  -.0264  .0003 (53)  
  15 Vanderbilt            .371 (88)   .1157   .0791   -.0366 (71) 
  16 Michigan              .525 (63)   .2404   .2413   .0009 (52)  
  17 Illinois              .172 (113)  -.2090  -.2153  -.0063 (57) 
  18 Texas                 .428 (78)   .0318   -.0068  -.0387 (72) 
  19 Tennessee             .419 (80)   .1388   .0714   -.0674 (81) 
  20 Iowa                  .188 (110)  -.1399  -.1412  -.0013 (54) 
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
  21 Washington            .417 (81)   .2155   .2057   -.0097 (59) 
  22 Missouri              .501 (68)   .1984   .1363   -.0621 (79) 
  23 North Texas           .024 (132)  -.0771  -.0307  .0464 (39)  
  24 Georgia Tech          .724 (32)   .4996   .3071   -.1926 (116)
  25 LSU                   .380 (87)   -.0302  .0050   .0352 (44)  
  26 James Madison         .133 (121)  .0090   -.0087  -.0178 (64) 
  27 Arizona State         .439 (76)   -.0260  -.0957  -.0697 (84) 
  28 Virginia              .098 (123)  -.1357  -.0569  .0788 (29)  
  29 South Florida         .006 (134)  -.2307  -.1293  .1014 (25)  
  30 Houston               .465 (73)   .1363   -.0257  -.1620 (112)
  31 Pittsburgh            .589 (54)   .3404   .1830   -.1574 (111)
  32 Cincinnati            .634 (50)   .2967   .1315   -.1652 (113)
  33 Nebraska              .685 (41)   .3988   .2495   -.1492 (107)
  34 Arizona               .280 (99)   .0075   -.0183  -.0259 (67) 
  35 Louisville            .494 (69)   .1820   .0276   -.1545 (108)
  36 Tulane                .159 (117)  -.2863  -.0788  .2075 (8)   
  37 Navy                  .678 (44)   .2552   -.0549  -.3101 (134)
  38 Minnesota             .561 (58)   .0237   -.1789  -.2026 (119)
  39 SMU                   .327 (93)   .0344   -.0201  -.0545 (78) 
  40 San Diego State       .214 (107)  .0158   .0018   -.0140 (63) 
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
  41 Iowa State            .142 (119)  -.2510  -.1200  .1310 (17)  
  42 Old Dominion          .059 (128)  -.2019  -.1103  .0916 (28)  
  43 Penn State            .229 (104)  -.1434  -.1856  -.0422 (74) 
  44 East Carolina         .168 (115)  -.0726  -.0464  .0263 (46)  
  45 Memphis               .181 (112)  -.0421  -.0332  .0089 (48)  
  46 Wake Forest           .321 (94)   -.1016  -.0442  .0574 (33)  
  47 Kentucky              .658 (46)   .1819   .1004   -.0815 (88) 
  48 Northwestern          .619 (52)   .0763   -.0347  -.1110 (93) 
  49 UNLV                  .291 (97)   -.0655  -.0102  .0553 (34)  
  50 Florida State         .267 (100)  .0301   -.0029  -.0331 (69) 
  51 TCU                   .519 (65)   .1244   .0049   -.1194 (97) 
  52 Auburn                .415 (82)   -.0703  -.0002  .0701 (30)  
  53 Wisconsin             .648 (47)   -.0686  -.2732  -.2046 (121)
  54 Boise State           .226 (105)  -.1260  -.1040  .0220 (47)  
  55 NC State              .478 (71)   -.1142  -.0664  .0478 (38)  
  56 Mississippi State     .790 (23)   .2680   .1394   -.1286 (102)
  57 Western Kentucky      .697 (37)   .3961   .1485   -.2476 (129)
  58 Rutgers               .918 (13)   .3613   .3635   .0022 (49)  
  59 New Mexico            .478 (72)   .0873   -.0287  -.1159 (94) 
  60 Kennesaw State        .353 (90)   -.0332  -.0966  -.0634 (80) 
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
  61 Florida               .637 (49)   .0227   -.0463  -.0690 (83) 
  62 Kansas                .852 (16)   .3955   .2779   -.1176 (96) 
  63 UConn                 .254 (102)  .0302   -.0039  -.0341 (70) 
  64 Hawai’i               .444 (74)   .0649   -.0179  -.0828 (89) 
  65 South Carolina        .195 (109)  -.4315  -.2702  .1612 (12)  
  66 Kansas State          .596 (53)   .1574   .2606   .1032 (22)  
  67 Missouri State        .679 (43)   .1868   -.0591  -.2459 (128)
  68 Toledo                .048 (130)  -.1233  -.0305  .0928 (27)  
  69 Fresno State          .415 (83)   -.0197  -.0182  .0014 (50)  
  70 Baylor                .696 (38)   .1394   .0150   -.1244 (100)
  71 Washington State      .430 (77)   -.0916  -.0620  .0295 (45)  
  72 Ohio                  .096 (124)  -.2762  -.0993  .1768 (11)  
  73 Clemson               .312 (95)   -.0779  -.0137  .0642 (31)  
  74 Southern Miss         .328 (92)   -.0654  -.0118  .0536 (35)  
  75 Western Michigan      .158 (118)  -.2876  -.0695  .2181 (7)   
  76 Maryland              .631 (51)   .1041   -.0362  -.1402 (106)
  77 UCLA                  .954 (8)    .2219   .1676   -.0542 (77) 
  78 Jacksonville State    .523 (64)   .1161   -.0036  -.1198 (98) 
  79 UTSA                  .577 (56)   .1310   -.0728  -.2037 (120)
  80 Duke                  .303 (96)   -.1507  -.0554  .0953 (26)  
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
  81 California            .689 (39)   .1191   .0030   -.1162 (95) 
  82 Army                  .399 (85)   -.1084  -.0462  .0622 (32)  
  83 Utah State            .535 (62)   .1171   -.0811  -.1982 (118)
  84 Central Michigan      .581 (55)   .1233   -.0319  -.1553 (109)
  85 Michigan State        .770 (26)   .1466   .0240   -.1226 (99) 
  86 Arkansas              .750 (30)   .1653   .0396   -.1257 (101)
  87 UCF                   .512 (66)   .0087   .1424   .1337 (15)  
  88 Troy                  .384 (86)   -.1280  -.0264  .1016 (23)  
  89 West Virginia         .987 (4)    .3119   .4354   .1235 (20)  
  90 Coastal Carolina      .977 (6)    .4095   .1027   -.3068 (133)
  91 Temple                .827 (21)   .3246   .0911   -.2334 (126)
  92 Marshall              .250 (103)  -.1872  -.0736  .1136 (21)  
  93 Purdue                .997 (1)    .3026   .5248   .2221 (6)   
  94 Louisiana Tech        .267 (101)  -.0795  -.0385  .0411 (41)  
  95 Colorado              .754 (29)   .0736   -.0832  -.1568 (110)
  96 Georgia Southern      .825 (22)   .2712   -.0525  -.3237 (135)
  97 Stanford              .721 (33)   -.0068  .1220   .1288 (19)  
  98 Miami (OH)            .181 (111)  -.3137  -.0283  .2854 (3)   
  99 Kent State            .736 (31)   .0741   -.1747  -.2488 (130)
 100 Syracuse              .658 (45)   -.0585  .2115   .2700 (4)   
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
 101 Florida International .370 (89)   -.2002  -.0434  .1568 (14)  
 102 Virginia Tech         .939 (12)   .2517   .2015   -.0502 (76) 
 103 Arkansas State        .440 (75)   -.1282  -.0267  .1015 (24)  
 104 Wyoming               .487 (70)   -.0506  -.0712  -.0206 (65) 
 105 Rice                  .992 (3)    .3406   .2354   -.1053 (92) 
 106 Texas State           .087 (126)  -.3555  -.0316  .3239 (2)   
 107 Delaware              .686 (40)   .1019   .0307   -.0712 (85) 
 108 North Carolina        .833 (19)   .2069   .0206   -.1863 (115)
 109 Buffalo               .770 (25)   .2839   -.0006  -.2845 (132)
 110 Florida Atlantic      .840 (18)   .2157   -.0042  -.2198 (124)
 111 Louisiana             .331 (91)   -.2482  -.0544  .1938 (9)   
 112 Liberty               .701 (36)   .2087   -.0049  -.2137 (123)
 113 App State             .647 (48)   .0464   -.0317  -.0782 (86) 
 114 Ball State            .950 (9)    .2192   .0349   -.1843 (114)
 115 Air Force             .540 (61)   -.0485  -.0101  .0384 (42)  
 116 Oregon State          .906 (14)   .2627   -.0873  -.3500 (136)
 117 Akron                 .706 (35)   .1038   -.0343  -.1381 (105)
 118 UAB                   .845 (17)   .1053   .0372   -.0682 (82) 
 119 Tulsa                 .573 (57)   -.0545  -.0164  .0381 (43)  
 120 Eastern Michigan      .860 (15)   .2120   -.0115  -.2235 (125)
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
 121 San José State        .832 (20)   .1380   .0047   -.1333 (104)
 122 Bowling Green         .168 (116)  -.4502  -.0488  .4014 (1)   
 123 South Alabama         .768 (27)   .2018   -.0474  -.2492 (131)
 124 Boston College        .682 (42)   -.0761  -.1149  -.0387 (73) 
 125 Oklahoma State        .963 (7)    .1183   -.1270  -.2453 (127)
 126 New Mexico State      .420 (79)   -.2366  -.0476  .1891 (10)  
 127 Northern Illinois     .551 (59)   -.0892  -.0382  .0510 (36)  
 128 UL Monroe             .940 (11)   .1230   -.0706  -.1935 (117)
 129 Colorado State        .761 (28)   .0172   -.0292  -.0464 (75) 
 130 Nevada                .779 (24)   .0463   -.0462  -.0925 (91) 
 131 UTEP                  .509 (67)   -.0909  -.0420  .0489 (37)  
 132 Sam Houston           .710 (34)   -.1741  -.0450  .1291 (18)  
 133 Georgia State         .941 (10)   .1411   -.0685  -.2096 (122)
 134 Charlotte             .995 (2)    .1203   .2523   .1320 (16)  
 135 Middle Tennessee      .550 (60)   -.2626  -.0120  .2506 (5)   
 136 Massachusetts         .979 (5)    .0590   -.0734  -.1323 (103)

Week 13 Game Predictions

Upcoming games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL. NFL games are typically decided by smaller margins than college games, the teams are more balanced in their quality, and there’s just not as much scoring in the NFL. Thresholds for close games and blowouts are also different between college and the NFL for the same reasons.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. These margins are sometimes larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score. That’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a prediction of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This is, of course, impossible, so the score is set to zero in those instances. There’s no cap on how many points a team can be projected to score, though.

#1: Pittsburgh (2.12, 56.84%) at Georgia Tech (-2.12, 43.16%)
Estimated score: 33.27 - 31.36, Total: 64.63
Quality: 96.53%, Team quality: 95.21%, Competitiveness: 99.24%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.63%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.46%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 45.76%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 26.62%

#2: Louisville (-0.63, 47.96%) at SMU (0.63, 52.04%)
Estimated score: 27.05 - 27.66, Total: 54.71
Quality: 96.45%, Team quality: 94.76%, Competitiveness: 99.93%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.50%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.98%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.39%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.09%

#3: Tennessee (4.28, 63.58%) at Florida (-4.28, 36.42%)
Estimated score: 34.52 - 30.28, Total: 64.80
Quality: 96.33%, Team quality: 96.01%, Competitiveness: 96.96%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.10%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 40.77%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 45.92%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 26.49%

#4: TCU (-0.61, 48.02%) at Houston (0.61, 51.98%)
Estimated score: 30.09 - 30.69, Total: 60.78
Quality: 95.97%, Team quality: 94.04%, Competitiveness: 99.94%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.50%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.98%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 42.06%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 29.79%

#5: Missouri (-6.51, 29.85%) at Oklahoma (6.51, 70.15%)
Estimated score: 17.83 - 24.60, Total: 42.43
Quality: 95.57%, Team quality: 96.86%, Competitiveness: 93.05%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.97%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 37.96%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 25.87%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 46.67%

#6: Nebraska (-6.56, 29.70%) at Penn State (6.56, 70.30%)
Estimated score: 25.37 - 31.73, Total: 57.10
Quality: 95.03%, Team quality: 96.09%, Competitiveness: 92.94%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.00%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 37.88%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 38.60%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 32.96%

#7: Minnesota (-3.61, 38.46%) vs. Northwestern (3.61, 61.54%)
Estimated score: 15.46 - 19.11, Total: 34.57
Quality: 94.52%, Team quality: 92.92%, Competitiveness: 97.82%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.92%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.40%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 20.08%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 54.30%

#8: USC (-9.91, 21.04%) at Oregon (9.91, 78.96%)
Estimated score: 28.00 - 37.91, Total: 65.91
Quality: 93.35%, Team quality: 98.14%, Competitiveness: 84.45%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.20%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 32.17%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 47.00%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 25.60%

#9: Utah State (1.30, 54.20%) at Fresno State (-1.30, 45.80%)
Estimated score: 28.15 - 26.88, Total: 55.03
Quality: 93.17%, Team quality: 90.05%, Competitiveness: 99.72%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.54%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.82%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.68%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.81%

#10: Kansas (-7.74, 26.49%) at Iowa State (7.74, 73.51%)
Estimated score: 23.71 - 31.55, Total: 55.26
Quality: 92.93%, Team quality: 94.28%, Competitiveness: 90.29%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.64%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 36.05%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.89%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.60%

#11: Hawai’i (-3.36, 39.24%) at UNLV (3.36, 60.76%)
Estimated score: 32.81 - 36.20, Total: 69.01
Quality: 92.91%, Team quality: 90.41%, Competitiveness: 98.11%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.86%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.62%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 50.01%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 23.24%

#12: California (-1.66, 44.63%) at Stanford (1.66, 55.37%)
Estimated score: 20.96 - 22.85, Total: 43.82
Quality: 92.60%, Team quality: 89.32%, Competitiveness: 99.54%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.57%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.68%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 26.98%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 45.33%

#13: Arizona State (7.21, 72.10%) at Colorado (-7.21, 27.90%)
Estimated score: 24.48 - 17.40, Total: 41.88
Quality: 92.33%, Team quality: 92.73%, Competitiveness: 91.52%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.34%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 36.89%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 25.45%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 47.20%

#14: BYU (9.78, 78.66%) at Cincinnati (-9.78, 21.34%)
Estimated score: 32.80 - 22.97, Total: 55.77
Quality: 92.29%, Team quality: 96.27%, Competitiveness: 84.83%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.09%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 32.42%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 37.36%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.15%

#15: Kentucky (-9.65, 21.66%) at Vanderbilt (9.65, 78.34%)
Estimated score: 25.60 - 35.26, Total: 60.86
Quality: 92.27%, Team quality: 96.01%, Competitiveness: 85.21%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 4.98%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 32.66%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 42.14%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 29.72%

#16: East Carolina (7.55, 73.02%) at UTSA (-7.55, 26.98%)
Estimated score: 32.32 - 24.65, Total: 56.96
Quality: 92.08%, Team quality: 92.76%, Competitiveness: 90.74%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.53%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 36.35%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 38.47%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 33.08%

#17: Tulane (6.16, 69.15%) at Temple (-6.16, 30.85%)
Estimated score: 32.96 - 26.66, Total: 59.62
Quality: 91.65%, Team quality: 90.61%, Competitiveness: 93.77%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.81%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.47%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 40.97%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 30.77%

#18: Washington State (-8.91, 23.47%) at James Madison (8.91, 76.53%)
Estimated score: 13.43 - 22.43, Total: 35.86
Quality: 91.40%, Team quality: 93.52%, Competitiveness: 87.29%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 4.41%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 34.03%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 20.97%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 53.05%

#19: New Mexico (5.27, 66.57%) at Air Force (-5.27, 33.43%)
Estimated score: 34.28 - 28.91, Total: 63.18
Quality: 91.29%, Team quality: 89.30%, Competitiveness: 95.40%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.44%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 39.64%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 44.37%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 27.79%

#20: Arkansas (-10.44, 19.82%) at Texas (10.44, 80.18%)
Estimated score: 23.61 - 34.06, Total: 57.67
Quality: 91.00%, Team quality: 95.36%, Competitiveness: 82.86%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.66%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 31.16%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 39.13%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 32.46%

#21: Illinois (10.46, 80.23%) at Wisconsin (-10.46, 19.77%)
Estimated score: 24.85 - 14.47, Total: 39.32
Quality: 90.64%, Team quality: 94.83%, Competitiveness: 82.80%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.68%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 31.12%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 23.49%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 49.69%

#22: Jacksonville State (1.06, 53.41%) at Florida International (-1.06, 46.59%)
Estimated score: 29.03 - 28.02, Total: 57.05
Quality: 89.69%, Team quality: 85.03%, Competitiveness: 99.81%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.52%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.89%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 38.55%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 33.01%

#23: Missouri State (-6.11, 30.97%) at Kennesaw State (6.11, 69.03%)
Estimated score: 21.29 - 27.39, Total: 48.68
Quality: 89.38%, Team quality: 87.23%, Competitiveness: 93.85%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.79%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.53%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 31.03%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 40.68%

#24: Florida State (11.60, 82.69%) at NC State (-11.60, 17.31%)
Estimated score: 38.26 - 26.82, Total: 65.08
Quality: 89.38%, Team quality: 94.95%, Competitiveness: 79.20%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 6.79%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 28.89%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 46.20%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 26.26%

#25: Louisiana (-2.07, 43.33%) at Arkansas State (2.07, 56.67%)
Estimated score: 23.22 - 25.25, Total: 48.46
Quality: 89.26%, Team quality: 84.64%, Competitiveness: 99.28%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.62%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.49%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 30.84%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 40.88%

#26: UConn (8.16, 74.61%) at Florida Atlantic (-8.16, 25.39%)
Estimated score: 39.01 - 30.81, Total: 69.81
Quality: 88.44%, Team quality: 88.03%, Competitiveness: 89.26%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.90%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 35.34%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 50.79%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 22.64%

#27: Michigan (12.40, 84.30%) at Maryland (-12.40, 15.70%)
Estimated score: 28.17 - 15.74, Total: 43.91
Quality: 88.27%, Team quality: 94.79%, Competitiveness: 76.54%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 7.67%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.30%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 27.05%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 45.24%

#28: Duke (10.21, 79.65%) at North Carolina (-10.21, 20.35%)
Estimated score: 32.38 - 22.12, Total: 54.50
Quality: 88.16%, Team quality: 90.56%, Competitiveness: 83.57%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.45%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 31.61%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.20%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.29%

#29: Southern Miss (5.94, 68.54%) at South Alabama (-5.94, 31.46%)
Estimated score: 30.11 - 24.61, Total: 54.72
Quality: 88.09%, Team quality: 85.20%, Competitiveness: 94.18%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.71%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.76%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.40%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.09%

#30: Baylor (-12.28, 15.93%) at Arizona (12.28, 84.07%)
Estimated score: 27.19 - 39.31, Total: 66.51
Quality: 87.97%, Team quality: 94.07%, Competitiveness: 76.93%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 7.53%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.53%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 47.58%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 25.14%

#31: New Mexico State (-2.11, 43.21%) at UTEP (2.11, 56.79%)
Estimated score: 20.75 - 22.90, Total: 43.65
Quality: 87.68%, Team quality: 82.41%, Competitiveness: 99.26%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.63%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.47%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 26.85%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 45.49%

#32: Miami (OH) (7.55, 73.01%) at Buffalo (-7.55, 26.99%)
Estimated score: 24.13 - 16.44, Total: 40.57
Quality: 87.25%, Team quality: 85.56%, Competitiveness: 90.74%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.53%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 36.36%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 24.43%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 48.47%

#33: Marshall (7.96, 74.10%) at App State (-7.96, 25.90%)
Estimated score: 36.97 - 29.07, Total: 66.04
Quality: 86.78%, Team quality: 85.33%, Competitiveness: 89.75%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.77%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 35.68%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 47.12%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 25.51%

#34: Nevada (-8.18, 25.33%) at Wyoming (8.18, 74.67%)
Estimated score: 10.91 - 19.12, Total: 30.03
Quality: 86.75%, Team quality: 85.56%, Competitiveness: 89.20%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.91%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 35.31%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 17.12%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 58.65%

#35: Liberty (-10.33, 20.08%) at Louisiana Tech (10.33, 79.92%)
Estimated score: 17.30 - 27.64, Total: 44.94
Quality: 86.13%, Team quality: 87.63%, Competitiveness: 83.21%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.56%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 31.38%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 27.89%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 44.25%

#36: Akron (-6.66, 29.43%) at Bowling Green (6.66, 70.57%)
Estimated score: 17.65 - 24.24, Total: 41.89
Quality: 85.37%, Team quality: 81.90%, Competitiveness: 92.74%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.05%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 37.74%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 25.45%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 47.19%

#37: Central Michigan (8.26, 74.88%) at Kent State (-8.26, 25.12%)
Estimated score: 33.15 - 25.22, Total: 58.37
Quality: 84.48%, Team quality: 82.31%, Competitiveness: 89.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.96%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 35.17%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 39.78%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 31.86%

#38: Western Michigan (11.51, 82.51%) at Northern Illinois (-11.51, 17.49%)
Estimated score: 19.11 - 7.61, Total: 26.72
Quality: 84.08%, Team quality: 86.47%, Competitiveness: 79.48%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 6.70%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 29.07%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 15.15%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 61.76%

#39: Tulsa (-12.40, 15.69%) at Army (12.40, 84.31%)
Estimated score: 12.42 - 24.93, Total: 37.35
Quality: 83.97%, Team quality: 87.96%, Competitiveness: 76.51%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 7.68%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.29%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 22.04%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 51.60%

#40: Sam Houston (-3.99, 37.29%) at Middle Tennessee (3.99, 62.71%)
Estimated score: 25.72 - 29.38, Total: 55.10
Quality: 83.65%, Team quality: 77.54%, Competitiveness: 97.35%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.02%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.05%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.75%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.74%

#41: Old Dominion (15.09, 88.98%) at Georgia Southern (-15.09, 11.02%)
Estimated score: 39.86 - 24.74, Total: 64.60
Quality: 80.73%, Team quality: 88.67%, Competitiveness: 66.92%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 11.30%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 21.92%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 45.73%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 26.64%

#42: Washington (18.11, 92.94%) at UCLA (-18.11, 7.06%)
Estimated score: 37.37 - 19.15, Total: 56.51
Quality: 79.17%, Team quality: 94.59%, Competitiveness: 55.46%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 16.72%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 16.27%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 38.05%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 33.48%

#43: Georgia State (-15.14, 10.94%) at Troy (15.14, 89.06%)
Estimated score: 19.02 - 34.22, Total: 53.24
Quality: 75.88%, Team quality: 80.93%, Competitiveness: 66.72%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 11.39%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 21.82%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 35.05%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 36.44%

#44: Colorado State (-18.79, 6.35%) at Boise State (18.79, 93.65%)
Estimated score: 14.03 - 32.99, Total: 47.02
Quality: 74.62%, Team quality: 88.61%, Competitiveness: 52.91%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 18.12%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 15.11%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 29.62%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 42.26%

#45: Michigan State (-21.24, 4.23%) at Iowa (21.24, 95.77%)
Estimated score: 10.82 - 31.91, Total: 42.73
Quality: 73.01%, Team quality: 94.29%, Competitiveness: 43.77%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 23.83%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 11.29%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 26.11%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 46.38%

#46: Oklahoma State (-19.62, 5.55%) at UCF (19.62, 94.45%)
Estimated score: 10.67 - 30.26, Total: 40.93
Quality: 72.14%, Team quality: 86.86%, Competitiveness: 49.75%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 19.96%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 13.74%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 24.71%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 48.12%

#47: San José State (-20.38, 4.89%) at San Diego State (20.38, 95.11%)
Estimated score: 14.55 - 35.08, Total: 49.63
Quality: 71.62%, Team quality: 88.49%, Competitiveness: 46.90%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 21.74%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 12.54%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 31.85%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 39.78%

#48: Delaware (-21.19, 4.26%) at Wake Forest (21.19, 95.74%)
Estimated score: 11.48 - 32.87, Total: 44.35
Quality: 69.55%, Team quality: 87.53%, Competitiveness: 43.92%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 23.73%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 11.35%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 27.41%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 44.82%

#49: Miami (24.16, 97.51%) at Virginia Tech (-24.16, 2.49%)
Estimated score: 36.11 - 11.75, Total: 47.87
Quality: 66.76%, Team quality: 94.05%, Competitiveness: 33.63%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 31.77%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 7.60%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 30.33%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.45%

#50: Western Kentucky (-23.96, 2.59%) at LSU (23.96, 97.41%)
Estimated score: 10.33 - 34.17, Total: 44.50
Quality: 66.24%, Team quality: 92.05%, Competitiveness: 34.31%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 31.17%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 7.83%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 27.53%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 44.67%

#51: Kansas State (-25.38, 1.97%) at Utah (25.38, 98.03%)
Estimated score: 17.72 - 43.28, Total: 61.00
Quality: 65.01%, Team quality: 96.07%, Competitiveness: 29.77%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 35.36%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 6.35%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 42.28%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 29.60%

#52: Mercer (-26.01, 1.73%) at Auburn (26.01, 98.27%)
Estimated score: 12.02 - 38.01, Total: 50.02
Quality: 61.00%, Team quality: 90.25%, Competitiveness: 27.86%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 37.29%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 5.77%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 32.19%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 39.42%

#53: UL Monroe (-24.12, 2.51%) at Texas State (24.12, 97.49%)
Estimated score: 21.37 - 45.41, Total: 66.78
Quality: 60.51%, Team quality: 81.01%, Competitiveness: 33.76%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 31.65%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 7.65%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 47.84%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 24.93%

#54: Coastal Carolina (-27.00, 1.42%) at South Carolina (27.00, 98.58%)
Estimated score: 8.03 - 35.12, Total: 43.16
Quality: 58.11%, Team quality: 88.60%, Competitiveness: 25.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 40.38%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 4.93%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 26.45%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 45.97%

#55: North Texas (28.02, 98.86%) at Rice (-28.02, 1.14%)
Estimated score: 46.75 - 18.88, Total: 65.63
Quality: 56.24%, Team quality: 89.44%, Competitiveness: 22.24%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 43.62%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 4.16%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 46.73%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 25.83%

#56: South Florida (29.69, 99.21%) at UAB (-29.69, 0.79%)
Estimated score: 50.85 - 21.37, Total: 72.22
Quality: 52.55%, Team quality: 89.38%, Competitiveness: 18.17%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 49.00%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 3.12%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 53.13%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 20.92%

#57: Ball State (-30.15, 0.72%) at Toledo (30.15, 99.28%)
Estimated score: 7.39 - 37.78, Total: 45.18
Quality: 50.25%, Team quality: 86.04%, Competitiveness: 17.14%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 50.48%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 2.88%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 28.08%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 44.02%

#58: Rutgers (-33.73, 0.31%) at Ohio State (33.73, 99.69%)
Estimated score: 10.64 - 44.66, Total: 55.30
Quality: 45.73%, Team quality: 95.61%, Competitiveness: 10.46%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 61.90%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 1.45%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.93%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.56%

#59: Syracuse (-35.95, 0.18%) at Notre Dame (35.95, 99.82%)
Estimated score: 7.89 - 43.75, Total: 51.63
Quality: 40.21%, Team quality: 93.50%, Competitiveness: 7.44%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 68.55%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 0.91%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 33.61%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 37.91%

#60: Massachusetts (-36.67, 0.14%) at Ohio (36.67, 99.86%)
Estimated score: 7.62 - 44.46, Total: 52.08
Quality: 33.55%, Team quality: 75.57%, Competitiveness: 6.61%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 70.61%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 0.78%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 34.01%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 37.50%

#61: Furman (-44.49, 0.02%) at Clemson (44.49, 99.98%)
Estimated score: 3.36 - 47.78, Total: 51.13
Quality: 21.28%, Team quality: 79.24%, Competitiveness: 1.54%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 88.04%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 0.11%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 33.17%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.38%

#62: Charlotte (-50.16, 0.00%) at Georgia (50.16, 100.00%)
Estimated score: 0.00 - 48.85, Total: 48.85
Quality: 14.65%, Team quality: 86.03%, Competitiveness: 0.42%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 94.92%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 0.02%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 31.17%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 40.52%

#63: Eastern Illinois (-65.82, 0.00%) at Alabama (65.82, 100.00%)
Estimated score: 0.00 - 54.78, Total: 54.78
Quality: 3.01%, Team quality: 78.49%, Competitiveness: 0.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 99.82%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 0.00%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.45%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.03%

#64: Samford (-70.30, 0.00%) at Texas A&M (70.30, 100.00%)
Estimated score: 0.00 - 64.55, Total: 64.55
Quality: 1.71%, Team quality: 74.34%, Competitiveness: 0.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 99.95%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 0.00%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 45.68%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 26.68%

Thanks for reading!

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The ratings in this article are based on data from collegefootballdata.com.

The Bears are what we thought they were. They’re what we thought they were. If you’re familiar with press conferences conducted by NFL head coaches, you probably know where this commentary leads.

At this point in the season, we know what to expect from most of the teams in the NFL, so I’m going to discuss three teams that are a bit more uncertain. Some of this is going to seem familiar from previous articles, with a detailed look at Houston and Baltimore. There’s a third team that I also believe is a bit of an enigma based on how their record compares to their predictive rating. Read on to find out which other team I find so intriguing. And I’m also going to talk about playoffs, at least for the purpose of discussing the extent to which the Ravens have revived their playoff chances. Earlier in the season, the Ravens’ chances of reaching the postseason were quite low, but has a three game winning streak put them back in contention?

There’s not that much movement in this week’s ratings, at least not compared to the bigger shifts earlier in the season. The weight of last season’s games and the preseason has been diminished to almost zero. That means even though the Chiefs lost by two points to the Bears in the third game of the preseason, it’s not doing a lot to lower the Chiefs’ rating now. After 10 weeks of football, the predictive ratings should have a good handle on the quality of teams this season. Each game played last season gets only a 2% weight this week, and each preseason game only gets a 4% weight. So these ratings are now almost entirely based on games played in the 2025 regular season.

No, I couldn’t resist putting in a clip of Dennis Green’s legendary rant. Thanks, coach.

And with that, let’s look at the ratings this week.

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Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points. They don’t factor in wins and losses, only the margin of victory. The ratings don’t explicitly calculate the strength of schedule, though I calculate this afterwards. However, because of how the ratings are calculated, the quality of opponents does influence the ratings.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 2.22 points
Mean score: 22.37 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
   1      11.29  +1.41  Los Angeles Rams      4.52    6.72   
   2      10.57  +1.00  Seattle Seahawks      7.19    3.40   
   3      8.58   -0.24  Indianapolis Colts    8.27    0.23   
   4   +1 8.11   +0.90  Detroit Lions         7.06    1.03   
   5   -1 7.81   +0.39  Kansas City Chiefs    1.83    6.01   
   6      7.13   -0.05  Houston Texans        -0.08   7.19   
   7   +2 4.89   +0.01  Philadelphia Eagles   1.91    2.91   
   8   -1 4.79   -1.14  Denver Broncos        -0.89   5.75   
   9   -1 3.28   -1.71  Buffalo Bills         3.82    -0.54  
  10      3.17   -0.90  Tampa Bay Buccaneers  2.51    0.70   
  11   +2 2.84   +1.17  New England Patriots  2.02    0.85   
  12   +2 2.31   +0.84  Baltimore Ravens      3.41    -1.08  
  13   +2 1.93   +0.82  Los Angeles Chargers  0.36    1.59   
  14   -3 1.81   -1.00  Green Bay Packers     -1.21   3.07   
  15   -3 1.06   -0.71  San Francisco 49ers   0.42    0.66   
  16   +3 -0.13  +0.86  Jacksonville Jaguars  0.79    -0.89  
  17   -1 -0.17  -1.09  Arizona Cardinals     -0.82   0.65   
  18   -1 -0.99  -1.12  Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.36   -0.65  
  19   -1 -1.75  -1.25  Minnesota Vikings     -1.66   -0.10  
  20      -2.57  -0.03  Chicago Bears         0.37    -2.96  
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense
  21      -3.09  -0.21  Dallas Cowboys        4.94    -8.01  
  22   +1 -3.16  +0.82  Atlanta Falcons       -4.24   1.12   
  23   +1 -4.32  -0.00  New York Giants       -1.21   -3.11  
  24   -2 -4.66  -0.92  Washington Commanders -0.78   -3.85  
  25   +1 -4.76  +1.55  Miami Dolphins        -2.52   -2.26  
  26   -1 -6.17  -0.56  Carolina Panthers     -6.29   0.08   
  27   +1 -7.08  +0.06  New York Jets         -2.98   -4.09  
  28   +2 -7.24  +1.30  Las Vegas Raiders     -6.71   -0.53  
  29      -7.34  +1.10  New Orleans Saints    -6.59   -0.76  
  30   -3 -7.67  -0.57  Cleveland Browns      -7.86   0.18   
  31   +1 -9.15  +0.02  Tennessee Titans      -5.99   -3.16  
  32   -1 -9.20  -0.59  Cincinnati Bengals    0.84    -10.04 

Schedule Strength

The first column is the expected losing percentage (1 minus winning percentage) for a hypothetical average NFL team in each team’s games played to date. Larger numbers mean a tougher schedule. The second column is the same thing, just for future games instead of past games.

The third column is the average opponent rating, with an adjustment for the site of games, for previously played games. The fourth column is the average opponent rating for the future games that each team will play. These two columns are the same schedule strength metrics from my previous NFL articles.

In college football, the two approaches to schedule strength would differ more just because the approach used in the first two columns limits the influence of truly lopsided blowout games. In the NFL, there just aren’t that many blowouts, and the teams are more evenly balanced. Therefore, there’s just not too much of a difference in the two approaches to measuring schedule strength.

Schedule Strength for an Average Team
Home advantage: 2.22 points
Mean score: 22.37 points
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
   1 Los Angeles Rams      .536 (9)  .576 (3)  1.18 (11)  2.84 (3)  
   2 Seattle Seahawks      .488 (19) .552 (6)  -0.48 (19) 2.05 (6)  
   3 Indianapolis Colts    .439 (27) .637 (1)  -2.11 (27) 5.10 (1)  
   4 Detroit Lions         .473 (22) .512 (16) -0.95 (22) 0.66 (15) 
   5 Kansas City Chiefs    .508 (15) .528 (9)  0.22 (15)  0.97 (8)  
   6 Houston Texans        .563 (3)  .546 (7)  2.40 (3)   1.70 (7)  
   7 Philadelphia Eagles   .554 (7)  .470 (25) 1.96 (7)   -1.11 (25)
   8 Denver Broncos        .452 (25) .518 (14) -1.76 (25) 0.73 (14) 
   9 Buffalo Bills         .429 (29) .479 (22) -2.50 (29) -0.86 (22)
  10 Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .555 (6)  .449 (27) 2.14 (5)   -1.65 (27)
  11 New England Patriots  .388 (32) .383 (32) -4.00 (32) -4.15 (32)
  12 Baltimore Ravens      .558 (5)  .396 (30) 2.07 (6)   -3.81 (30)
  13 Los Angeles Chargers  .453 (24) .567 (5)  -1.61 (24) 2.34 (5)  
  14 Green Bay Packers     .437 (28) .521 (13) -2.35 (28) 0.84 (13) 
  15 San Francisco 49ers   .583 (2)  .464 (26) 3.28 (2)   -1.26 (26)
  16 Jacksonville Jaguars  .562 (4)  .496 (19) 2.24 (4)   -0.21 (19)
  17 Arizona Cardinals     .525 (13) .568 (4)  1.01 (12)  2.68 (4)  
  18 Pittsburgh Steelers   .494 (16) .472 (23) -0.24 (17) -1.02 (24)
  19 Minnesota Vikings     .488 (18) .523 (12) -0.46 (18) 0.96 (9)  
  20 Chicago Bears         .420 (30) .528 (8)  -2.77 (30) 0.91 (10) 
Rank Team                  SOS       Future    OppRtg     Future    
  21 Dallas Cowboys        .463 (23) .514 (15) -1.25 (23) 0.60 (16) 
  22 Atlanta Falcons       .511 (14) .489 (21) 0.42 (14)  -0.38 (21)
  23 New York Giants       .534 (11) .472 (24) 1.21 (10)  -0.89 (23)
  24 Washington Commanders .527 (12) .511 (17) 0.99 (13)  0.41 (17) 
  25 Miami Dolphins        .493 (17) .402 (29) -0.19 (16) -3.64 (29)
  26 Carolina Panthers     .451 (26) .584 (2)  -1.78 (26) 3.00 (2)  
  27 New York Jets         .415 (31) .502 (18) -3.03 (31) 0.04 (18) 
  28 Las Vegas Raiders     .535 (10) .526 (10) 1.30 (9)   0.88 (11) 
  29 New Orleans Saints    .546 (8)  .387 (31) 1.90 (8)   -4.01 (31)
  30 Cleveland Browns      .480 (20) .406 (28) -0.72 (20) -3.37 (28)
  31 Tennessee Titans      .622 (1)  .526 (11) 4.44 (1)   0.86 (12) 
  32 Cincinnati Bengals    .476 (21) .492 (20) -0.86 (21) -0.36 (20)

NFL Season Simulation Results

This season simulation is based on games and computer ratings through November 10, 2025. The season was simulated 20,000 times, and the results of the simulations have been aggregated to predict final records and playoff chances. Tiebreakers for making the postseason are simplified, and the simulations don’t factor in potential issues like injuries, but this is still useful for making an educated guess about the standings at the end of the regular season.

Projected Standings

First up is the projected won-loss records, points scored, and points allowed for each team. The rating column is the team’s overall rating, included as a measure of team strength.

AFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
New England Patriots  12.75 4.22  0.03  .751  462.51  340.53  2.84  
Buffalo Bills         10.77 6.20  0.03  .634  460.60  377.50  3.28  
Miami Dolphins        6.30  10.67 0.03  .371  368.87  422.63  -4.76 
New York Jets         4.54  12.43 0.03  .268  351.48  454.26  -7.08 

AFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Baltimore Ravens      9.23  7.74  0.03  .544  456.82  414.11  2.31  
Pittsburgh Steelers   8.98  7.98  0.03  .530  405.32  413.29  -0.99 
Cincinnati Bengals    5.22  11.76 0.03  .308  406.20  560.69  -9.20 
Cleveland Browns      5.08  11.88 0.04  .300  284.85  383.15  -7.67 

AFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Indianapolis Colts    12.11 4.86  0.03  .713  511.93  372.88  8.58  
Houston Texans        9.00  7.96  0.04  .530  378.20  283.56  7.13  
Jacksonville Jaguars  9.00  7.96  0.03  .531  392.75  406.74  -0.13 
Tennessee Titans      3.06  13.90 0.03  .181  251.32  455.93  -9.15 

AFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Denver Broncos        12.22 4.74  0.04  .720  375.50  286.48  4.79  
Los Angeles Chargers  10.38 6.58  0.03  .612  386.39  352.24  1.93  
Kansas City Chiefs    10.36 6.60  0.04  .611  420.48  291.64  7.81  
Las Vegas Raiders     4.44  12.52 0.04  .263  258.65  400.48  -7.24 

NFC East
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Philadelphia Eagles   12.18 4.79  0.03  .717  430.03  357.29  4.89  
Dallas Cowboys        6.24  9.73  1.03  .397  477.85  521.13  -3.09 
Washington Commanders 5.57  11.40 0.03  .329  375.77  467.44  -4.66 
New York Giants       4.89  12.08 0.03  .289  374.39  454.35  -4.32 

NFC North
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Detroit Lions         11.45 5.52  0.03  .675  520.62  378.96  8.11  
Green Bay Packers     9.21  6.75  1.04  .572  383.99  339.15  1.81  
Chicago Bears         9.24  7.72  0.03  .545  411.54  447.35  -2.57 
Minnesota Vikings     7.46  9.51  0.03  .440  374.96  407.97  -1.75 

NFC South
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  10.97 6.00  0.03  .646  414.28  362.62  3.17  
Carolina Panthers     6.89  10.08 0.03  .406  278.83  386.09  -6.17 
Atlanta Falcons       6.44  10.52 0.04  .380  308.77  371.48  -3.16 
New Orleans Saints    4.89  12.07 0.04  .289  272.91  389.97  -7.34 

NFC West
                      W     L     T     Win%  PF      PA      Rating
Seattle Seahawks      12.61 4.36  0.03  .743  497.49  327.48  10.57 
Los Angeles Rams      12.65 4.31  0.03  .745  455.81  292.46  11.29 
San Francisco 49ers   9.90  7.08  0.03  .583  382.69  377.14  1.06  
Arizona Cardinals     6.43  10.54 0.03  .379  363.44  398.26  -0.17 

Playoff Chances

The next table shows each team’s chances of making the playoffs, winning their division, and having the best record in the conference. The mean playoff seed is an average that uses only the seasons when each team made the playoffs. Div% and Conf% are the probabilities of a team having the best record in their division and conference, respectively.

AFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
New England Patriots  2.84    .751   98.73%  82.45%  36.73%     2.45
Buffalo Bills         3.28    .634   81.97%  17.54%   4.50%     5.00
Miami Dolphins        -4.76   .371    0.22%   0.01%   0.00%     6.78
New York Jets         -7.08   .268    0.01%   0.00%   0.00%     7.00

AFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Baltimore Ravens      2.31    .544   60.04%  56.99%   0.15%     4.02
Pittsburgh Steelers   -0.99   .530   48.70%  42.09%   0.36%     4.19
Cincinnati Bengals    -9.20   .308    0.77%   0.69%   0.00%     4.26
Cleveland Browns      -7.67   .300    0.27%   0.22%   0.00%     4.48

AFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Indianapolis Colts    8.58    .713   96.78%  86.33%  30.62%     2.45
Houston Texans        7.13    .530   41.77%   7.84%   0.28%     5.66
Jacksonville Jaguars  -0.13   .531   32.37%   5.83%   0.45%     5.70
Tennessee Titans      -9.15   .181    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     -.--

AFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Denver Broncos        4.79    .720   96.20%  66.36%  20.66%     3.19
Los Angeles Chargers  1.93    .612   72.48%  14.74%   2.50%     5.25
Kansas City Chiefs    7.81    .611   69.65%  18.89%   3.74%     5.04
Las Vegas Raiders     -7.24   .263    0.02%   0.00%   0.00%     6.50

NFC East
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Philadelphia Eagles   4.89    .717   99.59%  99.47%  25.45%     2.30
Dallas Cowboys        -3.09   .397    2.86%   0.39%   0.00%     6.37
Washington Commanders -4.66   .329    0.27%   0.15%   0.00%     5.19
New York Giants       -4.32   .289    0.04%   0.00%   0.00%     7.00

NFC North
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Detroit Lions         8.11    .675   95.31%  75.39%  11.00%     3.34
Green Bay Packers     1.81    .572   64.59%  16.32%   0.43%     5.59
Chicago Bears         -2.57   .545   45.89%   6.62%   0.32%     5.96
Minnesota Vikings     -1.75   .440   11.00%   1.67%   0.01%     6.20

NFC South
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  3.17    .646   97.00%  96.23%   3.50%     3.49
Carolina Panthers     -6.17   .406    5.32%   2.59%   0.01%     5.39
Atlanta Falcons       -3.16   .380    2.40%   1.12%   0.00%     5.46
New Orleans Saints    -7.34   .289    0.06%   0.05%   0.00%     4.27

NFC West
                      Rating  Win% Playoff%    Div%   Conf% MeanSeed
Seattle Seahawks      10.57   .743   99.33%  47.49%  27.96%     3.48
Los Angeles Rams      11.29   .745   99.20%  51.23%  31.00%     3.30
San Francisco 49ers   1.06    .583   74.61%   1.26%   0.34%     6.16
Arizona Cardinals     -0.17   .379    2.55%   0.01%   0.00%     6.71

Possible Regular Season Outcomes

To give a range of how good or bad a team’s final record might be, several percentiles are shown for each team’s final winning percentage.

AFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
New England Patriots  .751  99.97%    .647   .706   .765   .824   .824
Buffalo Bills         .634  95.75%    .529   .588   .647   .706   .706
Miami Dolphins        .371  3.75%     .294   .294   .353   .412   .471
New York Jets         .268  0.15%     .176   .235   .265   .294   .353

AFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Baltimore Ravens      .544  71.97%    .471   .471   .529   .588   .647
Pittsburgh Steelers   .530  64.18%    .412   .471   .529   .588   .647
Cincinnati Bengals    .308  0.66%     .235   .235   .294   .353   .412
Cleveland Browns      .300  0.66%     .176   .235   .294   .353   .412

AFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Indianapolis Colts    .713  99.85%    .647   .647   .706   .765   .824
Houston Texans        .530  65.50%    .412   .471   .529   .588   .647
Jacksonville Jaguars  .531  64.90%    .412   .471   .529   .588   .647
Tennessee Titans      .181  0.00%     .118   .118   .176   .235   .294

AFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Denver Broncos        .720  99.89%    .647   .647   .706   .765   .824
Los Angeles Chargers  .612  93.52%    .529   .588   .588   .647   .706
Kansas City Chiefs    .611  91.97%    .529   .588   .588   .647   .706
Las Vegas Raiders     .263  0.07%     .176   .235   .235   .294   .353

NFC East
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Philadelphia Eagles   .717  99.76%    .647   .647   .706   .765   .824
Dallas Cowboys        .397  4.79%     .324   .324   .382   .441   .500
Washington Commanders .329  1.17%     .235   .294   .353   .353   .412
New York Giants       .289  0.15%     .176   .235   .294   .353   .382

NFC North
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Detroit Lions         .675  99.00%    .588   .647   .676   .706   .765
Green Bay Packers     .572  70.94%    .471   .500   .559   .618   .676
Chicago Bears         .545  70.57%    .471   .471   .529   .588   .647
Minnesota Vikings     .440  21.59%    .353   .412   .412   .471   .529

NFC South
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .646  97.12%    .529   .588   .647   .706   .765
Carolina Panthers     .406  8.21%     .324   .353   .412   .471   .471
Atlanta Falcons       .380  5.75%     .294   .353   .353   .412   .471
New Orleans Saints    .289  0.15%     .176   .235   .294   .353   .412

NFC West
                      Win%  >.500%  10%ile 25%ile 50%ile 75%ile 90%ile
Seattle Seahawks      .743  99.91%    .647   .706   .765   .765   .824
Los Angeles Rams      .745  99.95%    .647   .706   .765   .824   .824
San Francisco 49ers   .583  87.76%    .471   .529   .588   .647   .647
Arizona Cardinals     .379  5.38%     .294   .353   .353   .412   .471

Postseason Projections

The final table shows each team’s probability of reaching the playoffs, the divisional round, the conference championship, winning their conference, and winning the Super Bowl.

AFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
New England Patriots  .751    98.73%   67.79%    33.86%   13.31%  4.83%
Buffalo Bills         .634    81.97%   39.85%    17.38%    7.92%  2.71%
Miami Dolphins        .371     0.22%    0.03%     0.01%    0.01%  0.01%
New York Jets         .268     0.01%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Baltimore Ravens      .544    60.04%   30.13%    11.24%    4.90%  1.73%
Pittsburgh Steelers   .530    48.70%   20.02%     6.29%    2.10%  0.50%
Cincinnati Bengals    .308     0.77%    0.19%     0.03%    0.01%  0.00%
Cleveland Browns      .300     0.27%    0.08%     0.01%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Indianapolis Colts    .713    96.78%   74.53%    48.59%   29.37% 14.72%
Houston Texans        .530    41.77%   22.86%    12.04%    7.04%  3.35%
Jacksonville Jaguars  .531    32.37%   11.04%     3.74%    1.47%  0.46%
Tennessee Titans      .181     0.00%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

AFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Denver Broncos        .720    96.20%   60.85%    31.70%   14.64%  6.06%
Los Angeles Chargers  .612    72.48%   31.30%    12.07%    5.22%  1.65%
Kansas City Chiefs    .611    69.65%   41.31%    23.06%   14.01%  6.52%
Las Vegas Raiders     .263     0.02%    0.01%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC East
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Philadelphia Eagles   .717    99.59%   70.71%    34.47%   12.85%  6.04%
Dallas Cowboys        .397     2.86%    0.70%     0.10%    0.03%  0.01%
Washington Commanders .329     0.27%    0.03%     0.01%    0.00%  0.00%
New York Giants       .289     0.04%    0.01%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC North
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Detroit Lions         .675    95.31%   66.41%    35.91%   17.76% 10.07%
Green Bay Packers     .572    64.59%   23.00%     7.08%    2.44%  1.00%
Chicago Bears         .545    45.89%   11.18%     2.10%    0.60%  0.17%
Minnesota Vikings     .440    11.00%    2.73%     0.61%    0.18%  0.08%

NFC South
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .646    97.00%   47.14%    17.73%    6.98%  2.97%
Carolina Panthers     .406     5.32%    0.91%     0.11%    0.01%  0.01%
Atlanta Falcons       .380     2.40%    0.56%     0.06%    0.03%  0.01%
New Orleans Saints    .289     0.06%    0.00%     0.00%    0.00%  0.00%

NFC West
                      Win%  Playoff% MkDivRd% WinDivRd% WinConf% WinSB%
Seattle Seahawks      .743    99.33%   74.30%    45.49%   26.25% 16.63%
Los Angeles Rams      .745    99.20%   77.53%    49.95%   30.55% 19.65%
San Francisco 49ers   .583    74.61%   24.10%     6.21%    2.30%  0.85%
Arizona Cardinals     .379     2.55%    0.69%     0.17%    0.05%  0.01%

Let’s Talk About Playoffs

Yes, playoffs. Let’s talk about playoffs. You kiddin’ me?

Do the Ravens have a good chance of making the playoffs now that they’ve won three straight games? Or do they just hope to win a game, another game? Let’s find out, then look at two other teams with interesting profiles.

In my college football articles, I post a lot about strength of record in the context of which teams I believe are deserving of playoff bids. In that context, I take a team’s actual winning percentage, then I subtract the expected winning percentage against the same schedule for a hypothetical team with a predictive rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. In effect, I’m asking the question of how a good team, one that I expect would be on the playoff bubble, should perform against a team’s schedule. If the actual team outperforms the hypothetical team, it’s a sign they have a good case to be in the playoffs. It’s difficult to directly compare won-loss records in college football because of the huge difference in schedule strength across the FBS. Strength of record is an objective way to compare how good each team’s record is despite the large variations in schedule strength.

This isn’t particularly useful for the NFL because there’s much less variability in schedule strength. And playoff bids are determined by the standings instead of a committee. But instead of using a hypothetical team with a predictive rating 1.5 standard deviations above the mean, I can use a team’s actual predictive rating and do the same calculations. In doing so, I’m comparing a team’s actual winning percentage to what would be expected based on their predictive rating. For teams that have a better record than what’s expected, where this number is well above zero, that could be an indication the team is getting lucky or perhaps that they’re underrated. And where this is well below zero, it’s an indicator that the team is either overrated or they’ve just been very unlucky.

Strength of Record for Each Team’s Rating
Rank TeamSOR Team                  Win%  Predictive
   1 .199    Philadelphia Eagles   .778  4.89 (7)  
   2 .156    San Francisco 49ers   .600  1.06 (15) 
   3 .155    Chicago Bears         .667  -2.57 (20)
   4 .139    Denver Broncos        .800  4.79 (8)  
   5 .139    Tampa Bay Buccaneers  .667  3.17 (10) 
   6 .121    Jacksonville Jaguars  .556  -0.13 (16)
   7 .120    Carolina Panthers     .500  -6.17 (26)
   8 .116    New England Patriots  .800  2.84 (11) 
   9 .100    Los Angeles Chargers  .700  1.93 (13) 
  10 .076    Pittsburgh Steelers   .556  -0.99 (18)
  11 .051    Cincinnati Bengals    .333  -9.20 (32)
  12 .040    Indianapolis Colts    .800  8.58 (3)  
  13 .023    Los Angeles Rams      .778  11.29 (1) 
  14 .007    Buffalo Bills         .667  3.28 (9)  
  15 -.000   Green Bay Packers     .611  1.81 (14) 
  16 -.007   Seattle Seahawks      .778  10.57 (2) 
  17 -.020   Minnesota Vikings     .444  -1.75 (19)
  18 -.052   Washington Commanders .300  -4.66 (24)
  19 -.059   Baltimore Ravens      .444  2.31 (12) 
  20 -.061   Tennessee Titans      .111  -9.15 (31)
Rank TeamSOR Team                  Win%  Predictive
  21 -.062   Dallas Cowboys        .389  -3.09 (21)
  22 -.064   Detroit Lions         .667  8.11 (4)  
  23 -.065   Las Vegas Raiders     .222  -7.24 (28)
  24 -.070   Atlanta Falcons       .333  -3.16 (22)
  25 -.070   New Orleans Saints    .200  -7.34 (29)
  26 -.077   Miami Dolphins        .300  -4.76 (25)
  27 -.099   Cleveland Browns      .222  -7.67 (30)
  28 -.137   Arizona Cardinals     .333  -0.17 (17)
  29 -.144   Kansas City Chiefs    .556  7.81 (5)  
  30 -.147   New York Giants       .200  -4.32 (23)
  31 -.168   New York Jets         .222  -7.08 (27)
  32 -.177   Houston Texans        .444  7.13 (6)  

The TeamSOR column in the table is the strength of record given each team’s predictive rating as the hypothetical team. Teams at the top of the list have outperformed expectations given their rating. And teams at the bottom have underperformed compared to what is expected with their rating and schedule.

Baltimore Ravens

In the case of the Baltimore Ravens, they’re not all that interesting from a strength of record standpoint. They’ve underperformed their predictive rating by -.059, which isn’t all that much. They’ve played nine games, so this would have to be -.111 to be underperforming their rating by a full game. I’m more interested in how the Ravens have recovered both in terms of their record but also their predictive rating. They’ve played the #5 ranked schedule so far and have a point differential of -6. But their average opponent rating is +2.07, meaning that over nine games, that is worth an estimated +18.63 points. By these numbers, their point differential against a neutral schedule is an estimated +12.63 points. A few weeks ago, their point differential was decidedly negative, but that’s recovered quickly, and they’ve won three straight games.

Their only real competition for winning the division is the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have a -8 point differential in nine games but one more win on the season. But the Steelers have played a weaker schedule, with an average opponent rating of -0.24. That’s close to a neutral schedule, and it’s worth only about -2.16 points over their nine games. Against a neutral schedule, that means the Steelers would be expected to have a point differential of -10.16, which places them a bit behind the Ravens. Going forward, the Ravens play the #30 schedule while the Steelers play the #23 schedule. However, the Ravens still need to either make up one game on the Steelers and win the tiebreakers, or they need to make up two games and win the division outright.

My season simulator gives the Ravens a 60.04% chance of reaching the playoffs and a 56.99% chance of winning the division. That’s just a 3.05% chance of a wild card spot if they won’t win the division. The wild card chances are only slightly better for the Steelers at 6.61%. It means that there’s likely to be just one team in the playoffs from the AFC North, and the division is leaning slightly toward the Ravens right now despite them having a worse record right now.

Houston Texans

The Texans are at the bottom of the list for how teams have performed compared to their predictive ratings. So are the Texans overrated or just unlucky? They have a 26 point win over Tennessee, which is #31 in the predictive ratings. But they also have a 34 point win over Baltimore, a win that’s looking better as the season goes on, a nine point win over San Francisco, and a seven point win over Jacksonville. Their largest margin of defeat was eight points, a game played at Seattle. They also have a five point loss in a road game against the Rams, a one point loss to Tampa Bay, a seven point loss at Jacksonville, and a three point loss at Denver. With the exception of Jacksonville, who is ranked #16 in the predictive ratings, the other four losses are to teams currently ranked in the top 10 of my predictive ratings. To date, the Texans have played the #3 toughest schedule in the league, and they’re 1-5 in games decided by a one score (eight points or less).

The Texans look like a team that’s genuinely better than their record indicates. The biggest problem facing them making the playoffs is that they still have the #7 ranked future schedule. The most likely scenario seems to be that the Texans finish 9-8 and very much on the playoff bubble. The Colts look like the clear favorites to win the division, and the 0-3 start for the Texans amid a difficult schedule has left them a toss-up for making the playoffs despite appearing to be one of the strongest teams in the AFC.

Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles are in the opposite position as the Texans, having just a +26 point differential with a 7-2 record. That places them at the top of the list for teams that have outperformed their predictive rating. The rest of the NFC East is weak enough that the Eagles are effectively a lock for reaching the playoffs. But are they as good as their record indicates?

To date, the Eagles have played the #7 ranked schedule in the league, so that suggests they’re better than their point differential indicates. Over nine games, their average opponent rating has been 1.96 points, or an overall 17.64 points above a neutral schedule. Therefore, their estimated point differential against a neutral schedule is 43.64 points. The problem is that they’re 7-1 in one score games, something that’s probably isn’t sustainable in the long term. Going forward, the Eagles play the #25 ranked schedule, so that should help to boost their record. Still, the most likely record for the Eagles based on the simulations appears to be 12-5, meaning that they would go 5-3 the rest of the way. It’s a bit less likely that they finish 13-4, which would require a 6-2 record in the final eight games. They’re both plausible scenarios based on the weakness of their schedule over the remainder of the season, and the Eagles are virtually a lock for reaching the playoffs.

However, this doesn’t bode particularly well for the Eagles in the playoffs. Despite their impressive record and the virtual certainty of them winning the NFC East, my simulator only estimates an approximately one-in-eight chance of them returning to the Super Bowl. That’s only fourth in the NFC behind the Rams, Seahawks, and Lions. The Eagles’ weak point differential isn’t the result of being skewed by one or two blowout losses and several quality wins, but what seems like an unsustainable record in close games. They’ll almost certainly win their division, so the real question in my opinion is whether this will catch up to them in the playoffs. Last season, the Chiefs had an unimpressive point differential but made it all the way to the Super Bowl before losing to a much stronger Eagles team. This season, the Eagles are in a similar situation as that Chiefs team, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they end up getting eliminated by the Rams or Seahawks before reaching the Super Bowl.

Week 11 Game Predictions

The thresholds for close games, blowouts, and high and low scoring games are different in the NFL than in college football. That’s because NFL teams are balanced enough in talent to usually avoid truly lopsided scores and there’s just less scoring overall.

Games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL for many of the same reasons I just mentioned. This is just for predicting which NFL games are most and least compelling each weekend.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. In the event that a margin is larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score, that’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a forecast of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This isn’t even close to possible with the current NFL ratings, even with the weakest offense against the strongest defense, but it does occur once in awhile in college football. A negative score is impossible, of course, so the score would be set to zero in those instances. However, there’s no upper limit on how many points a team can be projected to score. But with more parity between NFL teams, even the highest scoring predictions aren’t going to be nearly as crazy as what is possible with the college football ratings.

#1: Seattle Seahawks (-2.93, 41.16%) at Los Angeles Rams (2.93, 58.40%), Tie (0.44%)
Estimated score: 21.73 - 24.61, Total: 46.34
Quality: 96.96%, Team quality: 96.49%, Competitiveness: 97.92%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.74%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 22.83%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 25.36%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 18.06%

#2: Detroit Lions (1.00, 52.73%) at Philadelphia Eagles (-1.00, 46.82%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 25.41 - 24.37, Total: 49.78
Quality: 90.75%, Team quality: 86.55%, Competitiveness: 99.76%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 20.80%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 23.30%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 33.45%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 12.59%

#3: Kansas City Chiefs (0.81, 52.16%) at Denver Broncos (-0.81, 47.39%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 17.34 - 16.58, Total: 33.92
Quality: 90.28%, Team quality: 85.85%, Competitiveness: 99.84%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 20.75%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 23.32%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 6.69%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 47.47%

#4: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-2.33, 42.91%) at Buffalo Bills (2.33, 56.64%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 24.31 - 26.60, Total: 50.91
Quality: 78.67%, Team quality: 70.24%, Competitiveness: 98.68%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.35%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 23.02%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 36.32%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 11.09%

#5: Los Angeles Chargers (-0.17, 49.28%) at Jacksonville Jaguars (0.17, 50.27%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 22.51 - 22.68, Total: 45.20
Quality: 68.00%, Team quality: 56.08%, Competitiveness: 99.99%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 20.68%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 23.36%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 22.94%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 20.16%

#6: San Francisco 49ers (-1.00, 46.82%) at Arizona Cardinals (1.00, 52.73%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 21.02 - 22.00, Total: 43.02
Quality: 65.34%, Team quality: 52.88%, Competitiveness: 99.76%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 20.80%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 23.30%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 18.70%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 24.58%

#7: Green Bay Packers (3.91, 61.20%) at New York Giants (-3.91, 38.36%), Tie (0.44%)
Estimated score: 23.16 - 19.20, Total: 42.36
Quality: 53.55%, Team quality: 39.93%, Competitiveness: 96.33%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 22.57%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 22.42%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 17.53%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 26.02%

#8: Chicago Bears (-3.04, 40.85%) at Minnesota Vikings (3.04, 58.71%), Tie (0.44%)
Estimated score: 21.73 - 24.78, Total: 46.51
Quality: 49.05%, Team quality: 34.74%, Competitiveness: 97.76%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.82%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 22.79%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 25.74%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 17.75%

#9: Baltimore Ravens (7.76, 71.59%) at Cleveland Browns (-7.76, 28.03%), Tie (0.38%)
Estimated score: 24.50 - 16.71, Total: 41.20
Quality: 40.33%, Team quality: 27.57%, Competitiveness: 86.28%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 27.92%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 19.88%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 15.58%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 28.66%

#10: Houston Texans (14.06, 85.05%) at Tennessee Titans (-14.06, 14.69%), Tie (0.26%)
Estimated score: 24.34 - 10.30, Total: 34.63
Quality: 35.35%, Team quality: 26.78%, Competitiveness: 61.59%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 42.41%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 13.76%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 7.33%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 45.52%

#11: Washington Commanders (-2.12, 43.53%) at Miami Dolphins (2.12, 56.02%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 22.74 - 24.81, Total: 47.55
Quality: 34.91%, Team quality: 20.74%, Competitiveness: 98.91%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.23%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 23.08%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 28.09%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 15.97%

#12: New York Jets (-12.14, 18.22%) at New England Patriots (12.14, 81.48%), Tie (0.30%)
Estimated score: 17.43 - 29.59, Total: 47.02
Quality: 34.82%, Team quality: 24.61%, Competitiveness: 69.70%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 37.42%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 15.75%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 26.89%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 16.86%

#13: Carolina Panthers (-5.23, 34.67%) at Atlanta Falcons (5.23, 64.91%), Tie (0.42%)
Estimated score: 13.86 - 19.16, Total: 33.02
Quality: 33.04%, Team quality: 19.64%, Competitiveness: 93.52%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 24.04%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 21.71%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 5.95%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 49.95%

#14: Dallas Cowboys (1.93, 55.48%) at Las Vegas Raiders (-1.93, 44.07%), Tie (0.45%)
Estimated score: 26.74 - 24.78, Total: 51.51
Quality: 32.55%, Team quality: 18.65%, Competitiveness: 99.09%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 21.14%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 23.13%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 37.89%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 10.35%

#15: Cincinnati Bengals (-10.43, 21.76%) at Pittsburgh Steelers (10.43, 77.90%), Tie (0.34%)
Estimated score: 22.75 - 33.17, Total: 55.92
Quality: 24.73%, Team quality: 14.05%, Competitiveness: 76.60%
Blowout probability (margin >= 17.0 pts): 33.36%
Close game probability (margin <= 4.0 pts): 17.46%
High scoring probability (total >= 56.0 pts): 49.78%
Low scoring probability (total <= 33.0 pts): 6.00%

Thursday Night Football starts soon. Enjoy the game, and thanks for reading!

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This article uses ratings that are derived from data obtained from Pro Football Reference.

The college football playoff committee’s new rankings are out, so it’s time to examine the decisions made by the committee. I made the case for BYU being a playoff team in my article a few hours ago, but the committee’s current rankings would leave them without a playoff spot. I’d like to analyze both this and a few of the committee’s other decisions that don’t make sense to me.

ESPN posted an article discussing five teams that David Hale believes have cause to be angry over their ranking. Much of this article revolves around comparisons involving Teams A and B, where Team A is inevitably the one that has cause for anger and Team B is a higher ranked team. In my opinion, this style of criticism involves picking metrics that are favorable to Team A while paying less attention to those that support ranking Team B higher. The current rankings are really an update to last week’s rankings, so my question is whether the changes from last week to this week make sense.

BYU, Virginia, and Louisville all lost games on Saturday and proceeded to drop five spots. Iowa’s close loss at Oregon only dropped them one spot. Ole Miss also dropped one spot, but that’s partly due to Texas Tech moving up two spots following a quality win over BYU. Are these reasonable updates to the rankings?

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Ole Miss and Texas Tech

Does it make sense for Texas Tech to move ahead of Ole Miss this week? Texas Tech has a marginally better strength of record and is ranked 14 spots higher in the predictive rankings. It’s hardly crazy to place Texas Tech ahead of Ole Miss, but can that change be justified on this past weekend’s results?

Similar to my calculations for strength of schedule and strength of record, let’s choose a benchmark team with a predictive rating approximately 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. This week, I’ll give that hypothetical team a predictive rating of 72 to keep the numbers a bit simpler, placing the team between #12 BYU and #13 Iowa. The home advantage is 2.15 points, and I’ll include that in the calculations. I’ll refer to this hypothetical team as Team X, and I’ll predict their expected margin of victory against an opponent using this formula: Expected Margin = 72 +/- 2.15 (advantage or disadvantage) - Opponent Rating. The strength of result uses this formula: Strength of Result = Real Margin - Expected Margin For Team X, such that positive numbers are a stronger result.

For Texas Tech against BYU, the expected margin for Team X is 72 + 2.15 - 72.29 = 1.86 points. The real margin was 22 points, so the strength of result is 22 - 1.86 = 20.14 points.

For Ole Miss against The Citadel, the expected margin for Team X is 72 + 2.15 - 19.22 = 54.93 points. The real margin was 49 points, so the strength of result is 49 - 54.93 = -5.93 points.

Overall, Texas Tech’s result was 26.07 points better than Ole Miss’ result, which is no small difference. I have no problem with the committee moving the Red Raiders ahead of the Rebels this week.

Miami and Georgia Tech

Vanderbilt, Miami, Georgia Tech, USC, and Michigan all moved up due to Virginia and Louisville each falling five spots in the rankings. In the process, Miami also passed Georgia Tech. Miami has a better strength of record and predictive rating than Georgia Tech, but does that change make sense the past weekend’s results?

Georgia Tech didn’t play, so their strength of result is effectively zero for the week. Miami won 38-10 over Syracuse. Team X’s expected margin is 72 + 2.15 - 47.03 = 27.12 points. Therefore, Miami’s strength of result is 28 - 27.12 = 0.88 points. Because Georgia Tech didn’t play, this is effectively saying that Miami deserves to move ahead of them on the basis of a 0.88 point strength of result. Although I have no problem with the Hurricanes being ranked ahead of the Yellow Jackets, this seems like a strange time to make that change in the rankings. If anything, this looks more like the committee correcting a perceived mistake that Miami was ranked too low instead of Miami earning it on this past weekend’s result.

BYU, Virginia, Louisville, and Iowa

With the exception of Iowa, the three other teams currently ranked that lost games last weekend all dropped five spots in the rankings. In past years, it’s almost seemed like there’s a standard penalty of four or five spots in the rankings for losing a game. This week, that standard penalty appears to be five spots, with Iowa being the lone exception having lost a very close game against Oregon.

For BYU at Texas Tech, the expected margin for Team X is 72 - 2.15 - 79.44 = -9.59 points. The real margin was 29-7 in favor of Texas Tech, so the strength of result is -22 - (-9.59) = -12.41 points.

For Wake Forest at Virginia, the expected margin for Team X is 72 + 2.15 - 55.68 = 18.47 points. The real margin was 16-9 with Wake Forest winning, so the strength of result is -7 - 18.47 = -25.47 points.

For California at Louisville, Team X’s expected margin is 72 + 2.15 - 46.73 = 27.42 points. The real margin was a 29-26 win for California, meaning that the strength of result is -3 - 27.42 = -30.42 points.

And then for Oregon at Iowa, Team X’s expected margin is 72 + 2.15 - 83.28 = -9.13 points. The actual margin an 18-16 Oregon win, meaning that the strength of result is -2 - (-9.13) = 7.13 points.

I understand that teams generally drop in the ratings after a loss, but it’s actually hard to justify penalizing Iowa any spots for this result. Still, a one spot decline is the smallest penalty the committee could give if they’re going to lower a team’s ranking for a loss, and that’s what the committee did to Iowa.

But does it make sense for BYU to fall the same number of spots as Virginia and Louisville? Although BYU’s loss was by a larger margin, it’s actually a stronger result due to the difficulty of playing a road game at Texas Tech. But BYU was also ranked higher, so it probably wouldn’t be justified to drop them as much as Virginia or Louisville even if the strength of result was identical for all three teams.

For the most part, ratings are normally distributed in the FBS. It means there are a few really good teams at the top with their ratings spaced farther apart, then a lot of mediocre teams with ratings closer together, and then a few bad teams with ratings spaced farther apart again. There’s a 7.61 point difference from #1 Indiana to #4 Oregon in my predictive ratings. However, a predictive rating 7.61 points below #11 Miami goes all the way down to between #26 Missouri and #27 Pittsburgh. Bill Connelly applies a seven point penalty per loss in his backward looking ratings derived from SP+, which is reasonable. But that seven point penalty will also cost a team more positions if they’re toward the middle of the FBS ratings than if they’re near the top. Even if BYU’s loss was just as bad as Virginia’s and Louisville’s losses, they probably shouldn’t lose as many spots just because BYU is closer to the tail of the distribution.

That said, BYU’s loss clearly isn’t as bad as Virginia’s loss. And Virginia’s loss isn’t quite as bad as Louisville’s loss. If Virginia should lose five spots and Louisville’s loss was worse, then it might make sense to flip Iowa and Louisville in the rankings. As a result, Iowa doesn’t get penalized for their close loss to Oregon, which had a positive strength of result. And Louisville loses six spots instead of five due to the particularly poor strength of result.

Using my logic for Virginia and Louisville, it means that falling one spot in the rankings is worth about -5 points in the strength of result. Instead of BYU dropping five spots, it then makes more sense for them to drop just two or three spots. This puts them either at #9 or #10 behind either Oregon or Notre Dame, respectively. In either case, BYU is still in the playoff. But because BYU is farther out on the tail of the distribution, I’d favor dropping them only two spots instead of three. That puts BYU at #9.

Overall, I believe that BYU should only fall to #9, Virginia would fall five spots to #19, Iowa would stay at #20 instead of falling a spot, and Louisville would fall six spots to #21.

Group of 5 Teams

I lamented that last week the committee didn’t include any Group of 5 teams in their rankings. That has changed this week with South Florida entering the rankings at #24. However, there’s a very good case for North Texas, James Madison, and Tulane to be in the top 25. It’s an improvement over last week, but I still believe the Group of 5 is underrepresented. My playoff ratings have both South Florida and North Texas in the top 25, and James Madison is also in the top 25 in my strength of record calculations. I have no problem with Cincinnati entering the top 25, and I actually put them at #21 in my subjective rankings along with the three aforementioned Group of 5 teams. The real issue is the complete omission of the Group of 5 in last week’s playoff rankings and the committee having limited opportunity to correct it this week with only Missouri and Washington falling from the top 25.

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There’s quite a bit of variability in different computer ratings, so the committee deserved some flexibility in their initial ratings. I didn’t really agree with how low they ranked Miami or how high they ranked Utah. But aside from the Group of 5 omission, I believe the committee generally deserved the benefit of the doubt for an initial ranking that’s subjective, and where there’s always going to be a case that some teams are ranked in the wrong place. But that initial rating is the starting point, and each week is then an update from the previous week instead of a completely new set of rankings. Therefore, I expect that the updates will then be done in a reasonably consistent and logical manner, but it seems like BYU paid a particularly harsh penalty for their loss in Lubbock. And that’s my biggest complaint this week other than the Group of 5 still being underrepresented.

I’ll post more content later this week, including updated NFL ratings tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

Penn State nearly handed Indiana their first loss of the season, the two teams at the top of the Big 12 played each other in Lubbock, and both of the ACC favorites heading into the week lost. If the season ended today, should BYU still be a playoff team? What are the implications of Indiana’s close call in State College? Happy Valley is never an easy place for a road game, whether it’s a white out at night or a day game. And how likely is it that the ACC could miss the playoff altogether?

After the college football playoff rankings come out this evening, I’m planning for a special Tuesday edition of The Linked Letters After Dark examining some of the biggest questions like the Group of 5 favorite now that Memphis picked up another loss, BYU’s ranking, and whether Texas is a playoff team.

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Predictive Ratings

These are forward looking ratings, meaning that they’re intended to evaluate how good a team is and predict its future success, but they don’t evaluate the quality of a team’s achievements earlier in the season. These ratings are based purely on points.

The offense and defense columns refer to each team’s point scoring tendencies instead of the efficiency ratings that some other rating systems use. The overall rating is approximately the sum of a team’s offense and defense ratings. To predict the score of a game for the home team, take the home team’s offense rating, add half of the home advantage, subtract the visiting team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the score is similar for the visiting team. Take the visiting team’s offense rating, subtract half of the home advantage, subtract the home team’s defense rating, and add the mean score. Predicting the margin of victory for a game is done by taking the home team’s rating, adding the home advantage, and subtracting the away team’s rating. For neutral site games, the home advantage is set to zero.

The last column here is SOR, which means strength of record. Unlike all the other columns, this is a backward looking rating and evaluates the quality of a team’s wins and losses in comparison to a hypothetical team with a rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. Such a hypothetical team would typically be ranked somewhere between #10 and #15. Strength of record is just each team’s actual winning percentage minus the expected winning percentage for that hypothetical team against the same schedule. This is negative for most teams because their record is being compared against the expected record for a pretty good team.

Predictive Ratings
Home advantage: 2.15 points
Mean score: 26.89 points
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
   1      89.49  -2.19  Indiana               46.06   43.42    .205
   2      86.95  +0.06  Ohio State            38.76   48.26    .171
   3      83.28  -0.14  Oregon                43.07   40.30    .105
   4      81.88  +0.90  Utah                  42.71   39.17   -.063
   5   +1 79.44  +1.90  Texas Tech            39.66   39.73    .066
   6   -1 79.11  +0.80  Notre Dame            40.13   39.01   -.022
   7      77.76  +0.80  Alabama               37.35   40.37    .142
   8      77.03  +1.56  Texas A&M             41.97   35.01    .218
   9      75.76  +1.08  USC                   42.15   33.34   -.023
  10   +3 73.72  +1.92  Georgia               34.53   39.18    .107
  11   -1 73.43  -0.69  Miami                 33.03   40.33   -.037
  12   -1 72.29  -1.44  BYU                   35.85   36.58    .120
  13   +6 71.88  +1.87  Iowa                  29.99   41.77   -.090
  14   +4 71.55  +1.36  Oklahoma              29.70   41.63   -.034
  15      71.08  +0.59  Vanderbilt            41.03   29.82   -.009
  16   +1 71.07  +0.62  Texas                 32.90   38.16    .023
  17   -1 70.89  +0.42  Ole Miss              39.54   31.10    .065
  18   -6 70.56  -2.15  Washington            37.23   33.25   -.144
  19   +1 70.34  +0.68  Michigan              32.02   38.24   -.021
  20   -6 69.41  -2.35  Florida State         37.27   32.04   -.388
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  21      68.96  +0.99  Tennessee             44.88   24.12   -.126
  22   +3 68.54  +1.88  South Florida         38.34   30.21   -.086
  23      68.23  +0.42  LSU                   29.10   39.15   -.170
  24   -2 67.99  +0.16  Illinois              35.50   32.49   -.015
  25   +4 67.69  +2.73  Penn State            36.07   31.51   -.330
  26   -2 66.73  -0.45  Missouri              33.19   33.72   -.125
  27      65.66  -0.49  Pittsburgh            36.15   29.40   -.150
  28   +3 64.97  +0.65  North Texas           42.05   22.78   -.072
  29   -1 64.95  -0.19  Nebraska              33.56   31.42   -.179
  30   +2 64.18  +0.01  Arizona               30.63   33.28   -.234
  31   +5 63.80  +1.47  Auburn                26.83   37.25   -.349
  32   -6 63.38  -3.07  Florida               27.51   35.86   -.346
  33   +4 62.97  +0.89  Iowa State            30.34   32.70   -.247
  34   +4 62.79  +0.82  Georgia Tech          33.70   29.05   -.060
  35      62.75  +0.30  Cincinnati            33.28   29.39   -.077
  36   -6 61.78  -2.75  Louisville            32.98   28.70   -.107
  37   -3 61.38  -1.36  Mississippi State     33.40   27.93   -.287
  38   +2 61.33  +0.81  TCU                   32.84   28.35   -.259
  39   -6 61.32  -1.86  Virginia              33.25   27.86   -.132
  40  +16 61.17  +5.77  Kentucky              28.63   32.57   -.331
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  41      61.07  +1.12  Arizona State         25.34   35.76   -.108
  42   +5 60.63  +2.24  SMU                   29.94   30.86   -.212
  43   -1 60.20  +0.84  Kansas State          33.03   27.02   -.405
  44   -5 60.10  -1.05  East Carolina         29.08   31.24   -.269
  45   +7 59.56  +3.12  Clemson               28.30   31.25   -.453
  46   -1 59.14  +0.25  Arkansas              35.38   23.82   -.521
  47   -3 58.95  -0.04  James Madison         25.44   33.29   -.083
  48   +1 58.92  +1.29  South Carolina        23.21   35.57   -.394
  49   -3 58.27  -0.35  Memphis               29.47   28.65   -.162
  50   +1 58.19  +1.04  Houston               30.20   27.99   -.096
  51   -3 58.18  +0.02  Duke                  34.08   23.94   -.365
  52   +7 57.38  +3.45  Toledo                29.19   28.01   -.416
  53   -3 57.37  -0.02  NC State              32.51   24.74   -.273
  54   +1 56.79  +1.27  Kansas                30.20   26.59   -.340
  55   -1 56.77  +1.09  Northwestern          20.66   35.84   -.215
  56   +1 55.94  +1.40  Boise State           28.25   27.69   -.206
  57   +3 55.68  +1.87  Wake Forest           20.21   35.44   -.233
  58      55.08  +0.88  Baylor                33.42   21.66   -.340
  59   +9 54.73  +2.21  Rutgers               31.42   23.41   -.296
  60   +7 54.72  +2.05  Wisconsin             20.01   34.61   -.287
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  61   +3 54.65  +1.31  Tulane                27.39   26.97   -.129
  62   -1 54.60  +0.94  UCF                   22.83   31.63   -.490
  63  -10 54.53  -1.54  Maryland              25.83   28.68   -.385
  64  -21 54.18  -5.03  San Diego State       23.73   30.43   -.212
  65      53.98  +1.05  Minnesota             23.86   29.92   -.150
  66      53.78  +1.06  Purdue                25.11   28.64   -.514
  67   -5 53.73  +0.13  Old Dominion          27.52   26.21   -.212
  68   -5 53.30  -0.10  Michigan State        28.38   24.92   -.421
  69   +2 52.80  +1.21  UCLA                  24.33   28.45   -.418
  70   +4 52.48  +1.56  New Mexico            26.97   25.54   -.262
  71  +11 51.39  +3.86  Utah State            29.88   21.39   -.312
  72   -2 51.31  -0.99  Washington State      18.49   32.82   -.410
  73   -4 51.12  -1.32  Louisiana Tech        22.41   28.86   -.399
  74   -2 51.08  -0.14  Colorado              24.82   26.18   -.510
  75  +13 50.29  +4.82  UNLV                  33.10   17.14   -.203
  76   -3 50.28  -0.89  UTSA                  28.62   21.60   -.405
  77   -1 50.05  +0.94  West Virginia         24.76   25.08   -.421
  78   -3 50.03  +0.25  Army                  17.22   32.88   -.378
  79   +4 49.95  +2.53  UConn                 29.18   20.78   -.290
  80  +13 48.96  +4.67  Hawai’i               24.36   24.57   -.266
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
  81   -2 48.65  +1.06  Western Michigan      17.48   31.02   -.371
  82   -2 48.12  +0.56  Virginia Tech         25.46   22.69   -.562
  83   -5 48.06  +0.32  Ohio                  25.25   22.88   -.224
  84   -7 47.33  -1.45  Kennesaw State        23.51   23.84   -.108
  85   -1 47.13  +0.57  Southern Miss         25.04   22.08   -.205
  86   -5 47.12  -0.42  Stanford              19.92   27.20   -.511
  87   -1 47.03  +1.30  Syracuse              21.73   25.20   -.534
  88   -3 47.03  +0.50  Navy                  23.22   23.68   -.111
  89      46.73  +1.54  California            21.50   25.15   -.350
  90      45.63  +0.50  Wyoming               15.46   30.08   -.466
  91   -4 45.58  +0.06  Temple                25.82   19.75   -.430
  92   +5 45.42  +1.96  Western Kentucky      22.87   22.44   -.205
  93   -1 45.39  +0.94  Miami (OH)            20.11   25.28   -.422
  94   -3 44.50  -0.29  Fresno State          20.29   24.28   -.305
  95   -1 44.48  +0.42  Marshall              29.26   15.25   -.483
  96   +7 44.46  +3.61  Air Force             28.04   16.40   -.646
  97   +2 44.45  +1.33  North Carolina        17.46   27.09   -.510
  98   -2 43.53  -0.03  Texas State           29.80   13.57   -.633
  99   -4 43.27  -0.35  San José State        22.81   20.41   -.603
 100   +2 42.45  +0.99  Troy                  20.64   21.85   -.308
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 101   -3 41.32  -1.85  Boston College        22.97   18.39   -.766
 102   -1 40.77  -0.69  Liberty               18.35   22.45   -.539
 103   -3 40.62  -1.76  Oregon State          18.83   21.78   -.633
 104   +2 40.49  +1.42  Jacksonville State    20.97   19.53   -.322
 105   +4 40.27  +1.91  Missouri State        17.47   22.78   -.252
 106   -1 39.99  +0.62  Central Michigan      19.05   20.84   -.360
 107   +1 39.32  +0.59  Arkansas State        15.93   23.28   -.472
 108   +2 38.38  +0.78  Georgia Southern      24.05   14.27   -.470
 109   +5 38.21  +1.81  Louisiana             19.18   18.88   -.552
 110   +7 38.15  +2.76  Florida Atlantic      24.95   13.28   -.496
 111   -4 37.59  -1.22  Tulsa                 17.67   19.82   -.740
 112   +6 37.44  +2.41  Delaware              21.55   15.97   -.434
 113   -2 37.18  -0.41  App State             17.56   19.61   -.536
 114   +2 37.11  +0.89  Buffalo               14.53   22.58   -.435
 115   -2 37.08  +0.62  UTEP                  16.22   20.86   -.717
 116  -12 37.07  -3.31  Colorado State        16.06   20.97   -.712
 117   +6 36.94  +3.48  Florida International 18.27   18.80   -.510
 118   -3 36.53  +0.21  Coastal Carolina      16.70   19.74   -.295
 119   -7 36.51  -0.72  Bowling Green         12.39   23.87   -.651
 120   -1 35.90  +0.89  South Alabama         18.80   17.12   -.716
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  Offense Defense   SOR
 121   +3 35.37  +1.97  New Mexico State      14.75   20.60   -.653
 122   +4 35.34  +2.40  Rice                  14.09   21.27   -.480
 123   -2 35.29  +0.84  UAB                   21.63   13.51   -.608
 124   +1 33.47  +0.38  Oklahoma State        16.18   17.29   -.654
 125   +2 33.41  +2.04  Akron                 15.26   18.15   -.560
 126   -4 32.88  -1.48  Nevada                10.81   21.89   -.828
 127   -7 32.73  -1.85  Northern Illinois     8.39    24.24   -.730
 128   +1 32.00  +1.29  Ball State            13.91   18.16   -.514
 129   +1 31.91  +2.03  Eastern Michigan      19.59   12.31   -.678
 130   +1 29.18  -0.51  Kent State            16.48   12.61   -.477
 131   -3 29.05  -2.08  Middle Tennessee      13.76   15.18   -.877
 132   +1 27.32  +1.21  Charlotte             14.50   12.84   -.806
 133   +2 26.82  +4.07  Sam Houston           14.83   12.01   -.825
 134   -2 26.77  -0.14  Georgia State         16.11   10.57   -.772
 135   -1 25.85  +0.90  UL Monroe             12.53   13.27   -.575
 136      16.35  -2.20  Massachusetts         6.69    9.76    -.908

Schedule Strength

There are two different measures of schedule strength in this table. The first two columns measure the difficulty a team’s past and future schedules would pose for a team that would be 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. The columns are the team’s expected losing percentage against that schedule, meaning that higher numbers indicate a stronger schedule. This should be somewhat similar to the schedule strength from ESPN’s FPI ratings.

The last two columns are also the past and future schedules, but they’re just the average of the opponents’ predictive ratings with an adjustment for the site of the game. Schedule strength is a factor in deciding which teams belong in the college football playoff, and these two columns aren’t always representative of the schedule strength for a team near the top of the ratings. These ratings should be closer to the schedule strength in Jeff Sagarin’s ratings, which are the rating a team would need to be expected to win exactly 50% of games against that team’s schedule.

Past and Future Schedule Strength
Home advantage: 2.15 points
Mean score: 26.89 points
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
   1 Indiana               .205 (26)  .050 (76)  56.66 (29)  54.25 (62) 
   2 Ohio State            .171 (41)  .165 (44)  54.83 (40)  58.57 (44) 
   3 Oregon                .216 (22)  .315 (20)  58.11 (21)  66.05 (19) 
   4 Utah                  .160 (49)  .090 (63)  56.30 (32)  58.07 (48) 
   5 Texas Tech            .166 (46)  .035 (82)  48.61 (70)  52.33 (70) 
   6 Notre Dame            .200 (29)  .106 (59)  59.37 (16)  53.99 (64) 
   7 Alabama               .253 (9)   .193 (40)  61.72 (7)   49.62 (76) 
   8 Texas A&M             .218 (20)  .177 (43)  62.37 (5)   44.10 (100)
   9 USC                   .199 (30)  .396 (8)   58.08 (22)  68.61 (15) 
  10 Georgia               .218 (21)  .164 (45)  60.69 (11)  52.30 (71) 
  11 Miami                 .186 (37)  .124 (53)  55.33 (37)  57.77 (51) 
  12 BYU                   .231 (16)  .119 (55)  57.08 (28)  58.84 (42) 
  13 Iowa                  .244 (14)  .303 (22)  53.82 (44)  65.38 (20) 
  14 Oklahoma              .189 (36)  .375 (11)  56.47 (31)  70.19 (8)  
  15 Vanderbilt            .191 (31)  .246 (32)  54.96 (39)  65.07 (23) 
  16 Texas                 .246 (12)  .377 (10)  58.08 (23)  69.25 (11) 
  17 Ole Miss              .165 (47)  .162 (46)  53.61 (46)  62.38 (31) 
  18 Washington            .189 (34)  .264 (28)  57.14 (27)  62.57 (29) 
  19 Michigan              .202 (28)  .315 (19)  59.44 (15)  66.08 (18) 
  20 Florida State         .168 (43)  .117 (57)  53.12 (49)  57.01 (52) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  21 Tennessee             .207 (25)  .185 (41)  56.64 (30)  55.90 (56) 
  22 South Florida         .136 (55)  .007 (111) 50.44 (62)  39.94 (113)
  23 LSU                   .275 (6)   .185 (42)  62.92 (4)   57.99 (49) 
  24 Illinois              .318 (4)   .054 (73)  61.04 (9)   54.62 (59) 
  25 Penn State            .337 (2)   .101 (60)  59.52 (14)  58.38 (46) 
  26 Missouri              .208 (24)  .240 (34)  52.41 (54)  64.74 (26) 
  27 Pittsburgh            .072 (85)  .397 (7)   47.77 (78)  71.06 (6)  
  28 North Texas           .040 (110) .003 (125) 44.46 (92)  39.45 (119)
  29 Nebraska              .121 (60)  .350 (13)  51.45 (56)  69.79 (9)  
  30 Arizona               .100 (71)  .144 (48)  50.93 (59)  60.35 (35) 
  31 Auburn                .251 (10)  .268 (26)  60.34 (12)  54.76 (58) 
  32 Florida               .321 (3)   .331 (15)  63.59 (2)   69.04 (12) 
  33 Iowa State            .153 (50)  .026 (89)  57.29 (25)  45.13 (92) 
  34 Georgia Tech          .051 (100) .221 (37)  49.66 (66)  60.23 (37) 
  35 Cincinnati            .145 (54)  .232 (36)  48.45 (71)  65.21 (21) 
  36 Louisville            .115 (62)  .117 (56)  50.14 (63)  59.74 (40) 
  37 Mississippi State     .213 (23)  .320 (18)  55.44 (35)  68.81 (13) 
  38 TCU                   .074 (82)  .249 (31)  53.40 (47)  65.13 (22) 
  39 Virginia              .068 (88)  .066 (69)  49.05 (68)  53.15 (67) 
  40 Kentucky              .225 (19)  .218 (38)  61.51 (8)   58.66 (43) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  41 Arizona State         .226 (18)  .070 (68)  59.92 (13)  54.39 (60) 
  42 SMU                   .088 (76)  .065 (70)  49.56 (67)  54.25 (61) 
  43 Kansas State          .151 (51)  .267 (27)  58.74 (19)  56.19 (55) 
  44 East Carolina         .064 (93)  .035 (83)  43.68 (97)  49.62 (75) 
  45 Clemson               .103 (69)  .110 (58)  54.23 (43)  46.26 (85) 
  46 Arkansas              .257 (8)   .345 (14)  57.37 (24)  69.40 (10) 
  47 James Madison         .028 (118) .007 (110) 41.18 (118) 40.96 (110)
  48 South Carolina        .273 (7)   .243 (33)  61.74 (6)   56.99 (53) 
  49 Memphis               .038 (112) .083 (65)  42.22 (109) 53.57 (66) 
  50 Houston               .104 (68)  .092 (62)  51.01 (58)  58.20 (47) 
  51 Duke                  .080 (81)  .053 (74)  52.58 (52)  53.10 (68) 
  52 Toledo                .028 (117) .006 (114) 38.18 (132) 39.84 (117)
  53 NC State              .171 (40)  .272 (25)  55.86 (34)  61.71 (32) 
  54 Kansas                .160 (48)  .443 (4)   51.93 (55)  72.43 (4)  
  55 Northwestern          .230 (17)  .258 (29)  54.45 (42)  64.82 (25) 
  56 Boise State           .127 (58)  .037 (81)  47.92 (77)  48.27 (78) 
  57 Wake Forest           .100 (70)  .043 (79)  52.61 (51)  45.97 (87) 
  58 Baylor                .104 (67)  .327 (17)  51.13 (57)  67.37 (16) 
  59 Rutgers               .204 (27)  .558 (3)   55.00 (38)  77.32 (3)  
  60 Wisconsin             .380 (1)   .408 (5)   64.81 (1)   71.20 (5)  
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  61 Tulane                .093 (72)  .005 (118) 53.35 (48)  36.30 (125)
  62 UCF                   .066 (90)  .406 (6)   46.98 (81)  62.45 (30) 
  63 Maryland              .171 (42)  .235 (35)  52.74 (50)  63.87 (28) 
  64 San Diego State       .011 (133) .033 (85)  40.61 (120) 49.85 (74) 
  65 Minnesota             .183 (38)  .308 (21)  50.79 (60)  64.92 (24) 
  66 Purdue                .286 (5)   .647 (1)   61.01 (10)  80.03 (1)  
  67 Old Dominion          .121 (59)  .002 (128) 44.93 (89)  35.15 (129)
  68 Michigan State        .245 (13)  .256 (30)  59.16 (18)  64.70 (27) 
  69 UCLA                  .249 (11)  .601 (2)   63.25 (3)   78.47 (2)  
  70 New Mexico            .071 (86)  .015 (100) 48.18 (72)  44.52 (97) 
  71 Utah State            .133 (57)  .031 (86)  47.09 (80)  50.96 (73) 
  72 Washington State      .146 (53)  .052 (75)  54.81 (41)  49.51 (77) 
  73 Louisiana Tech        .045 (107) .016 (98)  42.38 (107) 44.84 (95) 
  74 Colorado              .190 (32)  .130 (52)  59.25 (17)  60.63 (34) 
  75 UNLV                  .019 (126) .011 (107) 44.42 (93)  43.69 (102)
  76 UTSA                  .150 (52)  .034 (84)  50.50 (61)  45.10 (93) 
  77 West Virginia         .179 (39)  .384 (9)   55.41 (36)  70.26 (7)  
  78 Army                  .067 (89)  .016 (99)  49.68 (65)  44.97 (94) 
  79 UConn                 .010 (135) .003 (124) 37.81 (133) 41.30 (107)
  80 Hawai’i               .034 (115) .020 (93)  42.35 (108) 47.96 (79) 
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
  81 Western Michigan      .073 (83)  .004 (123) 45.25 (88)  38.28 (122)
  82 Virginia Tech         .105 (66)  .328 (16)  53.80 (45)  68.77 (14) 
  83 Ohio                  .109 (65)  .009 (108) 43.85 (96)  34.75 (131)
  84 Kennesaw State        .114 (63)  .004 (122) 43.07 (104) 41.23 (109)
  85 Southern Miss         .018 (128) .002 (126) 39.22 (129) 39.91 (115)
  86 Stanford              .189 (35)  .293 (23)  58.50 (20)  60.77 (33) 
  87 Syracuse              .166 (45)  .356 (12)  56.00 (33)  60.21 (38) 
  88 Navy                  .112 (64)  .133 (50)  41.97 (111) 58.95 (41) 
  89 California            .050 (101) .057 (72)  47.33 (79)  53.88 (65) 
  90 Wyoming               .090 (75)  .013 (102) 46.33 (84)  42.83 (104)
  91 Temple                .070 (87)  .154 (47)  42.80 (105) 59.81 (39) 
  92 Western Kentucky      .018 (127) .124 (54)  37.37 (134) 46.64 (83) 
  93 Miami (OH)            .022 (121) .020 (94)  41.70 (113) 41.45 (106)
  94 Fresno State          .029 (116) .011 (105) 40.05 (123) 46.05 (86) 
  95 Marshall              .073 (84)  .001 (132) 44.17 (94)  34.82 (130)
  96 Air Force             .020 (124) .020 (95)  44.49 (91)  47.22 (81) 
  97 North Carolina        .045 (106) .087 (64)  46.59 (82)  57.79 (50) 
  98 Texas State           .034 (114) .007 (112) 43.45 (98)  35.57 (127)
  99 San José State        .064 (92)  .024 (91)  48.13 (74)  44.57 (96) 
 100 Troy                  .025 (120) .028 (88)  39.76 (127) 43.26 (103)
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
 101 Boston College        .134 (56)  .074 (66)  52.46 (53)  54.91 (57) 
 102 Liberty               .016 (129) .017 (97)  40.13 (122) 45.85 (88) 
 103 Oregon State          .167 (44)  .022 (92)  49.84 (64)  46.60 (84) 
 104 Jacksonville State    .011 (132) .005 (117) 36.26 (135) 42.51 (105)
 105 Missouri State        .081 (80)  .013 (103) 43.41 (99)  44.46 (98) 
 106 Central Michigan      .085 (78)  .019 (96)  40.02 (126) 40.51 (111)
 107 Arkansas State        .028 (119) .001 (130) 42.15 (110) 37.70 (123)
 108 Georgia Southern      .086 (77)  .014 (101) 43.97 (95)  44.20 (99) 
 109 Louisiana             .048 (103) .002 (129) 42.51 (106) 32.58 (134)
 110 Florida Atlantic      .060 (98)  .059 (71)  41.86 (112) 54.18 (63) 
 111 Tulsa                 .037 (113) .012 (104) 45.77 (86)  41.26 (108)
 112 Delaware              .010 (134) .029 (87)  40.05 (124) 39.86 (116)
 113 App State             .020 (125) .047 (78)  38.34 (131) 46.87 (82) 
 114 Buffalo               .009 (136) .006 (113) 31.99 (136) 43.76 (101)
 115 UTEP                  .060 (97)  .002 (127) 41.18 (117) 38.41 (120)
 116 Colorado State        .066 (91)  .048 (77)  48.08 (75)  51.68 (72) 
 117 Florida International .046 (105) .001 (131) 41.02 (119) 34.59 (132)
 118 Coastal Carolina      .038 (111) .071 (67)  40.47 (121) 52.80 (69) 
 119 Bowling Green         .049 (102) .000 (136) 43.28 (101) 24.88 (136)
 120 South Alabama         .062 (95)  .006 (116) 41.32 (115) 39.55 (118)
Rank Team                  SOS        Future     OppRtg      Future     
 121 New Mexico State      .014 (130) .131 (51)  39.40 (128) 45.74 (89) 
 122 Rice                  .020 (123) .273 (24)  41.55 (114) 66.75 (17) 
 123 UAB                   .059 (99)  .142 (49)  45.33 (87)  56.32 (54) 
 124 Oklahoma State        .235 (15)  .098 (61)  57.25 (26)  58.54 (45) 
 125 Akron                 .040 (109) .001 (134) 39.21 (130) 32.85 (133)
 126 Nevada                .061 (96)  .011 (106) 48.81 (69)  45.68 (90) 
 127 Northern Illinois     .048 (104) .004 (121) 44.91 (90)  30.68 (135)
 128 Ball State            .042 (108) .041 (80)  43.23 (103) 45.61 (91) 
 129 Eastern Michigan      .022 (122) .006 (115) 40.04 (125) 40.32 (112)
 130 Kent State            .190 (33)  .001 (133) 46.40 (83)  36.09 (126)
 131 Middle Tennessee      .012 (131) .005 (119) 41.23 (116) 36.59 (124)
 132 Charlotte             .083 (79)  .211 (39)  47.99 (76)  60.27 (36) 
 133 Sam Houston           .064 (94)  .001 (135) 48.15 (73)  35.19 (128)
 134 Georgia State         .117 (61)  .025 (90)  46.20 (85)  47.60 (80) 
 135 UL Monroe             .092 (74)  .004 (120) 43.25 (102) 39.93 (114)
 136 Massachusetts         .092 (73)  .008 (109) 43.30 (100) 38.38 (121)

Conference Ratings

To rate the overall quality of conferences, I calculate the expected outcome if each team in a conference were to play every FBS team at a neutral site. The Win% column is the average probability of winning for all of the possible games and for all the teams in the conference. It’s similar to the average rating of all the teams in the conference, but it should be less skewed by outliers.

However, the idea of the “best” conference is subjective, and another way to judge the quality of a conference is to consider how many of its teams are among the best in the FBS. What if instead of playing every team in the FBS, each conference opponent just plays a hypothetical opponent with a rating that’s 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean? In this case, the quality of a conference is determined by how its teams would be expected to perform against a hypothetical opponent ranked somewhere around #10 to #15 in the FBS. This is what I’ve done with the HighWin% column. It’s analogous to how I calculate strength of record, and each conference’s rating is impacted more when the conference has more highly rated teams.

Conference Ratings
Rank Win% Conference        HighWin%  Rating Offense Defense OffDef    
   1 .773 SEC               .311 (2)  67.80  33.70   34.08   -0.38 (7) 
   2 .713 Big Ten           .300 (3)  65.75  31.89   33.80   -1.91 (9) 
   3 .681 FBS Independents  .334 (1)  64.53  34.65   29.89   4.76 (1)  
   4 .637 Big 12            .192 (4)  60.34  30.38   29.90   0.48 (4)  
   5 .573 ACC               .119 (5)  56.50  28.26   28.20   0.07 (5)  
   6 .421 American Athletic .062 (6)  48.08  25.29   22.75   2.54 (2)  
   7 .390 Mountain West     .021 (7)  46.75  23.31   23.40   -0.09 (6) 
   8 .372 Pac-12            .016 (8)  45.96  18.66   27.30   -8.64 (11)
   9 .284 Sun Belt          .013 (9)  40.60  21.33   19.21   2.11 (3)  
  10 .253 Conference USA    .005 (11) 39.01  18.75   20.28   -1.53 (8) 
  11 .244 Mid-American      .010 (10) 37.59  16.79   20.75   -3.95 (10)

Playoff Ratings

Here are the four components of the playoff ratings:

1. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s strength of record for a hypothetical team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS average. (SOR; 55%)

2. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s predictive rating (Fwd; 30%)

3. The team’s winning percentage (Win%; 10%)

4. The cumulative distribution function of the team’s strength of schedule for a hypothetical team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS average. (SOS; 5%)

Unlike my predictive ratings, these are based heavily on strength of record, meaning that they give more weight to a team’s past accomplishments than what they’re expected to do in the future.

Playoff Ratings
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
   1      .9823  +.0033 Indiana               .986  .838  1.000  .994
   2   +1 .9726  +.0038 Texas A&M             .987  .873  1.000  .953
   3   -1 .9720  -.0041 Ohio State            .980  .718  1.000  .991
   4      .9584  +.0045 Alabama               .973  .939  .889   .958
   5   +1 .9563  +.0214 Oregon                .962  .867  .889   .982
   6   +1 .9398  +.0096 Georgia               .963  .871  .889   .926
   7   -2 .9391  -.0145 BYU                   .967  .901  .889   .911
   8      .9361  +.0215 Texas Tech            .947  .698  .900   .967
   9      .9138  +.0063 Ole Miss              .947  .694  .900   .894
  10      .9026  +.0015 Texas                 .926  .928  .778   .897
  11      .9018  +.0048 Notre Dame            .897  .823  .778   .965
  12   +1 .8945  +.0075 USC                   .896  .819  .778   .944
  13   +4 .8868  +.0119 Vanderbilt            .906  .792  .800   .897
  14   -2 .8806  -.0090 Miami                 .886  .775  .778   .923
  15      .8800  +.0025 Utah                  .864  .673  .778   .978
  16   -2 .8792  +.0010 Michigan              .898  .827  .778   .887
  17   +2 .8762  +.0101 Oklahoma              .888  .785  .778   .902
  18      .8682  -.0038 Illinois              .902  .990  .667   .853
  19   +2 .8460  -.0020 Iowa                  .839  .925  .667   .906
  20   +3 .8278  +.0033 South Florida         .842  .567  .778   .862
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  21   +7 .8092  +.0166 Tennessee             .800  .844  .667   .868
  22   +3 .8080  +.0052 North Texas           .856  .166  .889   .800
  23   +3 .8026  +.0024 Cincinnati            .851  .609  .778   .755
  24   +3 .8024  +.0075 Georgia Tech          .867  .204  .889   .756
  25   -9 .8011  -.0752 Washington            .778  .786  .667   .890
  26   -2 .7992  -.0252 Missouri              .801  .846  .667   .832
  27   +4 .7772  +.0102 Arizona State         .820  .890  .667   .717
  28   -8 .7727  -.0907 Louisville            .821  .470  .778   .733
  29      .7714  -.0128 LSU                   .746  .964  .556   .857
  30      .7599  -.0172 Pittsburgh            .771  .279  .778   .813
  31   +2 .7599  -.0018 James Madison         .845  .134  .889   .665
  32   +3 .7521  +.0227 Houston               .832  .415  .800   .646
  33  -11 .7459  -.0838 Virginia              .793  .263  .800   .722
  34   +2 .7390  +.0213 Nebraska              .735  .498  .700   .800
  35   +5 .6994  +.0304 Tulane                .796  .366  .778   .552
  36   -4 .6984  -.0654 Memphis               .756  .161  .800   .648
  37   +1 .6894  +.0091 Minnesota             .771  .766  .667   .534
  38   +6 .6832  +.0288 Arizona               .657  .398  .667   .784
  39   +8 .6775  +.0406 SMU                   .688  .344  .700   .706
  40  +10 .6698  +.0499 Iowa State            .636  .642  .600   .759
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  41   +1 .6598  -.0052 Northwestern          .685  .899  .556   .609
  42   -1 .6582  -.0102 Kennesaw State        .820  .465  .778   .354
  43      .6537  -.0066 Navy                  .817  .452  .778   .347
  44   +4 .6520  +.0155 Boise State           .697  .524  .667   .587
  45   -8 .6375  -.0560 TCU                   .618  .287  .667   .723
  46   +3 .6284  -.0075 Old Dominion          .689  .499  .667   .527
  47   -8 .6262  -.0455 Mississippi State     .575  .860  .500   .724
  48  -14 .6233  -.1195 San Diego State       .689  .095  .778   .539
  49   +9 .6226  +.0536 Wake Forest           .658  .401  .667   .580
  50   +2 .6182  +.0146 East Carolina         .602  .247  .667   .694
  51   +2 .6157  +.0326 Penn State            .506  .994  .333   .848
  52   -1 .6067  -.0081 NC State              .596  .720  .556   .625
  53  +10 .5991  +.0601 UNLV                  .701  .114  .778   .433
  54  +18 .5816  +.1150 Kentucky              .504  .888  .444   .719
  55      .5811  +.0031 Auburn                .475  .937  .400   .777
  56  -10 .5769  -.0682 Florida               .479  .991  .333   .768
  57   +2 .5723  +.0191 Southern Miss         .699  .109  .778   .349
  58   +4 .5693  +.0234 Ohio                  .670  .440  .667   .373
  59  -14 .5685  -.0799 Florida State         .412  .706  .444   .875
  60      .5658  +.0163 New Mexico            .614  .277  .667   .492
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  61   +3 .5654  +.0438 Rutgers               .559  .833  .500   .554
  62   +7 .5651  +.0883 Wisconsin             .574  .999  .333   .554
  63   -2 .5598  +.0132 Western Kentucky      .699  .110  .778   .307
  64   -7 .5354  -.0336 Kansas                .489  .675  .500   .609
  65   +6 .5303  +.0633 Hawai’i               .607  .150  .700   .397
  66  +11 .5159  +.0711 Utah State            .534  .552  .556   .463
  67   +7 .5145  +.0535 UConn                 .569  .093  .700   .423
  68   -2 .5144  +.0157 Baylor                .489  .419  .556   .564
  69  -15 .5113  -.0678 Duke                  .448  .309  .556   .646
  70   -3 .5023  +.0144 South Carolina        .403  .963  .333   .664
  71   -3 .4971  +.0125 Kansas State          .386  .635  .444   .696
  72   +6 .4864  +.0424 Missouri State        .628  .315  .667   .195
  73  -17 .4740  -.0998 Maryland              .416  .718  .444   .549
  74   -1 .4592  -.0068 Fresno State          .546  .136  .667   .285
  75  +17 .4522  +.0789 Toledo                .368  .135  .556   .625
  76   +4 .4418  +.0065 Troy                  .540  .127  .667   .239
  77  +18 .4415  +.0989 Clemson               .313  .412  .444   .680
  78   +1 .4321  -.0068 Michigan State        .360  .928  .333   .515
  79   +8 .4316  +.0437 Army                  .428  .259  .556   .426
  80  +10 .4316  +.0535 California            .473  .199  .600   .339
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
  81  -11 .4312  -.0380 UCLA                  .365  .933  .333   .501
  82   -1 .4276  +.0061 Western Michigan      .439  .285  .556   .389
  83   +2 .4227  +.0251 Coastal Carolina      .561  .162  .667   .132
  84   -9 .4209  -.0305 Washington State      .378  .612  .444   .460
  85  -20 .4179  -.0901 Louisiana Tech        .394  .183  .556   .455
  86  -10 .4174  -.0294 UTSA                  .385  .633  .444   .432
  87   +6 .4157  +.0444 Jacksonville State    .517  .096  .667   .199
  88   +6 .4036  +.0417 West Virginia         .360  .750  .400   .426
  89   -3 .3929  +.0007 Arkansas              .223  .945  .222   .670
  90   -1 .3802  -.0024 Central Michigan      .457  .331  .556   .189
  91   -8 .3664  -.0418 UCF                   .262  .254  .444   .551
  92   +6 .3540  +.0314 Purdue                .231  .973  .200   .528
  93  -11 .3505  -.0591 Miami (OH)            .358  .120  .556   .306
  94  -10 .3475  -.0600 Temple                .347  .271  .500   .310
  95   -7 .3356  -.0517 Colorado              .236  .790  .300   .454
  96   +1 .3174  -.0092 Wyoming               .294  .352  .444   .312
  97   -6 .3029  -.0741 Stanford              .235  .786  .300   .349
  98   -2 .2933  -.0464 Marshall              .272  .283  .444   .284
  99   +7 .2910  +.0556 Delaware              .340  .094  .556   .146
 100   +1 .2889  +.0004 Buffalo               .339  .093  .556   .140
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
 101   +3 .2828  +.0245 Syracuse              .207  .699  .300   .347
 102   +6 .2685  +.0462 Georgia Southern      .289  .336  .444   .161
 103   +7 .2683  +.0513 North Carolina        .236  .184  .444   .283
 104   -5 .2669  -.0534 Arkansas State        .286  .133  .500   .177
 105   -2 .2637  -.0028 Virginia Tech         .176  .421  .333   .375
 106   +7 .2430  +.0561 Florida Atlantic      .254  .233  .444   .157
 107   -7 .2421  -.0617 Kent State            .279  .789  .333   .052
 108   +4 .2419  +.0471 Rice                  .276  .116  .500   .115
 109   +7 .2250  +.0625 Florida International .236  .185  .444   .138
 110   -8 .2217  -.0555 Liberty               .201  .107  .444   .204
 111   -6 .2052  -.0512 App State             .205  .114  .444   .142
 112   +7 .2031  +.0503 Ball State            .231  .173  .444   .076
 113   +4 .2000  +.0403 Louisiana             .187  .193  .400   .158
 114   -7 .1978  -.0369 San José State        .137  .248  .333   .257
 115   -4 .1810  -.0318 Texas State           .112  .151  .333   .262
 116  +10 .1801  +.0549 Air Force             .101  .116  .333   .284
 117   -8 .1771  -.0399 Oregon State          .112  .705  .200   .201
 118   +6 .1735  +.0424 Akron                 .178  .167  .400   .091
 119   -5 .1515  -.0300 UAB                   .132  .228  .333   .114
 120      .1507  -.0001 UL Monroe             .163  .363  .333   .032
Rank Move Rating Change Team                  SOR   SOS   Win%   Fwd 
 121   +2 .1371  -.0009 Oklahoma State        .096  .910  .111   .092
 122   -7 .1334  -.0327 Bowling Green         .098  .197  .300   .131
 123   -1 .1262  -.0192 New Mexico State      .097  .101  .333   .115
 124   -3 .1240  -.0259 Boston College        .039  .557  .100   .215
 125   -7 .1108  -.0485 Colorado State        .062  .254  .222   .140
 126   +1 .1084  -.0156 UTEP                  .059  .234  .222   .140
 127   +2 .1041  +.0017 South Alabama         .060  .241  .222   .123
 128   +4 .1028  +.0334 Eastern Michigan      .080  .120  .300   .075
 129   -4 .1015  -.0241 Tulsa                 .049  .160  .222   .148
 130   -2 .0862  -.0230 Northern Illinois     .053  .191  .222   .084
 131   -1 .0666  -.0140 Georgia State         .037  .479  .111   .037
 132   -1 .0607  -.0107 Nevada                .022  .237  .111   .085
 133      .0543  +.0020 Charlotte             .027  .325  .111   .040
 134   +2 .0470  +.0229 Sam Houston           .023  .247  .111   .037
 135   -1 .0387  -.0103 Middle Tennessee      .014  .097  .111   .051
 136   -1 .0253  -.0046 Massachusetts         .010  .363  .000   .006

Playoff Cost/Benefit Opportunity

There are many ways to calculate schedule strength, and a difficult schedule for one team might be an easy schedule for another. The difficulty of the schedule depends on who is playing it. In this case, the FutureDiff column is the difficulty of the schedule for the team playing it. It is the team’s expected losing percentage against that schedule.

Strength of record is the biggest factor in the playoff ratings. It’s based on a team’s actual winning percentage compared to the expected winning percentage for a hypothetical FBS team with a predictive rating 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean. There are two characteristics of a team that is likely to improve their strength of record:

1. They are expected to improve their winning percentage over the remainder of the season (DiffChg; negative values are more favorable)

2. The expected winning percentage for a team 1.5 standard deviations above the FBS mean is lower over the remainder of the season (SOSChg; positive values are more favorable)

The Opportunity column is calculated by subtracting DiffChg from SOSChg, and it attempts to measure how likely a team is to improve their strength of record (positive is better). Because strength of record is the biggest component of the playoff ratings, the Opportunity column is a forward looking predictor of how a team might move up or down in the playoff ratings. I describe this as comparing the costs, the chance of losing additional games, to the benefits, the increased schedule strength.

Future Schedule Cost/Benefit Opportunity
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
   1 Indiana               .002 (136)  -.0538  -.1551  -.1012 (98) 
   2 Texas A&M             .142 (120)  -.0329  -.0412  -.0083 (54) 
   3 Ohio State            .041 (131)  .0039   -.0054  -.0093 (55) 
   4 Alabama               .138 (123)  -.0480  -.0598  -.0117 (57) 
   5 Oregon                .138 (124)  .0218   .0984   .0766 (25)  
   6 Georgia               .178 (118)  -.0560  -.0536  .0024 (49)  
   7 BYU                   .155 (119)  -.1110  -.1123  -.0013 (52) 
   8 Texas Tech            .013 (135)  -.0991  -.1309  -.0319 (71) 
   9 Ole Miss              .244 (110)  .0222   -.0031  -.0253 (66) 
  10 Texas                 .467 (70)   .1620   .1317   -.0303 (68) 
  11 Notre Dame            .062 (130)  -.0721  -.0941  -.0220 (63) 
  12 USC                   .372 (89)   .1921   .1970   .0048 (48)  
  13 Vanderbilt            .331 (94)   .0833   .0557   -.0276 (67) 
  14 Miami                 .140 (121)  -.0639  -.0615  .0024 (50)  
  15 Utah                  .026 (132)  -.0545  -.0701  -.0156 (60) 
  16 Michigan              .382 (86)   .1072   .1135   .0062 (47)  
  17 Oklahoma              .455 (72)   .2103   .1861   -.0241 (65) 
  18 Illinois              .140 (122)  -.2811  -.2647  .0164 (42)  
  19 Iowa                  .361 (92)   .0789   .0595   -.0194 (61) 
  20 South Florida         .021 (133)  -.2002  -.1291  .0710 (28)  
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
  21 Tennessee             .297 (103)  -.0106  -.0221  -.0116 (56) 
  22 North Texas           .021 (134)  -.0963  -.0369  .0594 (30)  
  23 Cincinnati            .576 (55)   .2671   .0871   -.1800 (124)
  24 Georgia Tech          .465 (71)   .2520   .1697   -.0822 (93) 
  25 Washington            .323 (96)   .0776   .0749   -.0027 (53) 
  26 Missouri              .438 (76)   .0972   .0313   -.0658 (88) 
  27 Arizona State         .311 (102)  -.1687  -.1560  .0127 (44)  
  28 Louisville            .435 (79)   .1440   .0019   -.1421 (110)
  29 LSU                   .291 (105)  -.1166  -.0898  .0268 (38)  
  30 Pittsburgh            .659 (43)   .4884   .3251   -.1633 (118)
  31 James Madison         .095 (128)  -.0595  -.0207  .0387 (34)  
  32 Houston               .500 (62)   .1672   -.0118  -.1790 (123)
  33 Virginia              .286 (106)  .0353   -.0016  -.0369 (76) 
  34 Nebraska              .654 (45)   .3724   .2281   -.1442 (111)
  35 Tulane                .119 (126)  -.3457  -.0877  .2580 (3)   
  36 Memphis               .382 (87)   .1966   .0450   -.1517 (113)
  37 Minnesota             .680 (39)   .1912   .1246   -.0666 (89) 
  38 Arizona               .390 (85)   .1252   .0443   -.0809 (92) 
  39 SMU                   .318 (99)   .0221   -.0229  -.0449 (77) 
  40 Iowa State            .130 (125)  -.2713  -.1263  .1450 (10)  
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
  41 Northwestern          .713 (32)   .1861   .0279   -.1583 (117)
  42 Kennesaw State        .312 (101)  -.0468  -.1107  -.0639 (87) 
  43 Navy                  .801 (21)   .4085   .0218   -.3867 (136)
  44 Boise State           .326 (95)   .0040   -.0896  -.0936 (97) 
  45 TCU                   .601 (52)   .2959   .1754   -.1205 (103)
  46 Old Dominion          .095 (129)  -.1988  -.1197  .0791 (24)  
  47 Mississippi State     .728 (30)   .2439   .1071   -.1368 (109)
  48 San Diego State       .381 (88)   .1893   .0226   -.1667 (120)
  49 Wake Forest           .278 (108)  -.1726  -.0579  .1147 (15)  
  50 East Carolina         .230 (113)  .0026   -.0292  -.0318 (70) 
  51 Penn State            .230 (112)  -.1881  -.2362  -.0481 (78) 
  52 NC State              .610 (50)   .0831   .1007   .0177 (41)  
  53 UNLV                  .320 (98)   -.0342  -.0088  .0254 (40)  
  54 Kentucky              .487 (64)   -.0687  -.0071  .0616 (29)  
  55 Auburn                .420 (80)   -.0600  .0166   .0766 (26)  
  56 Florida               .673 (40)   .0738   .0101   -.0636 (86) 
  57 Southern Miss         .279 (107)  -.0412  -.0151  .0261 (39)  
  58 Ohio                  .276 (109)  -.0680  -.0995  -.0315 (69) 
  59 Florida State         .204 (116)  -.0508  -.0506  .0002 (51)  
  60 New Mexico            .292 (104)  -.1057  -.0566  .0491 (31)  
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
  61 Rutgers               .905 (10)   .3430   .3540   .0110 (45)  
  62 Wisconsin             .788 (23)   .0919   .0286   -.0633 (85) 
  63 Western Kentucky      .485 (66)   .1671   .1064   -.0607 (84) 
  64 Kansas                .861 (13)   .3978   .2831   -.1147 (101)
  65 Hawai’i               .470 (69)   .0951   -.0133  -.1083 (99) 
  66 Utah State            .487 (65)   .0856   -.1022  -.1878 (125)
  67 UConn                 .240 (111)  .0153   -.0062  -.0215 (62) 
  68 Baylor                .777 (26)   .2577   .2230   -.0348 (74) 
  69 Duke                  .352 (93)   -.0429  -.0266  .0163 (43)  
  70 South Carolina        .475 (68)   -.1585  -.0297  .1288 (12)  
  71 Kansas State          .392 (84)   -.0618  .1159   .1777 (5)   
  72 Missouri State        .622 (48)   .0876   -.0678  -.1554 (115)
  73 Maryland              .742 (29)   .2560   .0640   -.1920 (127)
  74 Fresno State          .549 (58)   .0670   -.0176  -.0846 (94) 
  75 Toledo                .110 (127)  -.0660  -.0225  .0435 (32)  
  76 Troy                  .549 (57)   .1232   .0025   -.1207 (104)
  77 Clemson               .396 (83)   .0217   .0068   -.0149 (58) 
  78 Michigan State        .779 (25)   .1987   .0102   -.1885 (126)
  79 Army                  .366 (90)   -.1466  -.0508  .0958 (20)  
  80 California            .707 (35)   .1342   .0070   -.1272 (107)
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
  81 UCLA                  .959 (5)    .2590   .3518   .0928 (22)  
  82 Western Michigan      .219 (115)  -.2294  -.0699  .1595 (8)   
  83 Coastal Carolina      .852 (16)   .2859   .0326   -.2533 (131)
  84 Washington State      .453 (73)   -.1284  -.0939  .0345 (37)  
  85 Louisiana Tech        .322 (97)   .0449   -.0290  -.0739 (91) 
  86 UTSA                  .400 (81)   -.0840  -.1163  -.0323 (72) 
  87 Jacksonville State    .565 (56)   .1461   -.0060  -.1521 (114)
  88 West Virginia         .923 (9)    .2383   .2049   -.0335 (73) 
  89 Arkansas              .790 (22)   .2100   .0877   -.1223 (105)
  90 Central Michigan      .491 (63)   -.0093  -.0654  -.0561 (81) 
  91 UCF                   .654 (44)   .2418   .3398   .0980 (18)  
  92 Purdue                .968 (4)    .3193   .3615   .0422 (33)  
  93 Miami (OH)            .400 (82)   -.0387  -.0024  .0362 (36)  
  94 Temple                .838 (20)   .3426   .0841   -.2585 (132)
  95 Colorado              .781 (24)   .0962   -.0598  -.1560 (116)
  96 Wyoming               .439 (75)   -.0528  -.0764  -.0237 (64) 
  97 Stanford              .705 (37)   -.0276  .1044   .1319 (11)  
  98 Marshall              .229 (114)  -.2292  -.0721  .1571 (9)   
  99 Delaware              .521 (61)   -.0719  .0189   .0908 (23)  
 100 Buffalo               .705 (36)   .2747   -.0032  -.2779 (133)
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
 101 Syracuse              .629 (47)   -.0943  .1897   .2840 (2)   
 102 Georgia Southern      .661 (42)   .0757   -.0717  -.1474 (112)
 103 North Carolina        .861 (14)   .2614   .0417   -.2196 (129)
 104 Arkansas State        .448 (74)   -.1224  -.0262  .0962 (19)  
 105 Virginia Tech         .946 (6)    .2772   .2229   -.0543 (80) 
 106 Florida Atlantic      .890 (11)   .2852   -.0013  -.2866 (135)
 107 Kent State            .713 (33)   .0233   -.1890  -.2123 (128)
 108 Rice                  .993 (1)    .3409   .2528   -.0882 (96) 
 109 Florida International .435 (78)   -.1617  -.0447  .1169 (13)  
 110 Liberty               .644 (46)   .1661   .0006   -.1654 (119)
 111 App State             .713 (34)   .1951   .0277   -.1675 (121)
 112 Ball State            .771 (27)   .0564   -.0005  -.0569 (82) 
 113 Louisiana             .361 (91)   -.2235  -.0466  .1769 (6)   
 114 San José State        .526 (60)   -.0778  -.0396  .0382 (35)  
 115 Texas State           .315 (100)  -.1915  -.0274  .1641 (7)   
 116 Air Force             .584 (54)   .0143   -.0006  -.0149 (59) 
 117 Oregon State          .662 (41)   .0317   -.1451  -.1767 (122)
 118 Akron                 .483 (67)   -.1341  -.0389  .0952 (21)  
 119 UAB                   .875 (12)   .1704   .0829   -.0875 (95) 
 120 UL Monroe             .857 (15)   .0374   -.0880  -.1254 (106)
Rank Team                  FutureDiff  DiffChg SOSChg  Opportunity 
 121 Oklahoma State        .979 (3)    .1409   -.1376  -.2784 (134)
 122 Bowling Green         .202 (117)  -.4194  -.0493  .3701 (1)   
 123 New Mexico State      .622 (49)   .0057   .1172   .1116 (16)  
 124 Boston College        .842 (19)   .0712   -.0603  -.1316 (108)
 125 Colorado State        .849 (17)   .0963   -.0171  -.1133 (100)
 126 UTEP                  .542 (59)   -.0218  -.0580  -.0363 (75) 
 127 South Alabama         .606 (51)   .0007   -.0565  -.0572 (83) 
 128 Eastern Michigan      .728 (31)   .0359   -.0163  -.0521 (79) 
 129 Tulsa                 .590 (53)   -.0969  -.0255  .0715 (27)  
 130 Northern Illinois     .438 (77)   -.3014  -.0440  .2574 (4)   
 131 Georgia State         .939 (7)    .1364   -.0923  -.2287 (130)
 132 Nevada                .844 (18)   .0190   -.0501  -.0691 (90) 
 133 Charlotte             .983 (2)    .1200   .1278   .0079 (46)  
 134 Sam Houston           .748 (28)   -.1710  -.0629  .1080 (17)  
 135 Middle Tennessee      .684 (38)   -.1224  -.0068  .1156 (14)  
 136 Massachusetts         .935 (8)    .0330   -.0841  -.1171 (102)

“Major Playoff Implications”

Of the games that appeared to have significant playoff implications, many of them went roughly as expected on Saturday. Let’s talk about a few of them that didn’t, though, and if they should meaningfully affect the playoff scenarios.

Indiana-Penn State

Had Indiana not escaped with a win at Penn State (#25 Predictive), this game would have shifted the playoff ratings a bit. As it is, Indiana (#1 Predictive; #1 Playoff) came away with a win thanks to a great touchdown catch in the back of the end zone, and Indiana is still undefeated. Penn State is ranked in the vicinity of #20 to #25 in many computer ratings, so it probably shouldn’t be too surprising that the game was competitive. Therefore, this result really shouldn’t shift the playoff rankings, and it hasn’t dropped Indiana in my playoff ratings. The standard deviation in predicting margin of victory is quite large, so eventually even the best teams are going to play some games that are too close for comfort. But Indiana found a way to win, and I have a hard time dropping them out of the top spot in my playoff ratings.

BYU-Texas Tech

Based on the predictive ratings, Texas Tech (#5 Predictive) was considerably more dominant than expected, winning by three touchdowns when the expected margin was closer to one touchdown. As a result, Texas Tech should get a bit of a boost in the predictive ratings, and BYU’s rating (#12 Predictive) should be lower this week. Still, it should not and has not made a big shift in the predictive ratings. From a playoff standpoint, both BYU and Texas Tech are one loss teams, and this result hasn’t dropped BYU’s strength of record very much. The bottom line is that both BYU and Texas Tech still look like playoff teams. If anything, there would have been a bigger shift if BYU had won this game due to Texas Tech then being a two loss team. That could have opened the door to an SEC team with two losses like Texas (#16 Predictive; #10 Playoff) or Vanderbilt (#15 Predictive; #13 Playoff) to climb into a playoff spot. But as it stands, the Big 12 still seems on track to get two teams in the playoff. And Utah (#15 Playoff) isn’t far behind.

Oregon-Iowa

This was a close game, but Iowa (#13 Predictive) had a strong predictive rating, and we should have expected this to be a very competitive game. Iowa (#19 Playoff) is ranked around #15 to #20 in many computer ratings, so it’s not surprising that they were able to be very competitive against Oregon (#3 Predictive; #5 Playoff). If Oregon had picked up a second loss, that would have made them more of a bubble team for reaching the playoff. Oregon actually moves up a spot this week in my playoff ratings due to BYU’s loss at Texas Tech. Again, this result shouldn’t really shift the playoff ratings. Like I said about the Indiana-Penn State game, there’s a big standard deviation in predicting the margin of victory in games, and sometimes it’s most important to just win somehow.

Wake Forest-Virginia

Virginia (#39 Predictive; #33 Playoff) will definitely be a favorite in their final game of the season against Virginia Tech (#82 Predictive), but their game next week at Duke (#51 Predictive) is a toss-up. It’s very possible that Virginia will pick up another loss in their final two games, and they were certainly favored at home against Wake Forest (#57 Predictive). Virginia can still reach the playoff by winning the ACC, but this loss certainly makes it much more difficult to get in as an at-large team. They’re no longer the favorite, and the ACC is a lot more complicated after week 11’s games.

California-Louisville

Although this is a worse loss, the analysis is much the same as for Wake Forest-Virginia. Louisville (#36 Predictive; 28 Playoff) should be slight favorites against Clemson (#45 Predictive), but their games against SMU (#42 Predictive) and Kentucky (#40 Predictive) look like toss-ups at this point. The Cardinals couldn’t afford a loss against California (#89 Predictive) if they were going to have any margin of error going forward. There’s a good chance that Louisville will pick up a third loss, possibly in conference play, and perhaps even a fourth loss. Although the Cardinals aren’t eliminated from winning the ACC, they’re a long shot at this point. Although Louisville has just two losses right now, it’s hard to envision them reaching the playoff.

ACC Playoff Scenarios

There’s an interesting scenario that could potentially happen regarding which conferences get the five automatic bids to the college football playoff. The top five ranked conference champions receive playoff bids, but none of them are tied to specific conferences. ESPN’s FPI gives Duke (#69 Playoff) a 20.1% chance of winning the ACC. They’re 4-1 in the conference, but they’re a 5-4 team overall. Their game against Virginia (#33 Playoff) is a toss-up, they should be clear favorites at North Carolina (#97 Predictive), and they should be slight favorites at home against Wake Forest. It’s not an easy path to winning the ACC, but there’s a realistic scenario for Duke to make this happen. North Texas (#28 Predictive; #22 Playoff) and South Florida (#22 Predictive; #20 Playoff) look like they have the best chances of winning the American, and one of them could very well get a playoff bid. There’s also a good chance that James Madison (#47 Predictive; #31 Playoff) wins the Sun Belt, and they’re not ranked that far behind South Florida and North Texas in my playoff ratings. Both are ranked well ahead of Duke in my playoff rankings. If the American and Sun Belt champions were to be ranked ahead of the ACC champion in the final ratings, the Group of 5 would then be in line for two playoff bids, barring some extremely unlikely chaos in the final weeks of the season.

This isn’t an particularly likely scenario, but it also can’t be dismissed as a fringe possibility. It’s hard to envision Duke getting a playoff bid with four losses, but they can definitely win the ACC. If two of the playoff champions came from outside the ACC, that still wouldn’t automatically prevent an ACC team from reaching the playoff, either. One possibility is that Georgia Tech (#34 Predictive; #24 Playoff) wins their remaining regular season games but loses to Duke in the ACC championship game. In that scenario, Duke might get passed over for a playoff bid while Georgia Tech could be selected as an at-large team.

A second possibility is for Miami (#11 Predictive; #14 Playoff) to climb back into an at-large spot. They’re likely to rise to #16 in this week’s college football playoff rankings. It wouldn’t be surprising for Texas (#16 Predictive; #10 Playoff) and Oklahoma (#14 Predictive; #17 Playoff) to each pick up another loss, potentially moving Miami ahead of them. Vanderbilt (#15 Predictive; #13 Playoff) should be favored against Kentucky (#40 Predictive), but their game at Tennessee (#21 Predictive) looks like a toss-up, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see them finish at 9-3. Miami probably also needs Utah (#4 Predictive; #15 Playoff) to pick up an additional loss, which seems most likely to occur if they reach Big 12 championship game. Miami would certainly benefit from a bit of chaos in the Big 12 involving the three top teams in the conference each picking up more losses. Although Oregon (#3 Predictive; #5 Playoff) should be the favorite in their three remaining games, it’s plausible they could lose against USC (#9 Predictive) or Washington (#18 Predictive). Alternatively, a Notre Dame (#6 Predictive; #11 Playoff) loss at Pittsburgh (#27 Predictive) would also help to open the door for Miami.

Miami needs to win out and also get some help in front of them. All of these seem at least possible, and some of this help even seems likely. The problem is that Miami probably needs to win out and for all of these things to happen, which is for Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt, Texas, Oklahoma, Utah, and perhaps Oregon or Notre Dame to all lose at least one more game. To be clear, that means Miami must take care of business and also have at least six teams lose ahead of them, meaning that there appears to be at least seven different things that must occur. If these are independent events and each has even an 85% chance of happening, the probably of all seven occurring is just 32.1%. If each event has only an 80% chance of occurring, the probability of all seven independently happening falls to 21%. Just using rough estimates for the numbers, it seems likely that Miami will get some of the help they need, just not all of it. And the 80% and 85% numbers seem generous for at least some of the events that must occur.

All of that said, there is a scenario where two automatic bids go to Group of 5 teams but the ACC still gets a team in the playoff. Georgia Tech seems better positioned to be that playoff team if they win their remaining regular season games, including what would be a big win over Georgia (#10 Predictive) that would improve their strength of record considerably. Miami has a path, too, but it’s less likely. Yes, I’m getting closer to fringe scenarios here, but they’re fun to speculate about.

Playoff Picks

These are my subjective playoff picks, informed by my playoff ratings and the various components. I’m presenting this like an S-Curve in college basketball, where these are the ordering of which teams I believe are most deserving.

Playoff S-Curve
#1 Indiana (Automatic bid #1; #1 Seed)
#2 Ohio State (#2 Seed)
#3 Texas A&M (Automatic bid #2; #3 Seed)
#4 Alabama (#4 Seed)
#5 Oregon (#5 Seed)
#6 Georgia (#6 Seed)
#7 Texas Tech (Automatic bid #3; #7 Seed)
#8 Ole Miss (#8 Seed)
#9 BYU (#9 Seed)
#10 Notre Dame (#10 Seed)
----------------------------------------
#11 Texas
#12 Vanderbilt
#13 Miami
#14 Utah
#15 Oklahoma
#16 South Florida (Automatic bid #4; #11 Seed)
#17 Georgia Tech (Automatic bid #5; #12 Seed)
#18 Michigan
#19 USC
#20 North Texas
#21 Cincinnati
#22 James Madison
#23 Louisville
#24 Houston
#25 Illinois

Iowa (#19 Playoff) would be the next team on my list if I extended it beyond 25 teams. In several of the cases, I deferred to strength of record instead of the overall playoff rating. However, I didn’t follow that for BYU’s (#7 Playoff) ranking because it’s hard to justify putting them ahead of Texas Tech (#8 Playoff) after the head to head result. I also put Notre Dame (#11 Playoff) in ahead of Texas (#10 Playoff) because Notre Dame’s two losses were by extremely close margins, and that is better reflected by the forward looking ratings that directly use margin of victory. I suspect the committee’s biggest decision this week will be whether BYU belongs in the playoff or to give the final at-large bid to Texas. At least with my ratings, BYU has an edge both in the predictive rating and strength of record. ESPN FPI’s strength of record ranks BYU at #8 and Texas at #10. Bill Connelly’s backward looking version of SP+ ranks BYU at #11 and Texas at #19. The bottom line is that there’s a very strong case for putting BYU ahead of Texas.

The biggest complaint I have with the selection committee’s rankings from last week is the absence of Group of 5 teams. There are plenty of strong candidates, and Memphis (#37 strength of record) was probably deserving prior to getting a second loss. San Diego State (#44 strength of record) also merited consideration. But there’s also South Florida (#23 strength of record), North Texas (#20 strength of record), James Madison (#22 strength of record), and Tulane (#32 strength of record) that have strong cases to be in the top 25. Perhaps even Kennesaw State (#28 strength of record) and Navy (#29 strength of record) belong in the discussion for Group of 5 teams not far outside the top 25. Overall, the committee’s rankings seemed mostly reasonable minus the omission of any Group of 5 teams when there were several deserving candidates. Even among computer ratings, there’s considerable spread in backward looking ratings, so I’m generally inclined to give the committee some latitude if teams are 2-3 spots higher or lower than where I believe they should be ranked. But it’s hard to explain why the Group of 5 was completely shut out.

Week 12 Game Predictions

Upcoming games are ranked based on the projected quality. This factors in the overall strength of the two teams and the potential for a competitive game. Game quality ratings are not directly comparable between college football and the NFL. NFL games are typically decided by smaller margins than college games, the teams are more balanced in their quality, and there’s just not as much scoring in the NFL. Thresholds for close games and blowouts are also different between college and the NFL for the same reasons.

Beside each team, there are two numbers in parentheses. One is the predicted margin of victory (positive) or defeat (negative), the other is the probability of winning. These margins are sometimes larger than what’s indicated by the predicted score. That’s because there’s nothing in the math that prevents a prediction of negative points with a sufficiently lopsided matchup. This is, of course, impossible, so the score is set to zero in those instances. There’s no cap on how many points a team can be projected to score, though.

#1: Texas (-4.80, 34.72%) at Georgia (4.80, 65.28%)
Estimated score: 19.53 - 24.34, Total: 43.87
Quality: 96.85%, Team quality: 97.20%, Competitiveness: 96.16%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.18%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 40.43%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 26.95%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 45.27%

#2: Arizona (-0.72, 47.65%) at Cincinnati (0.72, 52.35%)
Estimated score: 27.06 - 27.96, Total: 55.03
Quality: 96.84%, Team quality: 95.34%, Competitiveness: 99.91%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.42%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 43.26%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.64%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.76%

#3: Iowa (-6.02, 31.10%) at USC (6.02, 68.90%)
Estimated score: 22.47 - 28.35, Total: 50.82
Quality: 96.27%, Team quality: 97.42%, Competitiveness: 94.00%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.65%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.86%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 32.84%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.63%

#4: Virginia (0.99, 53.22%) at Duke (-0.99, 46.78%)
Estimated score: 35.13 - 34.18, Total: 69.31
Quality: 96.11%, Team quality: 94.30%, Competitiveness: 99.84%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.44%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 43.20%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 50.30%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 22.94%

#5: Clemson (-4.37, 36.03%) at Louisville (4.37, 63.97%)
Estimated score: 25.42 - 29.70, Total: 55.12
Quality: 95.30%, Team quality: 94.55%, Competitiveness: 96.81%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.04%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 40.92%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.72%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.68%

#6: Memphis (-3.97, 37.25%) at East Carolina (3.97, 62.75%)
Estimated score: 24.05 - 28.40, Total: 52.45
Quality: 95.18%, Team quality: 94.11%, Competitiveness: 97.36%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.93%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.32%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 34.29%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 37.12%

#7: Boise State (-0.39, 48.71%) at San Diego State (0.39, 51.29%)
Estimated score: 23.63 - 24.01, Total: 47.64
Quality: 95.09%, Team quality: 92.74%, Competitiveness: 99.97%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.41%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 43.31%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 30.08%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 41.64%

#8: Oklahoma (-8.36, 24.69%) at Alabama (8.36, 75.31%)
Estimated score: 15.15 - 23.69, Total: 38.83
Quality: 94.48%, Team quality: 97.52%, Competitiveness: 88.68%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.91%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 35.13%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 23.05%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 50.16%

#9: Utah State (-1.05, 46.58%) at UNLV (1.05, 53.42%)
Estimated score: 38.56 - 39.68, Total: 78.23
Quality: 93.90%, Team quality: 91.07%, Competitiveness: 99.81%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.44%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 43.18%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 58.93%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 16.88%

#10: Mississippi State (-7.50, 26.97%) at Missouri (7.50, 73.03%)
Estimated score: 25.50 - 33.22, Total: 58.72
Quality: 93.85%, Team quality: 95.41%, Competitiveness: 90.81%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.39%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 36.60%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 40.08%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 31.49%

#11: Louisiana Tech (-2.34, 42.42%) at Washington State (2.34, 57.58%)
Estimated score: 15.40 - 17.60, Total: 33.00
Quality: 93.77%, Team quality: 91.22%, Competitiveness: 99.08%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.59%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.62%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 18.95%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 55.82%

#12: Ohio (-2.74, 41.13%) at Western Michigan (2.74, 58.87%)
Estimated score: 20.05 - 22.56, Total: 42.61
Quality: 92.79%, Team quality: 89.95%, Competitiveness: 98.74%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.65%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.36%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 25.95%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 46.49%

#13: Florida (-9.66, 21.46%) at Ole Miss (9.66, 78.54%)
Estimated score: 22.23 - 31.65, Total: 53.88
Quality: 92.28%, Team quality: 96.09%, Competitiveness: 85.12%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 4.86%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 32.75%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 35.59%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.80%

#14: Wyoming (-1.02, 46.66%) at Fresno State (1.02, 53.34%)
Estimated score: 17.00 - 18.17, Total: 35.17
Quality: 92.02%, Team quality: 88.35%, Competitiveness: 99.82%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.44%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 43.19%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 20.42%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 53.73%

#15: Notre Dame (11.30, 82.24%) at Pittsburgh (-11.30, 17.76%)
Estimated score: 36.55 - 25.10, Total: 61.65
Quality: 91.05%, Team quality: 97.08%, Competitiveness: 80.08%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 6.33%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 29.54%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 42.87%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 28.99%

#16: Kennesaw State (4.69, 64.94%) at Jacksonville State (-4.69, 35.06%)
Estimated score: 29.80 - 25.10, Total: 54.91
Quality: 90.48%, Team quality: 87.68%, Competitiveness: 96.33%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.14%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 40.56%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.52%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.87%

#17: Texas State (-5.75, 31.91%) at Southern Miss (5.75, 68.09%)
Estimated score: 33.54 - 39.44, Total: 72.98
Quality: 90.40%, Team quality: 88.40%, Competitiveness: 94.53%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.53%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 39.24%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 53.87%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 20.32%

#18: Arkansas (-11.24, 17.88%) at LSU (11.24, 82.12%)
Estimated score: 22.05 - 33.24, Total: 55.29
Quality: 89.94%, Team quality: 95.21%, Competitiveness: 80.27%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 6.27%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 29.65%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.88%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 34.53%

#19: Air Force (-7.64, 26.59%) at UConn (7.64, 73.41%)
Estimated score: 33.07 - 40.75, Total: 73.83
Quality: 89.68%, Team quality: 89.29%, Competitiveness: 90.48%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.47%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 36.37%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 54.69%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 19.73%

#20: Oregon State (0.88, 52.86%) at Tulsa (-0.88, 47.14%)
Estimated score: 24.82 - 23.86, Total: 48.68
Quality: 89.67%, Team quality: 84.96%, Competitiveness: 99.87%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.43%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 43.23%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 30.98%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 40.65%

#21: Liberty (1.68, 55.48%) at Florida International (-1.68, 44.52%)
Estimated score: 25.36 - 23.79, Total: 49.15
Quality: 89.45%, Team quality: 84.80%, Competitiveness: 99.52%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.50%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.96%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 31.38%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 40.20%

#22: Toledo (9.84, 78.97%) at Miami (OH) (-9.84, 21.03%)
Estimated score: 29.73 - 20.07, Total: 49.80
Quality: 88.87%, Team quality: 91.10%, Competitiveness: 84.59%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.00%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 32.40%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 31.94%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 39.59%

#23: Buffalo (-5.02, 34.05%) at Central Michigan (5.02, 65.95%)
Estimated score: 19.51 - 24.44, Total: 43.95
Quality: 88.14%, Team quality: 84.55%, Competitiveness: 95.80%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.26%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 40.17%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 27.02%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 45.18%

#24: Coastal Carolina (-3.99, 37.19%) at Georgia Southern (3.99, 62.81%)
Estimated score: 28.25 - 32.27, Total: 60.53
Quality: 88.14%, Team quality: 83.88%, Competitiveness: 97.33%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.94%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 41.30%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 41.80%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 29.94%

#25: Penn State (12.25, 84.19%) at Michigan State (-12.25, 15.81%)
Estimated score: 36.97 - 24.83, Total: 61.80
Quality: 88.10%, Team quality: 94.28%, Competitiveness: 76.93%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 7.34%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 27.62%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 43.01%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 28.87%

#26: UTEP (-5.35, 33.08%) at Missouri State (5.35, 66.92%)
Estimated score: 19.26 - 24.58, Total: 43.83
Quality: 88.02%, Team quality: 84.62%, Competitiveness: 95.25%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.37%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 39.77%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 26.93%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 45.30%

#27: TCU (-13.11, 14.16%) at BYU (13.11, 85.84%)
Estimated score: 22.07 - 35.46, Total: 57.54
Quality: 87.94%, Team quality: 95.91%, Competitiveness: 73.92%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 8.37%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 25.85%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 38.97%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 32.52%

#28: Michigan (13.57, 86.67%) vs. Northwestern (-13.57, 13.33%)
Estimated score: 23.07 - 9.31, Total: 32.38
Quality: 86.79%, Team quality: 95.09%, Competitiveness: 72.29%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 8.96%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 24.92%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 18.54%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 56.43%

#29: Eastern Michigan (-2.23, 42.76%) at Ball State (2.23, 57.24%)
Estimated score: 27.24 - 29.57, Total: 56.81
Quality: 86.01%, Team quality: 80.10%, Competitiveness: 99.16%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 1.57%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 42.69%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 38.29%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 33.17%

#30: West Virginia (-13.17, 14.06%) at Arizona State (13.17, 85.94%)
Estimated score: 14.82 - 28.23, Total: 43.04
Quality: 85.82%, Team quality: 92.59%, Competitiveness: 73.73%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 8.44%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 25.74%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 26.29%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 46.06%

#31: San José State (8.25, 75.02%) at Nevada (-8.25, 24.98%)
Estimated score: 26.74 - 18.37, Total: 45.11
Quality: 85.72%, Team quality: 84.13%, Competitiveness: 88.97%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.84%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 35.33%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 27.97%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 44.06%

#32: North Carolina (-13.38, 13.67%) at Wake Forest (13.38, 86.33%)
Estimated score: 7.83 - 21.08, Total: 28.91
Quality: 84.14%, Team quality: 90.35%, Competitiveness: 72.97%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 8.71%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 25.30%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 16.36%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 59.74%

#33: Kent State (-6.38, 30.08%) at Akron (6.38, 69.92%)
Estimated score: 24.15 - 30.61, Total: 54.76
Quality: 83.86%, Team quality: 79.51%, Competitiveness: 93.29%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 2.81%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 38.35%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.39%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.01%

#34: Troy (-13.43, 13.58%) at Old Dominion (13.43, 86.42%)
Estimated score: 20.24 - 33.63, Total: 53.87
Quality: 83.50%, Team quality: 89.43%, Competitiveness: 72.80%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 8.78%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 25.21%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 35.58%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.81%

#35: Maryland (-15.61, 10.08%) at Illinois (15.61, 89.92%)
Estimated score: 19.15 - 34.79, Total: 53.94
Quality: 83.24%, Team quality: 94.35%, Competitiveness: 64.80%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 11.95%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 20.85%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 35.64%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.75%

#36: South Alabama (7.90, 74.11%) at UL Monroe (-7.90, 25.89%)
Estimated score: 31.35 - 23.37, Total: 54.72
Quality: 82.55%, Team quality: 79.12%, Competitiveness: 89.84%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 3.62%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 35.93%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 36.35%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.04%

#37: Delaware (10.63, 80.77%) vs. Sam Houston (-10.63, 19.23%)
Estimated score: 36.43 - 25.75, Total: 62.17
Quality: 80.68%, Team quality: 79.92%, Competitiveness: 82.21%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 5.69%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 30.88%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 43.37%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 28.56%

#38: NC State (-18.21, 6.81%) at Miami (18.21, 93.19%)
Estimated score: 18.00 - 36.26, Total: 54.25
Quality: 79.31%, Team quality: 95.35%, Competitiveness: 54.87%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 16.73%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 15.99%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 35.93%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.46%

#39: Purdue (-18.94, 6.06%) at Washington (18.94, 93.94%)
Estimated score: 17.67 - 36.56, Total: 54.23
Quality: 77.45%, Team quality: 94.43%, Competitiveness: 52.09%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 18.26%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 14.74%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 35.90%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 35.49%

#40: Colorado State (-17.56, 7.54%) at New Mexico (17.56, 92.46%)
Estimated score: 16.34 - 33.96, Total: 50.30
Quality: 75.99%, Team quality: 87.45%, Competitiveness: 57.37%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 15.43%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 17.16%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 32.38%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 39.12%

#41: Marshall (15.57, 89.87%) at Georgia State (-15.57, 10.13%)
Estimated score: 44.51 - 28.83, Total: 73.34
Quality: 75.89%, Team quality: 82.03%, Competitiveness: 64.95%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 11.89%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 20.92%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 54.22%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 20.07%

#42: South Florida (19.35, 94.34%) at Navy (-19.35, 5.66%)
Estimated score: 40.48 - 20.98, Total: 61.46
Quality: 75.88%, Team quality: 93.01%, Competitiveness: 50.51%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 19.18%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 14.05%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 42.69%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 29.16%

#43: South Carolina (-20.27, 4.86%) at Texas A&M (20.27, 95.14%)
Estimated score: 14.01 - 34.36, Total: 48.38
Quality: 75.63%, Team quality: 95.86%, Competitiveness: 47.08%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 21.29%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 12.60%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 30.71%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 40.94%

#44: Georgia Tech (19.33, 94.31%) at Boston College (-19.33, 5.69%)
Estimated score: 41.13 - 21.89, Total: 63.01
Quality: 74.73%, Team quality: 90.80%, Competitiveness: 50.61%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 19.12%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 14.10%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 44.18%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 27.86%

#45: Florida Atlantic (-18.65, 6.34%) at Tulane (18.65, 93.66%)
Estimated score: 23.79 - 42.08, Total: 65.86
Quality: 74.51%, Team quality: 88.21%, Competitiveness: 53.17%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 17.66%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 15.22%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 46.95%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 25.57%

#46: Northern Illinois (14.23, 87.78%) at Massachusetts (-14.23, 12.22%)
Estimated score: 24.44 - 10.41, Total: 34.85
Quality: 72.35%, Team quality: 73.59%, Competitiveness: 69.93%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 9.85%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 23.60%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 20.20%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 54.03%

#47: Middle Tennessee (-18.53, 6.47%) at Western Kentucky (18.53, 93.53%)
Estimated score: 17.14 - 35.66, Total: 52.79
Quality: 71.68%, Team quality: 82.84%, Competitiveness: 53.65%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 17.39%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 15.44%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 34.60%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 36.80%

#48: Tennessee Tech (-22.35, 3.37%) at Kentucky (22.35, 96.63%)
Estimated score: 17.81 - 40.20, Total: 58.01
Quality: 68.44%, Team quality: 90.11%, Competitiveness: 39.48%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 26.57%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 9.63%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 39.41%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 32.11%

#49: UTSA (20.81, 95.57%) at Charlotte (-20.81, 4.43%)
Estimated score: 41.60 - 20.86, Total: 62.46
Quality: 68.04%, Team quality: 83.62%, Competitiveness: 45.04%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 22.61%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 11.77%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 43.65%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 28.32%

#50: Virginia Tech (-23.45, 2.75%) at Florida State (23.45, 97.25%)
Estimated score: 19.24 - 42.54, Total: 61.78
Quality: 67.61%, Team quality: 93.04%, Competitiveness: 35.71%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 29.58%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 8.28%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 43.00%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 28.88%

#51: Utah (24.65, 97.82%) at Baylor (-24.65, 2.18%)
Estimated score: 46.86 - 22.21, Total: 69.08
Quality: 66.25%, Team quality: 95.72%, Competitiveness: 31.74%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 33.07%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 6.95%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 50.07%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 23.11%

#52: App State (-23.92, 2.52%) at James Madison (23.92, 97.48%)
Estimated score: 10.08 - 33.79, Total: 43.87
Quality: 64.44%, Team quality: 88.53%, Competitiveness: 34.13%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 30.93%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 7.74%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 26.96%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 45.26%

#53: Kansas State (24.58, 97.78%) at Oklahoma State (-24.58, 2.22%)
Estimated score: 41.55 - 17.12, Total: 58.68
Quality: 62.72%, Team quality: 87.83%, Competitiveness: 31.98%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 32.85%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 7.03%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 40.04%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 31.53%

#54: UCF (-26.99, 1.36%) at Texas Tech (26.99, 98.64%)
Estimated score: 8.92 - 35.99, Total: 44.91
Quality: 60.73%, Team quality: 95.20%, Competitiveness: 24.71%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 40.28%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 4.82%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 27.80%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 44.25%

#55: North Texas (27.53, 98.79%) at UAB (-27.53, 1.21%)
Estimated score: 54.35 - 26.82, Total: 81.17
Quality: 56.93%, Team quality: 89.12%, Competitiveness: 23.24%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 42.00%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 4.41%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 61.69%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 15.14%

#56: Minnesota (-31.45, 0.50%) at Oregon (31.45, 99.50%)
Estimated score: 9.38 - 41.12, Total: 50.50
Quality: 50.48%, Team quality: 95.26%, Competitiveness: 14.17%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 54.72%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 2.19%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 32.56%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 38.94%

#57: UCLA (-36.30, 0.15%) at Ohio State (36.30, 99.85%)
Estimated score: 1.89 - 38.28, Total: 40.16
Quality: 39.55%, Team quality: 95.15%, Competitiveness: 6.83%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 69.69%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 0.81%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 24.05%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 48.87%

#58: New Mexico State (-35.74, 0.17%) at Tennessee (35.74, 99.83%)
Estimated score: 16.45 - 52.24, Total: 68.69
Quality: 38.99%, Team quality: 88.99%, Competitiveness: 7.49%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 68.07%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 0.91%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 49.70%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 23.40%

#59: Wisconsin (-36.92, 0.13%) at Indiana (36.92, 99.87%)
Estimated score: 2.40 - 39.41, Total: 41.82
Quality: 38.34%, Team quality: 95.63%, Competitiveness: 6.16%
Blowout probability (margin >= 30.0 pts): 71.44%
Close game probability (margin <= 7.0 pts): 0.70%
High scoring probability (total >= 69.0 pts): 25.32%
Low scoring probability (total <= 39.0 pts): 47.26%

As I said, The Linked Letters After Dark returns this evening with a special week 11 playoff edition, though I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do with the column during the rest of the regular season. Thanks for reading!

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These ratings are based on data from collegefootballdata.com.