What FPI and the strength of the record say about the University of Oregon Football League Playoff chances
Every Tuesday when the College Football League rankings are released, an almost unprecedented decision stands out: position Oregon Reserved.
Ducks sit in 3rd place in the current standings, an honor bestowed on them seems to win Ohio State, and one that would probably put them in a solid position to make it to the knockout stages if they win. But Oregon’s ranking is far from the committee’s standards.
While the knockout protocol orders the committee to pick the four “best” teams in college football, what they’ve done in the past is, in fact, choosing teams based on a combination of the “best” ” and “most deserving” or, for our purposes today, through measures of team quality and achievement. Duck did not fit the bill.
In terms of achievements, Duck is eighth in the strength record. Given Oregon’s schedule, there’s a 49% chance that a top 25 team on average will score at least 9-1, which is a record for the Ducks. For comparison, that same team in the top 25 on average has a 33% chance of winning 9-1 first Alabamaschedule of or 40% chance against Oklahoma Stateschedule of. And while Oregon’s schedule is certainly tougher CincinnatiIt’s hard to win 10-0 against the Bearcats (36% chance) versus 9-1 ahead of the Ducks schedule. That’s the beauty of SOR: It allows us to directly compare teams with different records on the same scale. Another strong point of the indicator is that it can consider total schedule instead of simply a best win or worst loss. Oregon beat Ohio State and was rewarded for it in the SOR, but all of Games count towards achievements.
Looking at the team quality, the resume is only worse for Ducks. They are 18th in the FPI rating, the second worst FPI ranked team to ever earn a top four spot from the committee in any CFP ranking. In 2015 Iowa was included in the top four by the committee a few times while ranked by FPI in the mid-20s – but that Iowa team was also undefeated at the time. If Oregon maintains its FPI ranking and still makes it to the knockout stages, it will be the worst team to ever reach the CFP, according to FPI. The current record holder is 2015 the state of Michigan, ranked 14th.
Why doesn’t FPI like Ducks? For the most part, they don’t perform as effectively on a game-by-game level as other teams after taking into account the quality of their opponents. Duck ranks 17th in offensive effectiveness and 30th in defensive effectiveness while ranking 14th in total effectiveness in all three phases of the game. They are 20th in terms of points per game margin of +12.7 with a win by one point State of Fresno, Cal and UCLA in the book.
FPI is also not alone in skepticism Oregon: The Ducks are currently 3 points behind at 23 Utah this weekend at Caesars Sportsbook (FPI makes it Utah by 4).
All of this is why the Allstate Playoff Predictor has been confounded by Oregon – or at least its ratings. It gives the Ducks only a 7% chance of making it to the knockout stages, which is remarkable given the team’s No.
The good bit of that number is a bearish forecast: It gives Oregon just a 14% chance to finish a Pac-12 champion 12-1. But even in the event that Oregon does do that, the model still gives Ducks only a 45% chance of achieving CFP, in large part due to the projected power of a record rank of 3.3.
The 45% chance of achieving a CFP if Oregon wins could be very low, even though this model incorporates current committee ranks. But if it’s low, that’s because the Predictor is largely based on past committee behavior – and past committee behavior suggests the Ducks shouldn’t be as close to the playoffs as they seem.
