Saban's World: The 2023 College Football Playoff
Before the college football season started, we wondered: was Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh the best coach in college football? Michigan does not have the talent of its top rival Ohio State, but it has beaten them in three consecutive years.
Harbaugh will have a chance to stake his claim as the best coach in the semifinal round against Nick Saban and Alabama. Alabama, the Sports Media was happy to remind us, is not the same this year as in years past. But tell that to the Crimson Tide now after ending Georgia’s 24-game winning streak.
Alabama also cast the College Football Playoff into chaos. They posed the selection with a very difficult choice: leave an undefeated Power 5 conference champion out, or leave out the perennial national championship competitor and SEC champion.
Ultimately, the committee sided with Alabama. The year’s final four are:
#1 Michigan, undefeated, winner of the Big 10
#2 Washington, undefeated, winner of the Pac-12
#3 Texas, a narrow loss to their rival Oklahoma, winner of the Big 12
#4 Alabama, a lone loss to #3, winner of the SEC
But while those are the committee’s rankings, those aren’t our rankings and those aren’t Vegas’ ratings. To see how we should think about these teams, let’s use some familiar analytics:
Simple Talent Tier
Elo Rating
P100
Simple Talent Tier is a measure of how much talent is on a college football team, using their recent recruiting rankings. Teams are rewarded for their best performance in the last four years, their average performance, and their number of top 25 performances.
Elo Rating is a measure of how good a team is, calculated by looking at head-to-head comparisons between opponents. Our college football Elo’s use data going back to 2014. We represent Elo rating as the point spread over a median top 25 opponent.
P(100) is the measure of how likely it is a quarterback will have a passer rating of 100 or more in some number of consecutive games. For professional football, we use 4 games because the NFL playoff is 4 games long. For college football’s P(100): we use 2 games instead of 4; we use the NFL passer rating formula; and we only consider games against eligible opponents.
Did the committee get it right?
If the final selection was between Alabama and Florida State, Alabama was obviously the better team—putting aside whether that was the correct choice. Alabama is a Tier 1 talent program, alongside only Ohio State and Georgia, they have the highest Elo rating in college football—more than a touchdown favorite over median top 25 opponents—and in a year when their quarterback play has been ridiculed, they lead the top 6 in P(100).
Alabama has earned their +8.5 Elo Spread over a number of years of elite football. And they’ve proven they deserve their spot at the top after a conclusive win against preseason—and season-long—#1 Georgia.
Their P(100) of 81% means that even in a year when they don’t have a top NFL prospect at quarterback, we would be surprised if Alabama’s QB laid an egg. Jalen Milroe is a dual threat player, averaging two touchdowns through the air and one on the ground per game this season.
Milroe played well in big moments against both Aubrun and Georgia to close the season. It’s hard to say he’ll be a liability now.
The other school that could have been left out was Texas. But like Alabama, Texas has an Elo Spread edge over Florida State, and a P(100) edge of Florida State. While Quinn Ewers has been up and down this season—he is much better than what Florida State has to offer right now.
Florida State put up horrid quarterbacking performances after the loss of QB1 Jordan Travis. Their backup posted a 62 passer rating against Florida, completing just 46% of his passes. And FSU’s third-stringer, freshman Brock Glenn, recorded a 46 passer rating against Louisville. Glenn completed just 8 passes for 55 yards in his first ever college football start.
National Championship Picture
Michigan is the favorite to win the National Championship, but they have to go through Alabama to get there. And while Saban’s Alabama may be vulnerable, they have much more talent than the Wolverines. Alabama is more robust at quarterback and deeper across the team. If Michigan wins, it is because of Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan culture more than anything.
I’d expect Alabama receivers to be able to break the Michigan defense a few too many times, much like they did with Georgia. Alabama is getting points here (+1.5), which is a rarity for them. The Tide are 3-1 as when entering the game as underdogs.
All our metrics favor the Tide.
NB: We also like the game over (o/u 46.5, -108), here. Michigan and Alabama can both score. Comps: Ohio State at Michigan (54 points), Alabama v. Texas (58 points) and Alabama v. Georgia (51 points) were all over the 46.5 line.
Texas is about a 3-point favorite over Washington by our numbers, but FanDuel is even more bullish on the Longhorns at -4.5. Texas has more talent and a better Elo rating, but—as all season long—Quinn Ewers will be the Horns’ wildcard. If Ewers plays well, the Horns are all-but impossible to beat. Alabama saw that first hand earlier this season.
But a poor showing from Ewers—like his two-pick outings versus Oklahoma and Kansas State—could easily have Texas on the losing end of this one.
It’s a stretch for me to pick the Longhorns, giving this many points. I’d be inclined to look at wider margins. Washington -6.5 is +285 and Texas -6.5 is +110. Those two lines can be combined into a decent position on both sides of a touchdown-plus game.
Bets for the CFP Semifinals
Alabama (+1.5) against Michigan (-112)
Texas (-6.5) against Washington (+110)
Washington (-6.5) against Texas (+280)
Pre-Season Bet Recap
The end of the college football regular season also brings about the end of our regular season bets. Overall, we were 1-for-4—but considering all of the bets we made had plus odds, we did okay. Of our four bets, only Texas making the college football playoff hit. Two others—Ohio State as Big 10 Champion and UNC over 8.5 wins—were near misses. Clemson making the playoff (+320) was a big miss—but there’s probably an alternate universe were Cade Klubnik is a beast and this bet hits.
The Texas bet makes this all work—but just barely. We end up positive 1/5th of a unit.
Winners
Texas to make the college football playoff (+320) — Texas is back
Losers
Ohio State to win the Big 10 (+175) — Ohio State lost close to Michigan
Clemson to make the playoff (+320) — Clemson was out of the hunt early
UNC over 8.5 wins (+122) — UNC won exactly 8 games
Result: +0.2 units