College football has seen its fair share of underdog stories over the years. But too many of them occurred in September or in bowl games that counted for little more than pride. At long last, we’re on the brink of a new era. On Sunday, a genuine playoff bracket will be revealed, the first of its kind in FBS history (sorry, a four-team invitational doesn’t count).
With it comes the introduction of one of the most compelling aspects of sports: the chance for meaningful upsets. And, per our past research charting commonalities from upsets across sports, the most likely team to pull off one of those upsets (should they make the field) is Alabama.
Upsets are our niche, dating all the way back to 2006, when we launched the Giant Killers model that projects NCAA Tournament upsets (you know it as Bracket Breakers now). Over the years, we have expanded our reach to identify worthy underdogs in events ranging from the World Cup to the Olympics to the NFL. But all of those competitions had historical data we could analyze in our search for trends.
It will take time to build a robust model unique to the brand new College Football Playoff. (How much of an edge does a first-round home game provide? How much does an underdog’s conference matter in its chances of pulling off an upset?) In the meantime, we can still apply what we’ve learned about upsets in other sports, starting with three key premises that have proven true in just about any sport we have studied.
Some underdogs are underrated and under-seeded. Find teams whose underlying statistical strengths outweigh their records, and you’ll pinpoint squads that are likely to overperform in the future. In this case, that leads you to that plucky squad known as Alabama.
The best underdogs play high-risk, high-reward styles. Inviting greater variance into the upset equation boosts the chances an underdog can clip a superior opponent. To examine this, we have looked at the weekly shifts in every FBS team’s basic power rating this season, after adjusting for the strength of their opponents. Our Variability Index measures which programs have the widest range of game-to-game outcomes. Kansas has the craziest gyrations among Power 4 teams, beating BYU and Colorado before getting wiped out by Baylor in the past three weeks.
Luck tends to regress to the mean over time. It pays to target underdogs that have been victims of bad fortune, and attack favorites who have received more than their fair share of good breaks. Teamrankings.com measures this by comparing team records with scoring margins. Their Luck Rankings call UCF the unluckiest team in the country: The Knights went just 4-8 but scored 42 points more than their opponents this season.
With all that in mind, let’s take a look at the teams currently sitting on the CFP bubble. We’ll define that as teams that have a realistic chance of playing a first-round road game. We’re not concerned with which teams are most deserving of a bid; we want to know which have the best chance of pulling off a major upset, whether that’s a 12-seed winning a road game against the 5-seed, or a 9-seed taking out the No. 1 team in the quarterfinals.
We will be able to take a deeper dive once we have matchups. And we can address teams that don’t offer particularly strong or weak upset chances – Miami and Clemson, specifically – should they find their way into the bracket. But for now, here are five potential underdogs that favorites should want to avoid and four they should hope to face.
Ole Miss and Alabama have been the most consistent of the Power 4. They have the highest statistical profiles and the best wins. Oregon has gone 12-0 while scoring 422 points and allowing 194, for a 228-point differential. Alabama is at plus-219 (426-207) against a significantly tougher schedule. Ole Miss is at plus-283 (450-167) against a comparably difficult schedule.
Maryland has also been a consistent team with a strong profile. South Carolina has been inconsistent, but they have been playing better lately. They are 37th in our Variability Index, which is second-highest among bubble teams. They should be a strong underdog in the quarterfinals if they make it out of the first round.
Boise State or UNLV may not even get an opportunity to be a true underdog. UNLV is 42nd in the country in the Massey ratings, which is not a Playoff-worthy team. They are lucky and inconsistent, and that’s not a recipe for success in the CFP.
Iowa State and Arizona State are also in the mix. They will likely play the No. 5 seed on the road and lose.
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