John Ewing

Special for FootballFour.com

PredictionMachine.com's Director of Research and Analytics, John Ewing, takes a look at what the College Football Playoff could look like through 50,000 simulations of FootballFour's most likely four-team playoff. Follow John on Twitter @JohnEwing for more notes from his analysis and to let him know what else you may like to see with these projections.

The college football carousel keeps spinning. Mississippi State, Florida State and Oregon continue to be part of the Football Four Playoff Projection.

Alabama, Auburn, Oklahoma, Georgia, Ole Miss and Baylor have all taken a turn as a projected playoff team, but an untimely loss has spun each team out of the rotation. TCU is the newest member of the Football Four selection committee's bracket.

The Horned Frogs are four-touchdown favorites at Kansas on Saturday, while Auburn slipped up as a multi-touchdown favorite on the road last week against Texas A&M. It is unlikely TCU makes the same mistake.

Other probable playoff teams might not make it through Week 12 unscathed. Mississippi State is more than a touchdown underdog in Tuscaloosa, and Miami is only a small home underdog against Florida State.

The Bulldogs and Seminoles have been staples of the playoff bracket due to their unblemished records. What are the odds that the nation's undefeated teams finish the regular season without a loss?

Mississippi State has three games left, with a trip to Alabama this weekend and a showdown in the Egg Bowl versus Ole Miss to close the regular season. We project the Bulldogs to be underdogs in both matchups. After simulating the rest of the regular season 50,000 times, Mississippi State has an 11.3% chance of winning out.

Florida State has an easier schedule (at Miami, vs. Boston College and vs. Florida) to close the regular season. Miami and Florida are not the teams that Alabama and Ole Miss are, but they both rank inside the top 25 of our most recent Power Rankings. The Seminoles have a 21.5% chance of extending their winning streak to 28 straight games.

An astute reader would note that I discussed the two undefeated teams from the Power Five conferences but have not mentioned Marshall, the country's other unbeaten team.

The Thundering Herd have beat all comers, scoring an average of 47.8 points per game. However, Marshall has played the 126th-ranked schedule in the country. Earlier this week we ran a simulation to see what would happen if Marshall played in the SEC.

Like you would imagine, Marshall loses a few games. But so did Florida State when we had the Seminoles play Mississippi State's schedule. This made us curious, what would happen if Marshall played Florida State's schedule?

Marshall would be the projected favorite in all games except at Louisville (Florida State rallied from 21 points down to win) and Miami. Marshall is not being considered for the College Football Playoff, but if the Herd played Florida State's schedule, the Conference USA powerhouse would be getting some love from the voters.

The Football Four Playoff Projection committee gave votes to eight teams this week. Marshall did not receive a vote.

Below are two simulations. The first looks at what would happen in this week's Football Four playoff projection. The second is an eight-team bracket consisting of all teams to receive a vote for the playoff from the Football Four panel heading into Week 12 of the season.

How this works

The Predictalator uses current rosters and strength-of-schedule and efficiency-adjusted team and player stats (weighted slightly more toward recent games), to play every game 50,000 times before it's actually played. For this analysis, we are tracking how likely a team is to make it to any level of the College Football Playoff.

Football Four four-team playoff summary

After 50,000 simulations, the most likely national champion is Oregon. Oregon wins 33.4% of all the simulated tournaments. In the most likely National Championship game Oregon defeats TCU 51% of the time by an average score of 43-42.

Oregon has the country's most efficient offense, averaging 46 points per game and racking up more than 500 yards of total offense. The Ducks have beaten three teams that were ranked in the Amway Coaches Poll — UCLA, Michigan State and Utah. Oregon is a worthy national champion.

Based on the analysis, here is the projected College Football Playoff bracket:

Semifinals

No. 1 Mississippi State vs. No. 4 TCU | TCU wins 58% of the time by an average score of 39-33.

No. 2 Florida State vs. No. 3 Oregon | Oregon wins 63% of the time by an average score of 43-32.

National Championship

No 3. Oregon vs. No. 4 TCU | Oregon wins 51% of the time by an average score of 43-42.

The likelihoods for each team to win the championship are 33.4% for Oregon, 31.9% for TCU, 20.6% for Mississippi State and 14.2% for Florida State.

Football Four eight-team playoff summary

The NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL have all expanded their playoffs over time. March Madness started with eight teams in 1939 but now features a field of 68 teams. It seems inevitable that college football will also expand from its current four-team playoff. What would an eight-team bracket look like?

In an expanded field, again using the teams to receive a vote from the Football Four panel, we get the following matchups: No. 1 Mississippi State vs. No. 8 Ohio State, No. 2 Florida State vs. No. 7 Arizona State, No. 3 Oregon vs. No. 6 Baylor, No. 4 TCU vs. No. 5 Alabama.

All of the first round matchups are close; no team is greater than 60% likely to advance to the semifinals.

The most likely Football Four features Alabama vs. Mississippi State and Oregon vs. Arizona State. The Tide and Ducks advance against their conference rivals to the championship game.

After 50,000 simulations, the most likely national champion is Alabama. Alabama wins 21.4% of all the simulated tournaments. In the most likely national championship game, Alabama defeats Oregon 54% of the time by an average score of 39-36.

Alabama is not in the top four of the Football Four or the College Football Playoff rankings. To no one's surprise though, Alabama is capable of winning the tournament if the Tide can reach the postseason.

The likelihoods for each team to win the championship are 21.4% for Alabama, 17.2% for Oregon, 16.6% for Baylor, 13.1% for TCU, 9.2% for Mississippi State, 8.1% for Arizona State, 7.7% for Ohio State and 6.7% for Florida State.