Projecting out through the regular season and conference championships, here's how FredRank looks for the FBS.
The columns, from left to right, are as follows:
-Team, in official colors per trucolor.net. Teams in italics are bowl-eligible; teams in bold are projected to receive a bowl bid.
-FredRank, followed by where each team is ranked.
-NoPoll, a variation on FredRank which is explained below.
-Bowl game to which a team is projected, if any. Teams which are ineligible for a bowl game regardless of record are marked as such.
-Current win-loss record, color-coded by number of losses.
-Current College Football Playoff ranking, if the team is ranked.
-Projected win-loss record following the regular season and conference championships.
I include a NoPoll index for this reason: human polls can vary wildly from computer rankings, even when computers have largely come to the same verdict on one team. Therefore, the second index shown omits the 3 human polls which I use (AP, Coaches and r/cfb).
Conference championship projections
Starting this year, all ten FBS conferences will play a conference championship game following the regular season. Based on Jeff Sagarin's ratings, here's what I expect to see.
ACC: Clemson (12-0) defeats Pittsburgh (7-5)
Big 12: Oklahoma (11-1) defeats West Virginia (9-2)
Big Ten: Michigan (11-1) defeats Northwestern (8-4)
Pac-12: Washington (9-3) defeats Utah (9-3)
SEC: Alabama (12-0) defeats Georgia (11-1)
American: UCF (11-0) defeats Houston (8-4)
Conference USA: UAB (10-2) defeats Florida International (8-4)
MAC: Northern Illinois (8-4) defeats Buffalo (10-2)
Mountain West: Fresno State (10-2) defeats Boise State (10-2)
Sun Belt: Appalachian State (9-2) defeats Arkansas State (8-4)
Takeaways
-No big surprise here: good teams are expected to stay good and bad teams are expected to stay bad.
-Kind of a surprise: how closely FredRank lines up with the CFP rankings. 24 of my Top 25 teams are also in the CFP committee's Top 25. The only outliers are near the bottom of those sets, and when it's one 6-4 Northwestern team instead of a 6-4 Texas A&M, I can't really complain all that much.
-Sagarin still expects Washington to be able to beat Washington State in Pullman on November 23. Assuming no upsets this week, this game will determine the Pac-12 North.
-If all hell breaks loose, we could end up with a record number of bowl-eligible teams. (Generally, teams are required to have a 6-6 or better record to be eligible for a bowl game. In the event of future exceptions, I'll be sure to explain.)
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