How Louisville gets into the college football playoff

After a week of utter chaos, the committee told us they still like Michigan and Clemson over Louisville.

This isn’t what my algorithm expects from the committee. Usually, teams move down when they lose. Michigan lost in stunning fashion to Iowa but stayed at 3rd. Clemson had a similar loss to Pittsburgh but only dropped from 2nd to 4th.

The loser in these decisions is Louisville at 5th. With the strange behavior of this committee, I’m starting to believe that my 55% for Louisville to make the playoff is too high.

But maybe not. Louisville has to hope that Ohio State wins the Big Ten, which does two things.

• Eliminates Michigan, since Ohio State plays them next week.
• Eliminates Ohio State as another potential one loss non-conference champions looking to get into the playoff.

Then Louisville needs a two or three loss team to win the Pac-12 (Colorado, Utah, USC still in contention for the South), which would eliminate Washington from contention. This all assumes that Clemson wins the ACC Atlantic, denying Louisville the chance to win the ACC.

Still, their likelihood is probably less than 55%.

To check out all of my playoff odds at Bleacher Report, click here.