2005 College Football Playoff Simulation

COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF SIMULATION

2005 EDITION

BRETT CIANCIA and MIKE NOWOSWIAT
February 2015

After decades of dreaming about it, years demanding it, and months arguing about it, the Playoff Era is finally here. The old BCS system would have produced a National Championship Game of #1 Florida State (only undefeated) and #2 Alabama (SEC Champion), but with both of those squads losing in the National Semifinals, the new system is instantly validated.

This offseason, we will take the role of the Selection Committee and look at how every BCS season (1998-2013) would have played out in the current College Football Playoff setup. As a staff, we will analyze, debate, and ultimately select the 4 most deserving teams and seed them #1 through #4. Once the bracket is set, we will throw the historical matchups into the game simulator over at What If Sports, a complex algorithm that simulates any matchup of teams from 1996 to the present. We will simulate each matchup 25 times for a more accurate sample size, and report the series results and average score.

How different would the college football landscape look if the 4-team playoff had come 16 years sooner? Would the SEC still have held the crystal trophy for 7 straight seasons? Would Oregon have a championship by now? How would the famous #3 teams such as 2000 Miami, 2003 USC, 2004 Auburn, and 2011 Oklahoma State fare with a shot at glory? Would the BCS busters prove themselves?

Let the games begin - here's what should have been:

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2005 SEASON BACKGROUND & SELECTION COMMITTEE

2005 marked probably the most memorable moment of the BCS—the epic Rose Bowl matchup between undefeated USC and undefeated Texas. Vince Young stole the show late as the Longhorns defeated what was thought to be the ‘team of the century’ in the final seconds. It was a perfect year for the BCS model as these two teams were the only undefeated teams from BCS conferences and looked like the best two teams. Penn State won the Big Ten and only had one loss at Michigan on the final play. As the Big Ten Champions, the Nittany Lions were the logical choice at #3. There were really four teams in play for the final spot: Ohio State, Notre Dame, Oregon, and West Virginia. Ohio State had close losses to Penn State and Texas while cruising to wins the rest of the way. Notre Dame lost to unranked Michigan State in OT and USC on the final play in the infamous ‘Bush Push’ game. Oregon only had one loss, but failed to win its conference and was demolished by USC 45-13. West Virginia won the Big East and only had one loss, but in its two ranked games beat #19 Louisville in 3OT and lost to #3 Virginia Tech 34-17. In the end, given USC’s label as the ‘team of the century’ and Notre Dame’s toe-to-toe matchup with the Trojans, we felt that the committee would opt to put the Fighting Irish over a second Big Ten team, Ohio State.

2005 COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF

The margin between Penn State and Notre Dame wasn't close enough to alter the seeding in favor of better matchups so we see a rematch in the first round between USC and Notre Dame. In the most dominating performance of all simulated series we did, USC overwhelmed the Irish 24 games to 1. In one game, the Trojans won 83-41 and won by an average score of 46-28.

Texas, the other Goliath, flexed its muscles as well by crushing the Nittany Lions 23 of 25 simulations. The Nittany Lions survived a weaker Big Ten with a crazy home field advantage over the only real competition, Ohio State. Texas had maybe the best defensive backfield of all time, featuring players like Michael Griffin, Michael Huff, Aaron Ross, and Tarell Brown, and it showed limiting the Nittany Lions to an average of 15 points per game.

At the time, everyone realized USC would probably win a few more games than Texas if the two schools played a series. It may not come as much of a surprise the Trojans won 17 times to Texas' 8 by an average score of 38-29. Of course, they only play one game for the National Title and in our first simulation, Texas won 40-20. Still, in our 25-game model, USC would be the champion of this Playoff.