2019 24 Team FBS Playoff Sim

[Purple Stein]

Over the past two years I've run a sim of a 24 team FBS playoff similar to the structure the FCS tournament. In 2017, the sim had Georgia winning the national championship 27-13 over Alabama. In 2018, it had LSU winning the national championship 14-10 over Alabama (Clemson, the actual national champion, was upset in the round of 16 by Mississippi State).

This year, the sim is back and ready to show how much a better a 24 team tournament would be than our currently craptastic bowl season!

Below is this year's bracket. It consists of the top 22 teams in the final CFP poll plus two other automatic qualifiers from their respective conferences (FAU and Miami (OH)). Those teams were seeded according to their Massey rankings. All conference champions are represented in the tournament.

If that's too hard to read, here are your first round matchups with the second round opponent in parentheses:

17. Memphis @ 16. Iowa (LSU)
24. Miami (OH) @ 9. Florida (Wisconsin)
20. App St @ 13. Alabama (Oklahoma)
21. Cincinatti @ 12. Auburn (Georgia)
18. Minnesota @ 15. Notre Dame (Ohio State)
23. FAU @ 10. Penn St (Baylor)
19. Boise St @ 14. Michigan (Clemson)
22. USC @ 11. Utah (Oregon)

All games will be simmed at NCAA Game Sim. Home field advantage will be assigned through the quarterfinals, with the semifinals and the championship game taking place at neutral sites. Game sims will be on or around 12/21 (Round 1), 12/28 (Round 2), 1/4 (Quarterfinals), 1/11 (Semifinals) and 1/13 (National Championship game). I'll fill the downtime with some UConn sims to see how we'd fare against the field.

Now look at these games and tell me this is a tournament you wouldn't want to see!

 

[kingdobbs]

An NCAA tournament bracket would almost never look like this, though. Especially that Oregon-USC/Utah bracket.

They’d play around with seeds so you avoid that first round rematch between USC and Utah and a certain replay in the second round vs Oregon, as well as a potential Auburn-UGA rematch and a possible conference pairing between Ohio St and Minnesota in the second round.

Bracket integrity is nice but they’ll always move things around so that they can have a more national flavored tournament; I’d swap Oregon and Baylor, and then Auburn and USC. With 6 B1G teams in, avoiding an intraconference 2nd round is more trouble than it’s worth.

 

[Purple Stein]

First round is in the books!

17. Memphis 34 16. Iowa 20
Memphis scored the final 21 points of the game to overcome a 20-13 early fourth quarter deficit, upsetting 16th seeded Iowa 34-20 in Iowa City. Toren Young ran for 102 yards in the loss. Memphis travels to LSU for an impossible Sweet 16 matchup next week.

9. Florida 41 24. Miami (OH) 3
Kyle Trask broke open a 3-3 halftime score with 5 second half touchdown passes and Florida used a 28 point fourth quarter to put away Miami (OH) 41-3. Trask threw for 522 yards and the Florida defense held Miami’s offense to just 212 yards. Florida travels to 8th seeded Wisconsin next week in what should be a terrific round of 16 matchup.

13. Alabama 38 20. Appalachian State 10
Appalachian State scored the game’s first touchdown and was shut down the rest of the way, losing at 13th seeded Alabama 38-10. Mac Jones threw for 446 yards and 5 touchdowns in the win, while Devonta Smith caught 7 passes for 128 yards and 3 touchdowns. Alabama travels to fourth seeded Oklahoma next week in an epic round of 16 tilt.

12. Auburn 35 21. Cincinnati 17
Auburn held off Cincinnati 35-17 at Auburn. The Tigers broke open a back and forth game with a 13 play, 69 yard fourth quarter drive, capped by a 4 yard TD scamper by Bo Nix. The tigers will have to play better when they travel to 5thseeded Georgia next week.

15. Notre Dame 41 18. Minnesota 31
Notre Dame mounted a fourth quarter comeback, outscoring Minnesota 21-3 in the final frame to complete a 41-31 comeback victory over the Golden Gophers. Rashad Bateman had 5 catches for 155 yards and a touchdown in a loss. Ian Book (3 interceptions) will need to be much sharper at Ohio State next week.

23. FAU 20 10. Penn State 13
FAU recorded the tournament’s first big upset, using a stout defense to defeat 10th seeded Penn State 20-13 at Happy Valley. The Owl’s defense held Penn State to just 138 passing yards and only 301 total yards, overcoming a 3-0 halftime deficit en route to the win. FAU travels to 7th seeded Baylor next week and will try to become the only seed above 20 to reach the quarterfinals.

14. Michigan 41 19. Boise State 6
Ronnie Bell ran for 121 yards and Michigan held Boise State to just 99 yards passing as the Wolverines routed Potato U 41-6 at the Big House. Michigan led 14-3 at the half, but the game was never in doubt as Boise was rarely able to move the ball beyond midfield Michigan heads to 3rd seeded Clemson next week.

11. Utah 30 22. USC 6
Utah avenged their early season loss to USC by routing the Trojans 30-6 in Salt Lake City. USC was undone by 4 turnovers, each of which turned into points for Utah. The Utes get another PAC matchup next week as they replay the PAC 12 championship game, this time at Oregon.

 

[Purple Stein]

And your updated bracket -- go FAU!