Golden Rankings, final regular season & playoff scenario

Final Regular Season Golden Rankings



Instead of our usual metrics, we offer a playoff scenario based on these rankings. Our ideal playoff is quite simple - every conference champion gets in, so long as they are ranked 50 or higher among FBS teams in our rankings. The rest of the spots are filled by at-large teams with no limits on the number of teams from one conference. First round sites are on campus, but no at-large team is allowed to host a game, thereby preserving some of the pressure of the regular season.
Our auto qualifiers this year (with ranking):
SEC-Auburn (1)
MW - TCU(2)
B12 - Oklahoma (3)
Pac 10 - Oregon (4)
WAC - There was a three-way tie for the WAC, as Hawaii, Boise and Nevada all finished with just one loss. I couldn't find any official tiebreakers, so I went with the highest rated team, Boise (5)
Big Ten - Wisconsin (12) - Interesting that OSU and MSU are both rated ahead of the Badgers
ACC - Virginia Tech (15)
CUSA - Central Florida (29)
Big East - UConn (35)
MAC - Miami, O (49)
The Sun Belt loses their bid this year as conference champ FIU was 81st.
At Large teams -
Ohio State (6)
Michigan State (7)
Missouri (8)
Arkansas (9)
Stanford (10)
LSU (11)

The matches:
#16 Miami, Oh @ #1 Auburn
#9 Ohio State @ #8 Central Florida (as a conference champ, UCF moves up to host a game)

#13 Arkansas @ #4 Oregon
#12 Stanford @ #5 Boise -- might consider flipping this game with the 6/11 matchup to avoid a possible Oregon / Stanford 2nd round game

#14 LSU @ #3 Oklahoma (whoa Nelly!)
#11 Missouri @ #6 Wisconsin (Badgers moved up to host game)

#10 Michigan State @ #7 Virginia Tech (Hokies moved up)
#15 UConn @ #2 TCU

Wouldn't this be nice!