138 started.
44 still have
a path.
Every Saturday closes a door. Track who's still in the conversation, which remaining games matter most, and the absurd chain of results your team needs to survive.
*Estimated at-large win-floor paths only. Automatic qualification can remain possible for other teams.
This week's chaos watch
Full season schedule ↗Ranked by survivor movement, not upset likelihood. All dates from the October 20 snapshot.
Surviving the model isn't making the playoff.
We set a minimum plausible regular-season win total for each team. The model estimates who can reach it—and how each result changes those chances. The committee can still choose differently; automatic bids work separately.
Explore the forecast by conference ↓
A win floor is an editorial cutoff, not a guarantee of a CFP bid.
Don't need a PhD in chaos.
Pick whatever you came for. You can understand the big picture without touching a single formula.
Is my team safe?
Find its win floor, chances of getting there, and every remaining opponent.
See Safety Rankings ↗What game matters most?
Compare how the two winners change the expected number and identity of contenders.
Explore All Games ↗How does the field shrink?
Lock in results and see how the projected pool changes; or find a team's most plausible single path.
Try Reality Check ↗44 teams have a modeled at-large path today. We expect about 18.07 of them to achieve their individual win floors. That does not mean 18 CFP bids. There are 12 actual playoff spots, and the selection committee plus automatic bids decide who receives them. The Chaos Board measures which results change these floor-reaching probabilities the most.
Safety Rankings ↗
Who can still reach their win floor? All 44 contenders ranked by their modeled chance of reaching their minimum regular-season win threshold. This is not a ranking of playoff or at-large bid probabilities.
How to read the odds
Every team has a different win floor. A 96% chance to reach that floor is not a 96% chance to make the playoff; committee selection and automatic bids are not modeled here.
On track
In position
Under pressure
Long shot
Safety Rankings use the same fixed game win probabilities and team floors as the Chaos Board. All numbers are experimental estimates as of October 20, 2026, not live odds or official CFP selections. Select a team to see its remaining schedule and modeled game win chances.
Highest-leverage games
Ranked by expected survivor movement across both possible results. A game can dramatically change who survives without changing the total number of survivors.
Reality Check: fill the 12 seats
Lock in game results and see how the modeled contender pool could shrink toward a 12-seat target. More than 12 teams can reach plausible win totals in real life. Power Four threshold survivors count individually; Notre Dame counts only if its threshold is reached, while one Group of Six place is already reserved. A second G6 team meeting its floor may need an additional place.
The automatic path prioritizes projection reductions and more likely results. It is a greedy illustration, not proof that this is the most likely or shortest possible path.
Locked results
None yetResults that shrink the field
Why this starts above 18.07: The homepage reports an average of 18.07 teams reaching estimated win floors; this tool counts one guaranteed Group of Six place even when neither tracked G6 contender reaches its speculative at-large floor, giving an approximately 18.25 seat-adjusted baseline. That is a bookkeeping assumption, not a forecast of 18.25 CFP bids. Counting rule: The seat-adjusted scenario counts Power Four teams reaching their floors, adds Notre Dame according to its threshold probability as a proxy for top-12 selection, and includes one guaranteed Group of Six berth (plus a possible second G6 at-large contender). One Group of Six contender is covered by its guaranteed berth. If both tracked G6 teams reach their floors, a possible second G6 at-large contender is counted separately. A team can still miss the playoff after meeting its floor, and a conference champion can qualify even after missing this floor. The likelihood of your exact combination of picks is not the probability of reaching your target—many other combinations may work. All forecasts assume fixed, independent game win probabilities; selected outcomes are what-if assumptions, not predictions. The 12-seat objective is illustrative, not an official selection constraint.
What's the easiest way in?
Choose your contender and find the most probable single set of remaining results in which that team reaches its win floor and the modeled pool fits a 12-seat field. Notre Dame and the Group of Six are handled automatically. We highlight results that would have to go against the model's favorites.
Your team's part
These are the wins and losses in the most likely complete-slate scenario that satisfies the field-size requirement.
Who is left?
These Power Four and Notre Dame teams reach their floors in the selected scenario. The first Group of Six place is reserved. When two G6 teams meet their floors, a possible additional at-large contender is also counted. This is not a projected CFP bracket.
Results that have to break your way
Games below reverse the model's favorite. Other games in the complete slate simply follow the model favorite.
| Team | Wins needed | Fav. flips | Surprise bits |
|---|
How to read the paths: We optimize the probability of one complete regular-season slate with fixed independent game probabilities and win thresholds. This is a precise best-case scenario search under those assumptions, but not a team's probability of reaching the playoff: many other feasible paths exist, the committee's rankings are not modeled, and Group of Six selection is not determined by these win floors. The 2026 CFP guarantees places to the four Power Four champions and the highest-ranked Group of Six team, with an automatic place for Notre Dame if it finishes in the final top 12. This scenario counts all Power Four threshold survivors together without separately counting their conference champions. Notre Dame reaching its editorial floor is only an approximation of the final-ranking requirement. Official CFP format.
The complete chaos board
Every remaining game shows the + / − projected survivors for either result. Sort by Largest outcome difference to find games where the winner makes the biggest difference to the size of the projected field. Open a game for the full breakdown.
Movement measures who survives. Net swing measures how many survive.
Example: if Iowa’s chance climbs 21 points while Northwestern’s falls 26, there’s lots of movement but only a small net change in the projected number of contenders. Click any matchup to see both teams’ before-and-after odds. The signed +/− values are changes in expected threshold survivors, not CFP bid probabilities.
+ adds expected threshold survivors; − removes expected threshold survivors. Changes are measured against the original 44-team forecast (18.07), not a prediction of actual CFP selections. The outcome difference is the absolute gap between those two changes, not a win probability. These are separate from the reserved-berth accounting in Reality Check.
| # | When | Matchup | Movement | Net swing | Pivotal | Network ripple |
|---|
Every contender's runway
Current record, wins needed, probability of reaching the estimated floor, and complete remaining opponents. Games show their individual expected movement, regardless of date.
Here lie the at-large hopes.
One gravestone per week. When a contender suffers the loss that makes its minimum-win floor unreachable, its name gets etched into that week's stone. Click a stone to see the matchups and who's in danger.
Week 9 — On the brink
Checking the games…
Those initial exclusions are not assigned to individual weeks because their exact elimination dates have not been reconstructed. This cemetery tracks new eliminations beginning with Week 9, not official CFP disqualifications.
A burial means a team cannot reach its editorially estimated at-large win floor. It may still qualify via a conference championship or other applicable automatic route. Future headstones deliberately remain blank until results are recorded.
What is official—and what did we decide?
The model is an opinionated eliminator built on real schedules, not a simulation of the selection committee. Here's the line between sourced facts, our assumptions, and the experimental forecasts.
Official 2026 CFP rules
12 places: the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC champions receive automatic berths. The highest-ranked team from the other six FBS conferences receives another automatic berth, whether or not it won its conference. The next seven places are filled through the rankings, with Notre Dame guaranteed inclusion if it finishes in the committee's final top 12.
Unlike our threshold model, the actual field also depends on committee assessment, strength of schedule, head-to-head results, and conference championships.
Our editorial win thresholds
We assigned one minimum regular-season win total to each surviving contender. Nine wins is reserved for teams with a conceivable exceptional résumé; ten is our common Power Four floor; eleven or twelve is the highly speculative at-large standard for select non-Power Four teams. No team currently has an eight-win floor.
A team is out of the at-large threshold pool when it cannot reach its floor. That is not mathematical elimination from the actual CFP: winning an automatic berth may remain possible. Reaching the floor is necessary within our toy model, not sufficient for real selection.
Records, schedule & rankings
The site is a frozen October 20 snapshot using games completed through October 17. The AP rankings were released October 18. Remaining games come from 2026 schedule listings and include a provisional Boise State flex opponent.
The AP poll provides context; it is not the CFP committee's ranking, which first appears November 3.
Probabilities & assumptions
We derived game win odds from Brian's October 19 power ratings with an uncalibrated logistic formula using a 2.5-point home adjustment and scale factor 8. These are not sportsbook odds. Games are assumed independent, and team win floors stay fixed in scenario calculations.
Reality Check's reserved Group of Six spot is automatic; a second G6 team meeting an at-large floor is only a possible extra contender. Notre Dame reaching its win floor is used as a proxy, not proof, for satisfying the final top-12 ranking provision.
What does that number mean?
Open a term if you want the short explanation. The formulas are in Show your work ↗.
Minimum-win floor
Our subjective estimate of the fewest regular-season wins that could still support a plausible at-large résumé. A team with a floor of 10 does not automatically make the playoff at 10–2.
Safety ranking
The calculated chance of reaching that team's minimum-win floor, using the model's game probabilities. It is not the chance of receiving a bid.
Expected survivors (18.07)
Add all 44 teams' chances of reaching their floors. A fractional total is normal: 18.07 is an average across possible results, not an assertion that 18 teams will qualify.
Outcome + / − teams
The change in the expected number of threshold survivors if that particular winner is fixed, relative to the baseline. For example, −0.20 means roughly one-fifth fewer expected threshold survivors—not a 20% chance of elimination.
Chaos / Survivor Movement
Sum how much individual teams' threshold probabilities change after a result, ignoring whether each change is positive or negative. Then weight the two possible results by their game win probabilities. Large movements can occur even if the total expected count barely moves.
Largest outcome difference
The gap between the two possible winners' effects on the total expected survivor count. It answers “How much does which team wins matter?” and is different from Chaos Value.
Pivotal probability
The probability a specific game's win/loss determines whether a team reaches its floor after all remaining games. It's calculated from the other games on its schedule, so it doesn't unfairly reward late-season matchups.
Network ripple
How a result changes the future stakes of matchups among remaining contenders. It's supplemental, not added into our headline Chaos Value, because otherwise the same survival probability changes could be counted twice.
Reality Check vs. Find Your Path
Reality Check lets you choose outcomes and see the updated contender-count projection. Find Your Path looks for the most probable single complete slate consistent with a selected team's threshold and a 12-seat-sized pool. Neither predicts an actual CFP bracket.
12-seat accounting, Notre Dame & Group of Six
The site models one reserved G6 place; it also counts Notre Dame when its editorial floor is reached, as a proxy for its special provision. A second G6 floor-survivor is shown as a possible at-large candidate, not an automatic extra berth. Four Power Four champions still qualify automatically, whether or not this at-large model considers their records strong.
Show your work
The core model has no arbitrary chaos multipliers. Every game score is derived from projected changes in team threshold-reaching probabilities.
1. Expected survivors
For each team, calculate the exact probability of winning enough remaining games to reach its estimated regular-season win floor. Sum these probabilities:
This is currently 18.07 teams. The complementary expected elimination count is 44 minus that total.
2. Pivotal probability
A game is pivotal for a team if it wins exactly one fewer than it needs in all its other remaining games. This uses a Poisson-binomial distribution:
Under fixed independent game probabilities, this is independent of where the game occurs on the calendar.
3. Survivor movement
Calculate every team's probability before the result and then conditional on each outcome. Add up the absolute changes so gains and losses don't cancel:
The headline score uses the win-probability-weighted average of these two movements:
For this fixed-probability model, the equivalent closed form is:
A score of 0.40 means an expected 40 combined percentage points of team threshold probabilities move, not 40% chance of a CFP berth.
4. Supporting measurements
- Net survivor swing: absolute change in the projected number of survivors; useful but misses games that swap one survivor for another.
- Pivotal chance: probability the game is pivotal for at least one participant's final threshold, independent of which team wins.
- Network ripple: change in the expected movement of later games due to this result. We display a contender-weighted version, so changes to games involving another pivotal contender count more. This is exploratory and is not part of the core Chaos Value.
- Immediate elimination: whether losing this week puts a team below its floor. This is not interchangeable with season-ending pivotal probability.
Reality Check: locked outcomes replace the modeled win probability for that matchup with a certain winner. We then recalculate every team's Poisson-binomial tail probability; selecting results is conditional analysis, not a forecast. Scenario likelihood is the product of selected outcome probabilities under the fixed independent-game model.
Important: the network measure is not added to the core score. That avoids treating changes in future leverage as extra eliminated teams.
5. Ratings and limitations
Win odds use Brian's October 19, 2026 power ratings via an experimental logistic conversion:
These are not calibrated betting probabilities. Game results are assumed independent, and win floors are held fixed. Notre Dame's qualification pathway and all conference automatic bids are not modeled as automatic selection guarantees.
The Boise State Pac-12 flex opponent on Nov. 28 remains unspecified; its probability uses an explicitly provisional rating.