The College Football Playoff kicks off New Year’s Eve at 3 p.m. ET, when No. 1 Alabama meets No. 4 Washington in the Peach Bowl. That’s followed by the Fiesta Bowl at 7 p.m. ET between No. 2 Clemson and No. 3 Ohio State. The winners meet Jan. 9 in Tampa for it all.
2016 College Football Playoff predictions: Media picks Bama-Clemson, computers disagree
Rounding up picks and predictions on the Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl from a bunch of different outlets and computer systems. One game has an overwhelming consensus.
Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
Who’s favored? Bama. That’s the short answer. For a longer answer, let’s look at media picks and analytics as one big group.
First, the media. Based on group picks posted by CBS, ESPN, SB Nation, Sports Illustrated, and USA Today, Bama is nearly a unanimous favorite, and expanding the scope to include other outlets only changes things a tiny bit. The crowd is much more divided over the Fiesta Bowl, with some outlets favoring Clemson overall, and some favoring Ohio State overall.
This table shows how many panelists at each outlet picked each team:
| Outlet | Peach Bowl | Fiesta Bowl | ||
| CBS | 5/5 Alabama | 0/5 Washington | 1/5 Clemson | 4/5 Ohio State |
| ESPN | 20/20 Alabama | 0/20 Washington | 14/20 Clemson | 6/20 Ohio State |
| SB Nation | 9/10 Alabama | 1/10 Washington | 3/10 Clemson | 7/10 Ohio State |
| Sports Illustrated | 7/7 Alabama | 0/7 Washington | 3/7 Clemson | 4/7 Ohio State |
| USA Today | 7/7 Alabama | 0/7 Washington | 7/7 Clemson | 0/7 Ohio State |
| Total | 48/49 Alabama | 1/49 Washington | 28/49 Clemson | 21/49 Ohio State |
Your one, from this group: our Luke Zimmermann. If Washington wins and everyone else in sports media looks dumb, we’ll be sure to put Luke in charge of more stuff, though he is already a busy person.
Advanced stats systems (and Vegas, which mixes formulas with whatever people will throw money on) are nowhere near as confident in either winner overall, and in fact disagree entirely on the Fiesta.
Let’s mix ESPN’s FPI, SB Nation’s S&P+, the Sagarin Predictor, SRS, and the current Vegas lines.
| System | Peach Bowl | Fiesta Bowl |
| FPI | Alabama by 5.6 | Ohio State by 2.2 |
| S&P+ | Alabama by 9.7 | Ohio State by 4.9 |
| Sagarin | Alabama by 7.3 | Ohio State by 8.6 |
| SRS | Alabama by 4 | Ohio State by 4.8 |
| Vegas | Alabama by 14 | Ohio State by 2.5 |
| Average | Alabama by 8.1 | Ohio State by 4.6 |
So the computers advise a little caution when it comes to the Tide and say anyone picking Clemson might want to think twice. Noted. Thank you, computers.
One funny thing about all this: ESPN’s Holly Rowe tweeted a since-deleted photo from one of Bama’s meeting rooms, showing a sign that quoted “The National Media” as saying Bama’s overconfidence will mean a Washington win. Nobody has actually delivered that take (the closest was a Seattle Times article arguing that Bama fans, not players, might be overconfident), meaning Bama has so few doubters that it is actively manufacturing fake news about imaginary doubters. Gotta respect that.
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