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Two B1G teams featured in Top 10 of ESPN Playoff Predictor

Andrew Kulha

By Andrew Kulha

Published:

The College Football Playoff is literally ages away — we’re only midway through September after-all — but that doesn’t mean predictions made after Week 3 of the college football season are totally in vain.

In fact, when they come from a calculated contraption like ESPN’s 2018 Playoff Predictor, there’s a good chance that there can be some truth found in those predictions.

Anything can happen, of course, but so far that’s good news for two Big Ten teams in particular: Ohio State and Penn State.

Both the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions show up in the top 10 of ESPN’s CFP predictor after Week 3, with OSU checking in at No. 3 with a 54-percent chance to make the playoffs at 16-percent chance to win it all. The Nittany Lions, on the other-hand, come in at No. 6 with a 37-percent chance to make the CFP and a seven-percent chance to win the whole thing.

Alabama is, of course, the favorite, with an over 75-percent chance to make the CFP and a 37-percent chance to win the championship, which is leaps and bounds ahead of No. 2 on the list: Georgia with a 58-percent CFP chance and a 16-percent chance to win the title.

The long-term story here for the two Big Ten teams in the Top 10 is Week 5’s matchup against the two powerhouses at Beaver Stadium. Both teams are currently 3-0 and both have very winnable games ahead of them before the clash, so there’s a tremendous chance that these two undefeated squads will meet in two weeks — and the winner of that game will make huge strides up in the aforementioned ESPN Playoff Predictor.

Andrew Kulha

Andrew covers the B1G on Saturday Tradition.