College Football Playoff blind resume: pick the 12 without the names

How the blind resume game works

What is a college football playoff blind resume?

A resume with the name taken off: the record, the best win, the worst loss, the schedule and the margins, and nothing that says who the team is. It is how you find out whether you rank teams on what they did or on the logo. Coaches have asked the committee to work this way for years.

How does the game build my 12?

You rank three resumes at a time for 12 rounds. The first six rounds show every team once, grouped with teams of near-equal standing. The last six put the teams you have rated alike against each other, from the last ones out up to the fight for the No. 1 seed. Every call you make counts as a head-to-head result, and your 12 is the order that best explains all 36 of them.

Where do the numbers come from?

Records and margins are every game this season. Opponent ranks (#7 means the seventh-best team) and the schedule rank come from the betting market: every FBS game's closing spread solved for one rating per team, so #7 is how good the market thinks that opponent is now, among 139 FBS teams. The betting market line is where the market ranks the team itself.

Who are the committee and the model on the result screen?

The committee is the College Football Playoff selection committee's latest top 25. The model is Playoff Worthiness, our score for what a team has earned against its schedule; its full table is on the College Football Playoff rankings page.

Why 18 teams?

They are the 18 contenders the committee and the model rank highest between them, which covers every team in the committee's top 12. Eighteen is six rounds of three, so every team is seen exactly twice.

How often does it change?

Every week of the season: the resumes after Saturday's games, the committee's ranking after each Tuesday release, through selection day.