College football rankings: Will Kent State carry No. 1 seed to Bottom 25 championship?

It’s been a long race to the bottom, but with college football’s regular season complete and bowl games ahead, it’s time to determine the worst team of the 2023 season. This is the only tournament in sports where you advance by losing, and there are 12 teams in the field who have proven excellent at losing in recent months.

In our bracket, the lousiest teams in the country have been seeded with No. 1 belonging to the worst team in the Bottom 25 (Kent State). Teams seeded 1-4 get a first-round bye due to their excellence in chasing futility while 5-12 battle it out to see who advances to the quarterfinals.

Here are the four teams receiving byes based on their rankings in the Bottom 25:

No. 1 Kent State (1-11)
No. 2 Nevada (2-10)
No. 3 Louisiana-Monroe (2-10)
No. 4 Akron (2-10)

The following eight teams square off in the first round with the loser of each matchup advancing: 

No. 5 Southern Miss (3-9) at No. 12 Buffalo (3-9)
No. 6 UMass (3-9) at No. 11 UConn (3-9)
No. 7 Vanderbilt (2-10) at No. 10 Temple (3-9)
No. 8 East Carolina (2-10) at No. 9 Charlotte (3-9)

The rules are straightforward. The Bottom 25 rankings are based on Tom Fornelli’s formula used to determine how likely each team is to lose a matchup with the other. Fornelli then consults the magical powers of an online number generator and asks it to pick a number between 1 and 100. This is our only option until these teams agree to square off in an actual Bottom 25 Playoff.

Let’s get to the playoff!

First Round

No. 5 Southern Miss 17, No. 12 Buffalo 16
No. 11 UConn 31, No. 6 UMass 18
No. 7 Vanderbilt 41, No. 10 Temple 28
No. 8 East Carolina 10, No. 9 Charlotte 3

The first round produced an upset with No. 12 seed Buffalo losing to No. 5 seed Southern Miss, which mercifully eliminated…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-rankings-will-kent-state-carry-no-1-seed-to-bottom-25-championship/

Author : David Cobb

Publish date : 2023-12-13 15:48:10

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