College Football Playoff power rankings: Notre Dame's fate hinges on Week 1 outcome, Iowa State offers value

The SportsLine Model was developed and powered by the Inside the Lines team. You can find all of our team's picks and content at our blog, which has all our personal best bets for free. Last year when college football expanded to a 12-team playoff, the Inside the Lines Team led the industry in forecasting what teams would be selected by reverse engineering the oddsmakers' model to determine the scenario and then using our model numbers to quantify that scenario. 

Our power ranking system is based on the percentage of simulations each team wins against every other FBS team in the country on a neutral field in a simulated championship game setting.  What you might see is two teams are neck-and-neck in the power rankings, but one team has a higher playoff berth percentage based on their schedule and conference strength. Here are some observations from the model's latest projections ahead of Week 1 of the college football season.

Notre Dame can make another deep run

Miami and Notre Dame play in a big Week 1 game. While this has implications for both teams, Notre Dame has more on the line because the Irish don't play in a conference. Both teams return similar production on both sides of the ball and have new quarterbacks, but Notre Dame was a playoff team last year while Miami wasn't. If Notre Dame wins, the Irish have around a 78% chance in our model to make the playoff but if they lose, they have around a 28% chance to make the playoff. That is a huge swing. If you like Notre Dame money line (-137, FanDuel), you might as well take them at -164 to make the playoff too. Wager on Notre Dame CFP futures and Notre Dame-Miami at FanDuel here:

There's value on Iowa State to make the playoff

Iowa State won a massive game in Dublin over Kansas State in Week 0. This is big because it was a Big 12 conference game, and we saw how tightly packed the group was last season. With an early 1-0 conference record in what is likely a one-bid conference, Iowa State jumped from around a 20% chance to make the playoff to a 34% chance to make the playoff. The 34% implies we would set their line closer to +200. A lot can change from now until the end of the season, but we think +590 is worth a sprinkle and a price you might be able to hedge later in the year.

The Big 12 doesn't have a team in the top-23 in our power rankings, but the conference has seven teams ranked from 24-38. Last year's champ, Arizona State, ranks as the fifth best team in the conference in our current power rankings. The Sun Devils have the third best playoff chance of any team in the conference. This suggests that we like their schedule outlook better than TCU and Kansas. Kansas was also a big Week 0 winner and moved from a 4.9% chance to a 9.1% chance to make the playoffs. Sign up for bet365 to wager on the Big 12 conference champion here:

Boise State, JMU, and Memphis are the top Group of 5 contenders

Boise State is our top Group of 5 team this year after being its CFP representative last season. The Broncos lost Ashton Jeanty but were still able to retain quite a bit of production from last year's team, including four out of five starters on the offensive line.

JMU is not far behind Boise State in our power rankings, but the Dukes are likely going to have to go undefeated -- including beating Louisville -- or rely on the AAC and MWC to struggle to make the playoff. This is why there is nearly a 25% differential between Boise and JMU in this market.

Memphis is our top team in the AAC and we like them despite having to replace four-year starter Seth Henigan at quarterback. Memphis benefits from having key games against Arkansas, Tulane, and Navy at home.