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What should Missouri make of a Vandy panic?

The Tigers’ weekend double-overtime win over the Commodores raised both heart rates and the number next to Mizzou’s name in the polls, which isn’t the direction the program was looking to move.

MU is 4-0 and, entering its first bye week of the season, ranked 11th in both the AP and USA Today Coaches polls, down a few spots in each from a week ago.

Given that Missouri’s 12 regular-season games are broken nicely into quartets separated by bye weeks this year, this threshold is an ideal one to take stock of how the Tigers are shaping up in a big-picture sense. And the biggest picture — or biggest goal, certainly — for Mizzou this season is making the College Football Playoff.

It’s still early to be making too much of a fuss about who will and won’t make the expanded 12-team field and definitely too early to have any degree of certainty about it. But given the timing of both MU’s bye and the duality of a check to its momentum but a still unmarred record, it’s an interesting moment to explore Missouri’s chances of making it into the CFP.

Though Mizzou’s poll ranking has changed for the worse over the past couple of weeks, the results haven’t actually altered the math all that much. As things stand now, the Tigers look like they could be just fine, as far as the College Football Playoff is concerned.

Here’s why — but first, two caveats:

First, polling isn’t the same as the CFP Selection Committee’s rankings, though the latter will ultimately determine the playoff field. However, because the committee won’t release its first rankings until early November, the AP Poll is the best indication of a team’s public or national perception currently available.

Second, the first four weeks of the season are probably the least informative. Conference play has only just begun around the nation, and there haven’t been a ton of clashes between heavyweights yet. Teams, and those of us who are observers, are still figuring out who they are.

With that out of the way: Constructing a 12-team playoff field from the latest AP Poll would have Missouri snagging the last available spot.

As the top teams from each of the Power Four conferences, No. 1 Texas, No. 3 Ohio State, No. 7 Miami and No. 10 Utah would take the top four seeds and first-round byes. No. 25 Boise State would be the Group of Five representative and the 12th seed.

The seven at-large teams would be No. 2 Georgia, No. 4 Alabama, No. 5 Tennessee, No. 6 Mississippi, No. 8 Oregon, No. 9 Penn State and No. 11 Mizzou.

With that seeding, MU would play 6-seed Alabama on the road in the first round of the College Football Playoff, with the winner of that game advancing to play Miami in a neutral-site quarterfinal.

But at this point, there isn’t much value to that kind of specificity, given how seedings will change. What’s most notable for Missouri is how favorable that breakdown of teams in the bracket would be.

Having the minimum of one team each from the Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 leaves the Southeastern Conference and Big Ten to split all of the at-large spots among themselves. Currently, six SEC teams would make the playoff, compared with just three Big Ten schools.

That obviously favors a program like Mizzou that isn’t expected to play for the SEC championship but will still be among the handful of programs at the top of the conference. It still seems unlikely that the SEC would get six teams in, but five making the eventual cut does look more possible.

·¡³§±Ê±·â€™s gives the Tigers a 40.1% chance of making the CFP. That’s the 10th-highest chance of any team in the country, behind Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Ohio State, Ole Miss, Georgia, Miami, Penn State and Oregon.

And while 40.1% still sounds relatively unlikely, that’s actually up from MU’s 37% mark at the start of the season — the algorithm likes the Tigers’ odds more now than it did a month ago.

Speaking of odds, sportsbooks’ calculations show Missouri’s CFP chances are in a similar range. Fanduel has Mizzou to make the playoff at +136 ($10 bet pays out $23.60), which has implied odds of 42.37%. DraftKings is slightly more bullish at +125 ($10 pays out $22.50), or implied odds of 44.44%.

Manipulating the variables of ·¡³§±Ê±·â€™s predictor tool suggests that Missouri’s road performances will be the ones that make or break a playoff push — which sounds about right. The three games with the most influence on the Tigers’ probability are their next game, at Texas A&M on Oct. 5, then at Alabama on Oct. 26 and at South Carolina on Nov. 16.

Given Oklahoma’s unimpressive start to the season, the Gamecocks have replaced the Sooners as the third critical game for ·¡³§±Ê±·â€™s calculations.

According to the algorithm, winning just one of those three games bumps Missouri’s chances up to at least 77%, depending on which of the away games the Tigers prevail in. Of course, that relies on the assumption that MU takes care of business by winning its other games, but one result could greatly boost a CFP bid.

The Vanderbilt scare makes it tough to say Mizzou doesn’t have much to worry about, playoff-wise, but the computers would like to share their numbers in a soothing tone. If the Tigers can make that nervy finish a one-off — a la Middle Tennessee in 2023 — this season could remain securely on track for a spot in the College Football Playoff.