College football dream tournament: It’s Vince Young vs. 1945 Army in the finals

Three games left in a Dream Tournament that has annoyed Nebraska, Miami, and USC fans but made Texas fans pretty happy.

• The Draw
• Day 1 (first round)
• Day 2 (first round)
• Day 3 (second round)
• Day 4 (second round)
• Day 5 (third round)
• Day 6 (third round)
• Round of 16
• Quarterfinals

Once more, here’s background on what exactly you’re looking at right now.

1. We’re going to pit national champions from the last 128 years against each other. In the many instances in which more than one team claims a title from a given year, I’ll use Estimated S&P+ to determine the participant — the highest-rated team gets in.

2. We’ll break them up into four ‘regions’ based on the year. Teams from 1889-1920 go in one region, from 1921-52 in another, from 1953-84 in another, and 1985-2016 in another.

3. Within each ‘region,’ we’ll seed the teams based on Estimated S&P+.

4. To simulate each game, we’ll determine win probability based on each team’s Estimated S&P+ rating, then use a random number generator to determine the winner.

Despite quite a few exciting upsets, we still ended up with a 1-seed and two 2-seeds in the Final Four. Such is life with a single-elimination tournament.

On to the semis? Do we have any upsets?

• (1) 1945 Army (win prob: 76.1%) def. (2) 1908 LSU

Not yet! Maybe the most perfect team ever crafted is so, so much better than the rest of the field.

This team was basically the 100th percentile of college football, but in a single-elimination tournament, that doesn’t guarantee victory. The 1908 LSU team still had a 24 percent chance of winning, basically the same odds of rolling two dice and getting either a 2, 7, or 12. The roll was not a 2, 7, or 12 here, however.

• (2) 2005 Texas (win prob: 63.8%) def. (18) 1973 Alabama

The Final Four is upset-free so far. Bear Bryant’s salty, improving ‘73 Tide couldn’t contain Vince Young and company.

Your finals: