With the latest College Football Playoff rankings released there were a lot of puzzling moves which leads to the question, what’s wrong with the committee?
Another College Football Playoff poll, another week-long discussion about the overrated teams, teams not getting enough love, and the inconsistencies shown by the committee.
Last week, the committee did an excellent job of explaining their criteria, and were pretty spot on for the most part with their rankings. This week, things don’t seem to match up in accordance to what the committee looks for in a teams entirety, and that leaves me thinking that there are many glaring inconsistencies in this weeks poll with the committee.
So here we go.
Wisconsin is currently ranked 25th in the nation, respectable for a two loss team. But look at those two losses. They lost to Alabama in week one of the season, on a “neutral” site, and Alabama is being viewed as the No. 2 team in the country. Their other loss? Iowa, in a 10-6 slugfest, a game that Wisconsin really gave away.
And now, the committee is saying Iowa is the No. 5 team in the nation. If both of Wisconsin’s losses are to top 5 teams, why are they only sitting at No. 25, especially considering the committee takes into account strength of schedule, analyzing a team’s losses.
Now, that brings up the next inconsistency, which applies to Baylor, Iowa and Ohio State. All of their strength of schedules are outside the top 50; Baylor is 51st, Ohio State at 56th, and Iowa at 57th. Meanwhile you look at the other top 10 teams, and they’re all inside the top 25 in terms of strength of schedule, with some in the top 10, including Alabama (1), LSU (4), Notre Dame (5), and Clemson (9).
Ohio State will have their schedule beefed up, having to deal with Michigan State and Michigan to end the season. Iowa? They’ll go without playing Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan and Penn State, the top four teams in the Big 10 East. And as for Baylor, they will their fair share of tough games to prove that they deserve to be in the playoffs, despite not playing in a conference championship game.
But for now, they, as well as Ohio State, shouldn’t be have the advantage of their preseason rankings, when there are teams with much better resumes and performances this season. They’ll have time to prove themselves, and they will, but the College Football Playoff committee needs to set the precedent for the following weeks, and show the teams what they truly value most.
Perhaps one of the more mind-boggling facts to wrap your mind around is the teams that are being dropped in the rankings. Both TCU and LSU lost to top 10 teams, and both dropped 7 spots in the rankings. LSU to No. 9, and TCU all the way down to No. 15. Now, those losses were not the closest, but their loss is still top a top 10 team.
Meanwhile, a team like Michigan State losses to a 3-6 Nebraska team, albeit on what some consider a controversial play. With their loss, they only dropped six spots, to No. 13, now two spots ahead of TCU. The CFP committee also says they take into account extraordinary or “lucky” plays, which would make you think that they took the Michigan botched punt was taken into account for Michigan State’s win as well, which would drop them maybe an extra spot or two.
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What is really rotten about the polls this time of year, is that the committee doesn’t take into consideration when your loss comes. Stanford got their loss out of the way early in the season, and are now finally sitting inside the top 10. But when you look at TCU, a team that took their first loss of the season in Week 9, and to see they drop to No. 15 essentially takes them out of the playoff conversation, when that might be one of the best losses for a one-loss team can have.
Everything will shake itself out in the next few weeks. With Ohio State having to play both Michigan and Michigan State, TCU, Baylor, Oklahoma State, and Oklahoma all battling it out, and even Stanford and Notre Dame having to square off. And that doesn’t even bring to light the conference championship games ahead. These last three weeks of the regular season are about to be wild.
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