How much does recruiting impact who makes the College Football Playoff?

Evaluating the 2016 College Football Playoff against recruiting figures

After Alabama and Clemson tore through Michigan State and Oklahoma respectively, they played an instant classic as Alabama won 45-40 in the second College Football Playoff championship game. A year later, the Tide and Tigers found themselves on a collision course yet again for a title game rematch.

This time Alabama ran undefeated through the regular season to claim the top spot, while Clemson sported a 43-42 loss at home to an 8-4 Pittsburgh team. Once again the questions were raised around the last two spots, and this time the committee rewarded a combination of superior talent and teams with fewer losses.

2016 provided the selection committee with the headache they avoided in 2015 — more than one Power Five champion with two losses coupled with a non-champion sporting only one defeat. Where previously a definitive conference championship served as the benchmark for entry, this time fewer losses provided the justification to slot in the program loaded with superior talent.

As one of only three Power Five teams with one loss or less, Washington was slotted into the No 4 spot to serve as the sacrificial lamb for the Crimson Tide. While there was plenty of consternation about the inclusion of a Huskies team that lost at home by two touchdowns to USC, it was hardly a shocking call given the precedent set by including one-loss conference champions in previous editions. Putting the Huskies in the No. 4 spot was hardly shocking either, given overall perceptions about the Pac-12 relative to other Power Five leagues during a 2016 season that marked the beginning of a downturn for the league.

Through the first seven years of the College Football Playoff, Washington remains the qualifier with the lowest five-year recruiting average against the median. The average player on the Huskies in their 24-7 loss to Alabama was only graded 3.78 points higher than the median — and, perhaps more notably, was graded 7.61 points lower than the average player on the Crimson Tide.

The bigger question came down to the No. 3 spot in the rankings and the coveted spot opposite Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl. Like the previous season, Ohio State lost to the eventual Big Ten champion for their only loss of the year. 10-2 Penn State went on to defeat 10-2 Wisconsin in Indianapolis to take the league crown, but an early loss to unranked Pittsburgh and a blowout defeat at Michigan doomed the Nittany Lions. So too did a recruiting average against the median more than four points lower than that of the Buckeyes team they vanquished.

Also in the mix was a two-loss Oklahoma team with a recruiting profile that fell more closely within the parameters of College Football Playoff programs. Unfortunately for the Sooners, they too suffered some unforgivable defeats — the first to Houston, the top Group of Five team, and the latter to the Buckeyes team they were up against for the last spot. Both losses came by double digits, the first on neutral turf and the latter in Norman.

Beyond the usual suspects, other teams with recruiting averages falling within the expected values of College Football Playoff qualifiers simply suffered too many losses. USC and Florida State dropped three games each. LSU lost four times, and lost another game to Hurricane Matthew. Georgia lost four SEC games and their rivalry game against Georgia Tech to finish the regular season 7-5 and in a three-way tie for a mediocre third in the SEC East. And Notre Dame, with the sixth-best recruiting average at 8.51 points above the median, limped to a 4-8 finish that included seven defeats by seven points or less.

That left Alabama and Clemson to play another instant classic, this time with the Tigers claiming their first national championship in three and a half decades. This Clemson roster, featuring Heisman winner Deshaun Watson, won despite the lowest average recruiting rating relative to the median of any College Football Playoff winner to date.