The College Football Playoff Committee Should Be Ashamed
The first College Football Playoff rankings have so many flaws that will hopefully be addressed.
Cooper Kanthak
CBB, CFB, NFL, NBA
The College Football Playoff Committee revealed its first batch of playoff rankings last night, and it was head-scratching, to say the least. Ultimately, these rankings won’t matter much because the play on the field will sort everything out, but we can still react and call out the committee's questionable decisions.
The first glaring issue I had was a two-loss Alabama at #5. They have a win against #6 Kentucky, but what else do they have to lean on? Their win over Mississippi State was technically a ranked win at the time, but since then the Bulldogs have fallen off a cliff after Kamario Taylor got hurt.
Alabama and Tennessee played two weeks ago, and the Volunteers smoked them at home, yet they are ranked #13 with only one loss. Texas at #7 has a far better resume than Alabama, yet they sit two spots behind them. The committee is propping up #21 South Carolina and giving them a ranking so that other SEC teams can benefit from defeating them.
Another problem is that the committee isn't factoring head-to-head matchups at all. Indiana is #4 and lost to Ohio State, which is eight spots behind the Hoosiers. Eight. USC is eight spots behind the Buckeyes at #20, right after the Trojans defeated Ohio State 30-18 last Saturday. It seems like the committee is picking and choosing their different qualifications to fit their narratives.
Notre Dame is ranked at #11 despite having just one loss. The Irish don’t have a signature win, but neither does Indiana, which is seven spots ahead of Notre Dame. If the Irish suffer their second loss this weekend against #1 Miami, their strength of schedule is so poor that they won’t sniff a playoff berth.
Undefeated UCLA is at #8 behind Texas, which has two losses to an unranked Oklahoma, and #24 Florida, which is barely hanging onto that ranking (SEC bias). The SEC is getting the benefit of the doubt in their wins but not their losses. Rankings like South Carolina and Florida have boosted Alabama and Kentucky.
Wake Forest’ lone loss came to the #1 team in the country. They also have a 54-point win over Stanford. A 44-point win over Virginia. Took down Cal by 34 points on the road and defeated NC State by 24 points on the road. They beat Louisville by the same margin that Ole Miss did. The Demon Deacons are winning their games by an average of 26.1 points, but since they don’t have a prestigious logo on their helmets, their success doesn’t stack up to other teams, so the committee puts them at #16.
I think we can all agree that this committee sucks at their job. They are inconsistent with their reasoning when they place teams. Hopefully things will figure themselves out in the coming weeks, but I don’t have much faith in a group of individuals who clearly don’t know what they are doing.
