College Football Playoff Rankings Reaction, Top 10
10. Notre Dame Fighting Irish 7-1
I’m not going to lie – I’m a little stunned. I thought the committee would’ve fallen in deep love with a schedule full of solid wins. The Irish will keep moving up with wins, but there are two massive problems. 1) There’s a hard Cincinnati ceiling they won’t be able to push through, and 2) if Cincinnati loses, that makes the one loss look worse.
9. Wake Forest Demon Deacons 8-0
Okay … fine … cool. Where’s the good win? At Virginia? That’s okay. At Syracuse? At Army? There’s not a whole lot of meat on this bone, but the Style Points Don’t Count thing doesn’t apply here, because the committee apparently loves all the big numbers and big offensive production.
8. Oklahoma Sooners 9-0
WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. Okay, interesting. Give credit to the Grapevine 13 for watching the games, but it’s a bit stunning that the lone 9-0 team trending up with Caleb Williams didn’t get higher than this.
It doesn’t matter. 13-0 Big 12 Champion Oklahoma is 100% absolutely going to get into the CFP. 12-1 Big 12 Champion Oklahoma is 92ish% absolutely going to get into the CFP. However, it should’ve been ranked ahead of …
7. Michigan Wolverines 7-1
Again, this is a new look for the College Football Playoff committee. It normally doesn’t give credit for a good loss on the road, but it does that here – and really does that with the No. 2. It’s fine, but is beating Wisconsin on the road really that great? It’s nitpicking, but the Wolverines probably should’ve been around 10.
6. Cincinnati Bearcats 8-0
The College Football Playoff committee really, really, really doesn’t like Group of Five schedules. More than that – and this was said by chairman Gary Barta – the mediocre performances against bad Navy and Tulane teams mattered.
One key thing here – no, it’s not as simple as Cincinnati moving up if teams in the top five lose. It’s not getting in if there are four Power Five conference champions with at most one loss, or if Alabama goes 12-1.
5. Ohio State Buckeyes 7-1
It’s SO interesting how the committee played this. It obviously wanted to rank Ohio State way high considering how it played over the last six weeks – and, considering it really seemed to like Minnesota, who the Buckeyes beat 45-31 – but it had to do the right thing and put it behind …