The College Football Playoff rankings dropped on Tuesday night with LSU coming in at No. 22. The Tigers fell seven spots after a 42-13 drubbing from Alabama.
Not much attention is paid to the bottom half of the rankings, and for good reason. What LSU is ranked doesn’t matter. The Tigers aren’t in the conversation for an at-large bid and must win the conference to make the playoffs.
Still, something jumped out about where LSU was ranked. The Tigers were one spot behind South Carolina — a team LSU beat in September. Head-to-head has always been a critical part of the ranking criteria. With South Carolina and LSU at 6-3, you’d think that meeting was the determining factor.
If you look at common opponents, there’s not much to separate the squads either. South Carolina beat Texas A&M, a team LSU lost to. But LSU beat Ole Miss and that same Ole Miss team laid it on South Carolina.
According to ESPN’s FPI, LSU’s strength of record is 15th and South Carolina is 17th. LSU’s strength of schedule is 6th and South Carolina is 8th. Again, not much there to differentiate the teams.
The area where South Carolina does have LSU beat is scoring margin. On average, South Carolina is +12.5 and LSU is +3.5. That’s a sizeable difference given the similar strength of schedule.
But again, if we’re ignoring head-to-head, what is the point of playing the games? This one doesn’t matter and we aren’t going to get hung up on the No. 21 and No. 22 ranked teams in the country, but it shows an inconsistency within the rankings. If these teams did have a serious shot at at-large bids, it would matter. The committee needs to be more consistent across the board.