Tag: cfp rankings

Sad Alabama football fans tweet after dropping out of top-10 in CFP rankings

Sad Alabama football fans tweet after the Crimson Tide drop out of the top-10 in the CFP rankings.

After Alabama lost to Auburn on Saturday in the Iron Bowl, the Crimson Tide have fallen outside of the top-ten in the College Football Playoff rankings for the first time I can remember.

All November, my favorite part of the Tuesday night rankings reveal centered around angry Alabama fans voicing this displeasure of being ranked behind Georgia, which has sat at No. 4 since the initial reveal.

Now, the Tide are at No. 12, and their fans don’t really have an argument for being inside the top-ten, but that did not stop the fans from spazzing out on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/nathaneurton/status/1202042355546820608

 

 

What the College Football Playoff Committee said about Ohio State after the its penultimate set of rankings

The penultimate College Football Rankings are out. Here’s everything the College Football Playoff Committee said about Ohio State.

Ohio State stayed atop the College Football Playoff Rankings with the latest release, but there’s still plenty to discuss.

Each week, after the rankings are revealed, the College Football Playoff Committee holds a teleconference for select media members to answer questions about the discussions and process used to rank the teams into their respective slots.

We’re a part of those and we’d like to pass on what the Playoff Selection Committee Chair Rob Mullens had to say about Ohio State. So, here goes after the penultimate rankings …

On the overall comments from the selection committee on the Buckeyes:

Our next-to-final rankings are done. As you have seen, the committee ranked Ohio State as the No. 1 team in the nation, LSU as No. 2, Clemson as No. 3, and Georgia as No. 4. The top four teams did not change. There are many other changes that did take place, and I would be happy to discuss the committee’s thinking with you for all the teams that we ranked. Obviously this weekend’s conference championship games will be crucial to determining the final rankings. I, along with my fellow committee members, look forward to returning do Dallas in just a few days to watch those games and complete our work.

On how the committee measures performance on the field versus margin of victory.

Question from the media: You’ve talked before about how the committee
doesn’t incentivize margin of victory. The number one thing on the list is always performance on the field. How do you reconcile those two things? The best way to show a really strong performance on the field is to win by a lot of points. How does the committee figure that out?

ROB MULLENS: Watching how a team plays. Whether somebody has a big lead and keeps pouring it on late in the game is irrelevant. It’s really how you perform up until that point.

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On measuring teams that play in conference championship games:

Question from the media: Having gone through this the last few years, on that last set of rankings, when you have to handle teams that lost, played an extra game and lost in their conference title games, are you mindful of how far they fall relative to teams that aren’t playing that week, or is it handled pretty much the same as any other week?

ROB MULLENS: Good question.

We are very mindful because they’re all division champs. It is an honor to play in the conference championship game. So we are mindful of what they’ve accomplished during the regular season.

On the committee’s different perception of LSU and Ohio State than the traditional polls:

Question from the media: What does the committee see is the difference between Ohio State and LSU that the writers and the coaches and the polls don’t?

ROB MULLENS: Two really, really good teams, first of all. That’s what the committee sees. Ohio State now with their impressive win over Michigan on the road has four wins over top-25 teams. LSU has three very impressive wins over top-25 teams. As we’ve talked in past weeks, both really have dynamic offenses, both have good defenses. Ohio State’s is just a little ahead at this point.

On comparing resume vs. the eye test:

Question from the media:You mentioned last week the committee thought Ohio State has more of an eye test compared to LSU, which had been No. 1 the week before. This week it sounds like the résumé in terms of top-25 wins accounts for a lot. As you get closer to the end, does résumé begin to count for a little bit more in terms of where you rank these teams?

ROB MULLENS: No, it all counts. I don’t think we said last week that one thing was more than another. I think, again, we said both those teams were very good teams. Obviously we recognize the wins against ranked opponents, the overall schedule strength, as well as how they’re performing on the field, offense, defense and special teams. Two great teams.

Next … Rankings timing and Ohio State vs. LSU

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College Football Playoffs: Ohio State remains No. 1, top four unchanged

The Ohio State Buckeyes, going into the week of conference championship games, have retained the No. 1 spot in the CFP rankings.

It’s official. Ohio State is still No. 1 in the second-to-last CFP rankings.

The Ohio State Buckeyes, going into the week of conference championship games, have retained the No. 1 spot in the CFP rankings.

Ohio State, LSU, Clemson, and Georgia round out the top four. However, teams like Utah and Oklahoma, who were No. 5 and 6, still have a chance to win their conference championship and get in the top four.

Baylor, Wisconsin, Florida, and Penn State round out 7-10. That said, did you notice that Alabama, with its second loss of the season to Auburn this past weekend, has dropped out of the top ten?

Overall, Ohio State will take on Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game, and they should virtually be a lock for the College Football Playoffs regardless of Saturday’s outcome.

Their entire body of work has been unmatched. They’ve defeated Penn State, Michigan and Wisconsin, taking down the latter two by 20-plus. This Ohio State has just been absolutely dominant this season.

They’ll currently be facing No. 4 Georgia if the playoffs started today. However, if Georgia loses to LSU in the SEC Championship, Utah or Oklahoma, with a win, will likely get in.

CFP rankings revealed ahead of LSU vs Georgia

The College Football playoff rankings have been revealed ahead of Georgia football’s SEC Championship Game vs LSU.

This weekend, it’s win and you’re in for Georgia.

The Dawgs, which remained the highest ranked one-loss team in the College Football Playoff rankings since the first reveal of the season, held onto that spot as we enter conference championship weekend.

This Saturday, it will be No. 4 Georgia vs No. 2 LSU in Atlanta.

Much of the reason for Georgia’s high ranking has to due with who the Bulldogs have beaten. That includes three top-15 wins over Florida (9), Auburn (11) and Notre Dame (15).

Here is the full top-15:

1. Ohio State

2. LSU

3. Clemson

4. Georgia

5. Utah

6. Oklahoma

7. Baylor

8. Wisconsin

9. Florida

10. Penn State

11. Auburn

12. Alabama

13. Oregon

14. Michigan

15. Notre Dame

Joel Klatt snubs Georgia in college football top ten

Fox Sports’ college football analyst Joel Klatt released his top ten on Twitter ahead of Championship weekend. The College Football Playoff will still rank the top four the same in this week in all likelihood: 1. Ohio State 2. LSU 3. Clemson 4. …

Fox Sports’ college football analyst Joel Klatt released his top ten on Twitter ahead of Championship weekend. The College Football Playoff will still rank the top four the same in this week in all likelihood:

1. Ohio State

2. LSU

3. Clemson

4. Georgia

It’ll be interesting to see if the committee prefers Utah to Oklahoma. The Utes and Sooners will be fighting for the fourth and final spot if UGA falls to LSU in the SEC Championship Game.

Here’s Klatt’s top ten:

Klatt sees a gulf between the undefeated and one-loss teams and surprisingly ranks Utah over Georgia. Utah probably wouldn’t be 11-1 with Georgia’s schedule. Polls don’t matter much for the Dawgs. It’s win the SEC Championship and you’re in for Georgia.

Aside for Georgia and Utah, there aren’t many other flaws in his top ten. I’d expect the Alabama Crimson Tide to be the top ranked two loss team.

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Georgia football: CFB fan outlines nightmare playoff scenario

The College Football Playoff Committee released their top 25 last night with the Georgia Bulldogs checking in at number four. With rivalry week left in the season, fans can still put together some nightmare scenarios for the CFP Committee. This …

The College Football Playoff Committee released their top 25 last night with the Georgia Bulldogs checking in at number four. With rivalry week left in the season, fans can still put together some nightmare scenarios for the CFP Committee.

This scenario is far from a nightmare for the Georgia Bulldogs. UGA is a lock in this situation:

What four teams would you pick? I think these three are locks in this particular scenario:

1. Clemson

2. UGA

3. Minnesota

Beyond Minnesota, who’d feature wins over Wisconsin, Penn State, and Ohio State, I think LSU would get the nod over Ohio State, Utah, Alabama and Baylor. It’d depend how the conference championship went. I’m assuming each championship game is close in this scenario. LSU has slightly better wins than Ohio State. Utah and Baylor’s soft non-conference schedules comes back to bite them. LSU’s head to head win over Alabama would be too much for the Crimson Tide to overcome.

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What the CFP Selection Committee Taught Us: Back to normal

A look back at what the College Football Playoff selection committee taught us in its fourth rankings of the year.

With very limited exceptions, the College Football Playoff selection committee has been consistent over the last few years about a few things. One of those is the fact that, especially as we get later in the season, Power 5 teams are ranked in order of number of losses.

So far this year, that wasn’t true. The selection committee consistently had Baylor ranked below several two-loss teams. The reason given by Rob Mullens was that the Bears played an atrocious nonconference schedule. On top of that, I am sure that Baylor consistently barely beating weaker teams was also a factor. Well, after blowing out Texas, the committee finally put Baylor where it belongs–as the lowest-ranked one-loss Power 5 team.

There is a decent case to be made that Baylor belongs behind Florida or Penn State. The SOS is still terrible, and the advanced metrics aren’t particularly kind to the Bears either. Remember, though, the only time the CFP committee has ever had a two-loss P5 team ahead of a one-loss P5 team at the end of the season was in 2015–when 11-2 Pac 12 champion Stanford, who played the toughest schedule in the country, finished ahead of 11-1 Ohio State, who only had one win against a quality team.

The only exceptions to this rule right now are Auburn being ahead of Notre Dame, and Iowa State and USC (with four losses each) are ahead of three-loss Virginia Tech and unranked Virginia. Seeing as the resumes of both Virginia teams are incredibly weak, it makes perfect sense.

Ohio State vs LSU at the top

In an ultimately meaningless decision, the selection committee moved Ohio State back over LSU. The Tigers still have slightly higher-quality wins and a slightly better resume, but the committee felt that Ohio State was more of a “complete team,” and that LSU’s struggles on defense sometimes are why the Buckeyes are in front right now.

Remember, though, this still doesn’t mean anything. If the Ohio State defense struggles against Michigan (or in the Big Ten Championship Game), the committee can just always flip the teams again. Ohio State’s two remaining games are tougher than LSU’s, but not by much. A win over Georgia in the SEC Championship Game could easily bump LSU back over the Buckeyes, especially a convincing one.

This will only matter when determining the semifinal opponents. Everyone assumes that Clemson will be No. 3 in two weeks, but crazier things have happened. Clemson can lose a game–or LSU can. Or the committee could be impressed enough with a 12-1 Oklahoma team with four ranked wins to jump the Sooners over a Clemson team with, at most, one ranked win. (That seems unlikely, but we’ve definitely seen stranger things happen.)

The committee will make its final decisions a week from Sunday. We look at the rankings until then to try to see what the voters value and how they look at teams. But picking who is No. 1 between the two far-and-away best resumes in the country is just splitting hairs. The hairs will continue to be split until the end of the season, and it could easily go either way.

Change at the bottom

The committee still seems to be enamored with Appalachian State. The Mountaineers are having a great year, but they have no wins of any note. The best win is over South Carolina (or maybe Louisiana). Compare that, for example, to a Navy team that has beaten SMU and Air Force, and only lost to ranked Memphis and Notre Dame.

With SMU’s loss, Virginia Tech did manage to jump into the rankings, and over Appalachian State on top of that. This marks only the second time this year that an ACC team other than Clemson has been ranked.

Other than that, the only other changes were Penn State (a little) and Oregon (a lot) dropping for picking up losses. The committee claims to start with a blank sheet and re-rank teams every week. But with resumes constantly changing, you would think that we would see at least one team shift position other than due to losses. Maybe the committee is honestly coming to the exact same conclusions every week, but it definitely looks like the voters are starting based on what they had last week, not from scratch.

Lastly, it is noteworthy that Oregon landed right in front of Auburn. Auburn does have three losses, but all are to teams ranked ahead of Oregon. Remember, Auburn beat Oregon in Week 1. Rob Mullens isn’t in the room for Oregon discussions, and no one asked for or received an explanation of this ranking. It is very interesting, though, that for a committee that mostly prioritizes head-to-head, Auburn and Oregon were directly compared and the voters chose the team that lost their head-to-head matchup.

Former UGA football WR Mecole Hardman tweets thoughts on CFP rankings

Former Georgia football wide receiver Mecole Hardman gave his thoughts on the newest CFP rankings and added an interesting twist.

Former Georgia wide receiver Mecole Hardman, now having a sensational rookie season with the Kansas City Chiefs, gave his thoughts on the most recent College Football Playoff rankings Tuesday.

After beating Penn State, the Buckeyes jumped LSU and claimed the No. 1 spot in the rankings. College football fans are split on the committee’s decision, and Hardman is one who disagrees with the order.

Yeah, the OSU win was nice, but LSU has been doing that all season.

Here are Hardman’s thoughts on the rankings.

What the College Football Committee said about Ohio State after the 4th set of CFP Rankings

Ohio State is the new No. 1 team according to the fourth release of the College Football Playoff Rankings. Here’s what the committee said.

The latest College Football Playoff Rankings are out and there’s a new No. 1, your Ohio State Buckeyes. It’s the second time OSU has topped the poll after it was the top ranked team during the first release of 2019.

Each week, after the rankings are revealed, the CFP Committee holds a teleconference for select media members to answer questions about the discussions and process used to rank the teams into their respective slots.

We’re a part of those and we’d like to pass on what the Playoff Selection Committee Chair Rob Mullens had to say about Ohio State. So, here goes after the fourth release …

On the overall comments from the selection committee on the Buckeyes:

Ohio State has been a complete team all year, and their win against Penn State impressed the committee. They are ranked No. 1.

On what tells the committee Ohio State is a more complete team than anyone else:

Question from the media: You mentioned a couple times now about the
idea of the complete team that the committee sees Ohio State being. In what way is the committee sort of quantifying that? What is telling this committee
that Ohio State is a more complete team than anyone else?

ROB MULLENS: Competing consistently and really highly ranked on offense and defense, performing at a high level in both.

Follow Up Question: Do you guys correct that for strength of schedule, too? Is it relative to who they played? How are you guys measuring that?

ROB MULLENS: Sure, we see it all. We see the full resume, and there are relative statistics, as well.

Another Follow Up Question: Just to follow up on that, what was the difference, though, this week about Ohio State that put them over LSU because you have said that they’ve been a complete team all season.

ROB MULLENS: They have, but they added their third win against a ranked opponent over Penn State, who we have ranked No. 10.

On comparing teams despite the difference in strength of schedules:

Question from the media: You’ve got a few comparisons throughout the poll of teams that clearly don’t have as many good wins, top-25 wins as somebody that’s fairly comparable, but they’ve been much more dominant
than the teams that do have those quality wins. How do you gauge and judge that dichotomy, where you’ve got a team that’s played maybe a better schedule but has not been as dominant to the team that maybe didn’t?

ROB MULLENS: Well, it’s never just one factor. That’s the beauty of having 13 football experts in the room who watch the games, who study it. That’s exactly the kind of conversation that you would have. Who are the wins against, who are the losses against, and then what do you see when you watch the games.

On the committee’s evaluation of offense vs. defense:

Question from the media:You were just speaking about complete teams and using offensive and defensive statistics as a way to measure that. I was just wondering, does the committee look at offensive statistics and defensive statistics any differently? Do they favor one or the other? Do they view if a team has a weaker defense more favorably than a weaker offense, if you follow what I’m saying?

ROB MULLENS: No, we look at them all equally. And again, that’s just one piece of what we look at. We do watch the games. We see the full resume. We understand who they’ve played, the results. That’s just one piece of it. But no, we don’t favor one or the other.

On how the committee views rivalry games:

Question from the media: How does the committee view rivalry games? Do
you look at them through the same contest that you would just a regular game or do you take that into account when you’re grading a team based on performance in one of those?

ROB MULLENS: No, we look at it as a regular game. Obviously we understand where it’s played, whether it’s home or on the road.

Next … Rivalry games and Ohio State vs. LSU

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College Football Playoff Rankings Reaction: 5 Things We Learned. Utah vs. Big 12 Fight

Five reactions and what we learned from the fourth rankings from the College Football Playoff committee.  

[jwplayer PkCtjTd4-boEY74VG]

Five reactions and what we learned from the fourth rankings from the College Football Playoff committee.  

– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

– Big 12 vs. Utah
– The known unknown is …
– Penn State love
– What it all really means

5. Rapid-Fire First Reaction To Latest College Football Playoff Rankings

What’s with the refusal to like what Virginia Tech is doing? Yeah, it got wiped out by Duke 45-10 at the end of September, but that was before making a quarterback change – the committee is supposed to notice things like that – and before the team went on a run.

The Hokies have won six of their last seven game, with the one loss coming on the final drive against Notre Dame on the road. They whacked Wake Forest, and over the last two weeks beat Georgia Tech and Pitt by a combined score of 63-0. This team should be a whole lot higher than 24.

Virginia Tech being ranked makes things easier. Now we know that the Virginia-VT winner – and Coastal Division champ – will be the easy pick to go to the Orange Bowl if it loses to Clemson.

Ohio State moving up to No. 1 doesn’t matter all that much, unless it’s the committee’s way of providing a time to get used to the idea of LSU not being in the top spot. Why does this matter?

The College Football Playoff committee REALLY and truly just wants to get it right, and there isn’t some hidden agenda other than simply wanting to create the best four-team tournament possible. With that said, by moving up the Buckeyes now, it’s setting it up to avoid a possible LSU/Alabama rematch in the semifinal.

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Wisconsin at 12, Michigan at 13. Thank you, College Football Playoff committee, for being the only rankings to acknowledge the Badger blowout win over the Wolverines.

Nah, Oregon’s drop to 14 isn’t going to matter as much as you might think. Utah is going to have to dominate the Pac-12 Championship no matter what and get in as a 12-1 Power Five champ. After this weekend, Oregon will move up to around 11.

18 Memphis and 19 Cincinnati play each other, and they could play the week after in the American Athletic Conference championship. No. 20 Boise State has a better shot than you think of being the Group of Five champion going to the Cotton Bowl.

– Big 12 vs. Utah
– The known unknown is …
– Penn State love
– What it all really means

NEXT: Big 12 vs. Utah

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