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.
