An interesting debate has stirred up in the world of college football over the last 24 hours that has accompanied the release of the latest College Football Playoff rankings. That debate questions which one-loss team in the nation should be ranked the highest: the Oregon Ducks, the Texas Longhorns, or the Alabama Crimson Tide.
All have fair arguments. Neither Texas nor Alabama has looked better than the Ducks over the past month; neither Oregon nor Alabama has a better win than Texas this year (vs. No. 8 Alabama); neither Oregon nor Texas have a better loss than Alabama this year (vs. No. 7 Texas).
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This is where you get the “eye test” supporters clashing with the “strength of record” supporters, and it leaves us with a lot of people yelling at each other.
Ultimately, all will likely play itself out over the next few weeks, with some of the top teams in the nation playing each other in the final games of the regular season, and then a round of conference championships that is sure to offer some clarity. In the meantime, though, we often like to go back and look at how everyone would have been ranked in the BCS era, which precluded the College Football Playoff.
It was a time when there wasn’t a committee of voters who decided the final rankings each year, but rather a set of computers that calculated the final rankings based on numerous formulas that often led to convolution and controversy.
Just for our entertainment, we wanted to look at how those BCS standings would look if there in practice today. Take a look: