This is a strange year to be certain, but the latest College Football Playoff ranking, which came out on Tuesday, reinforces something that’s sadly true every year: Only a select group of teams every year actually have a chance to make the playoff and play for a national title.
Two undefeated teams, Cincinnati and Coastal Carolina, are nowhere near the top four in the rankings this week despite remaining undefeated. Cincinnati, who didn’t play this week, dropped to 9, and is now trailing Iowa State, Georgia, and Florida, who just blew a game to a bad LSU team thanks to a shoe toss. All three of Iowa State, Georgia, and Florida have two losses.
Coastal Carolina sits at 12th. The school needed a late touchdown to beat Troy and remain undefeated, but apparently only winning by a touchdown isn’t enough to even crack the top 10.
Cynics will say that the CFP is loading the dice here. The members of the committee don’t want to rank a team like Cincinnati too high, and especially don’t want to rank Cincy ahead of Florida, because if Florida beats Alabama in the SEC championship game, then the committee might be forced to [dramatic music plays] not have an SEC team in the playoff.
I have no idea if the members are that cynical. I pray they’re not, and honestly — Alabama is probably going to the playoff whether the Crimson Tide win or lose.
What I do know is this: At this point, if you’re not in a Power 5 conference, you’re playing in a different league. You quite simply cannot win.
It doesn’t matter how perfect you are, how badly you beat your opponents, how many big wins against Top-25 schools you can possibly record — you can’t get in. The members of the committee will hit you with the “eye test” argument, shrug their shoulders, and call it a day.
There's no need for actual game results, advanced metrics or selection criteria if you just decide the teams you like before you start the season and never change your mind.
— Nicole Auerbach 😷 (@NicoleAuerbach) December 16, 2020
And by the “eye test” they may be right! Those P5 schools may be more talented. But doesn’t a team like Cincinnati deserve the chance to find out? Iowa State, Florida and Georgia have had their chances against these big schools, and they lost. It’s been settled.
This is true every year, of course. UCF has showed us time and time again it doesn’t matter how perfect you are, you’re not getting in. The latest rankings during this strange year only reinforce it.
There are ways to fix this. The easiest: Expand the playoff to eight teams and let a couple mid-majors in to see what happens. It’s one extra round of games, and, you know, would make it so half of the DI schools and their fan bases feels like there’s actually point to any of this.
Otherwise, the message the committee is sending to these schools is: It doesn’t matter how perfect you are, you don’t have a chance.
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