Don’t overreact to Oklahoma
Everyone seems to think, at the moment, that Oklahoma or Baylor needs a lot of help to get into the top four. However, it’s still too early to say that. The committee has very clearly not been enamored with the top Big 12 teams, and understandably so. This committee seems to love blowouts, and Oklahoma and Baylor have both struggled to blow teams out. There is plenty of time left in the season for those teams to make good impressions. As I said above, the committee clearly is sticking with its previous rankings, but nothing is obviously set in stone.
There is some bad news for the Big 12, though, as both Texas and Kansas State fell out of the rankings. Iowa State moved in, and has a chance to stay there, but Texas won’t get back in unless it beats Baylor, so the Longhorns won’t be a quality win moving forward without seriously hurting the Big 12 overall. Oklahoma State might stay ranked, even with a loss to Oklahoma, but the Big 12 should start to be concerned that there will only be three ranked teams for the conference.
Oregon and Utah
The Ducks and the Utes are an interesting case for the selection committee. Utah has been winning by a consistently better margin than the Ducks, which the committee seems to appreciate. On the other hand, Oregon has a much better strength of schedule and has beaten the team that beat Utah. The committee has gone with that over any sort of “game control” metric so far. And, ultimately, it won’t really matter. If either of those teams lose, it will be out of the Playoff conversation. If both win out, then they will meet in the Pac 12 Championship Game, and the winner will obviously be ranked ahead.
It is noteworthy how high these two teams are ranked. They are impressive, sure, but on pure resume there is no reason for them to be ahead of Penn State. There is little reason for them to be ahead of Oklahoma. It will likely work its way out eventually, but the committee hasn’t given any indication why those two teams are ahead of the other teams.