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.