With two weeks left in the regular season, the playoff picture is coming into focus. At this point, the top six teams in the rankings seem like near locks. The ACC and the Group of 5 will supply champions, too, whether the Big Ten likes it or not. The winner of a Week 13 showdown between USC and Oregon should be on track for a bid, and it’s hard to imagine, at this point, that Notre Dame is left out, given its No. 9 ranking with just lowly Syracuse and Stanford left on the schedule.
Add it all up, and that’s 10 of the 12 playoff spots already written in — well, if not in ink, at least a really dark pencil.
That leaves the teams still lurking on the periphery — Alabama, Oklahoma, Utah, Vanderbilt, BYU and Miami, chief among them — hoping each week that the committee will dig deep, focus on their strengths, set aside the occasional hiccups and value their ever-evolving résumés.
And each week, the committee just updates last week’s rankings with a few small tweaks and is back at the airport in time to grab a Cinnabon before their flight.
So, yes, there are some nerves, some frustration, and a good bit of anger as we head toward the finish line of the 2025 season.
Georgia, No. 14 Vanderbilt, No. 20 Tennessee and No. 22 Missouri.
Notre Dame has beaten … well, only No. 15 USC.
And Oregon has a big win against … sorry, it just says «Error 404: Page Not Found.»
And yet, the Tide check in at No. 10 this week, barely on the fringe of the playoff, behind both the Ducks and the Irish.
Why? Because Alabama had the temerity to lose a game last week by two points — a game in which it missed a field goal attempt on a controversial tipped ball, nearly doubled Oklahoma’s yardage, and, based on net success rates, was clearly the unluckiest team in the country.
📊🏈DID WE REALLY GET BEAT THAT BAD?
NET SUCCESS RATES IN WEEK 12By Request:
FIRST HALF NET SUCCESS RATE: South Carolina +.168
SECOND HALF NET SUCCESS RATE: Texas A&M +.391 pic.twitter.com/x1JWyTNlpS— parker fleming (@statsowar) November 17, 2025
Now, way back when we first introduced the idea of the selection committee in 2014, one of the big differentiations from more traditional rankings, like the AP poll, was that this new group would view each week with fresh eyes. Unlike those lazy AP voters or whichever intern drew the short straw and had to submit a coach’s ballot for the Coaches Poll, the committee wouldn’t simply take last week’s rankings and adjust based on who won or lost their most recent games. The underlying data changed each week, so the committee was obliged to reevaluate, too. Teams lost games when they played well and won games when they played poorly. What once seemed like a big win (Penn State?) now looks less impressive, and what once felt like a bad loss (SMU?) is an excusable gap on the résumé. The committee, in its infinite wisdom, would account for all that by viewing each set of rankings as a wholly new endeavor.
Twelve years later, this committee seems to have decided that’s way too much effort and seems to have adopted the old AP poll process.
Alabama lost. It must be punished, and dropping six spots in the rankings is the rough equivalent of the pilot at ATL explaining it’ll just be another 20 minutes or so before a gate opens up. Everyone knows it’s not true, but the hope is the number seems reasonable enough to avoid anyone getting too upset.
Well, that kind of treatment might be OK for the likes of Miami or Virginia, but this is Alabama we’re talking about. Put some respect on the Tide’s name. Their five wins vs. SP+ top-40 opponents is more than anyone except Texas A&M. Their four wins vs. ranked foes is more than Ole Miss, Oregon and Notre Dame combined. They’ve beaten the No. 4 team in the country head-to-head — arguably the best win for any team this season.
And yet, here we are, treating Alabama as if it has been playing an ACC schedule this whole time. (Never mind that the Tide lost to an ACC team. The committee has given Week 1 the «Eternal Sunshine» treatment. Sorry, Miami.)
The whole point of the committee — the reason we’re not using computers or the AP poll or letting that manatee at Sea World who always picks the winner of the Holiday Bowl decide on the playoff teams — is so there’s some nuance to this process.
Alabama at No. 10 shows there’s no context being applied. Take last week’s rankings. Cut and paste and drop anyone who lost six spots. Now no one on the committee has to worry about missing a dinner reservation on a Tuesday night.
Two weeks ago, Memphis was the committee’s favored Group of 5 team. The Tigers promptly lost to Tulane (and again to East Carolina last week.)
Last week, the nod went to South Florida. The Bulls then immediately lost to Navy.
This week, the committee had a chance to move away from courting the American and expand its horizons. It didn’t.
1 Related
The case for Tulane is pretty simple. The Green Wave has a Power 4 win. Sure, it’s against Duke, a team that also lost to UConn, but it’s a Power 4 win nevertheless. Tulane also beat Memphis and East Carolina. That’s rarified air, shared only with the likes of UAB and NC State. This is a team with a real résumé.
But the thing is, James Madison didn’t choose its schedule. It faces the teams in its league, and in 2025, the Sun Belt isn’t as good.
So what? While Tulane has struggled with the likes of Army and South Alabama, JMU has beaten its seven conference foes by an average of 24 points. Of JMU’s nine wins, only Georgia State came by fewer than 10 points. In the past month, the Dukes have won all their four games by a combined score of 208-80. No, they haven’t played great competition, but they’re dominating the teams they do face. Quality of wins is a metric teams control. Strength of schedule is not.
3. Open dates
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Two weeks ago, Georgia Tech took the week off, presumably, because the Ramblin’ Wreck was stuck in traffic on I-75, and somehow, despite being the rare ACC team that didn’t embarrass itself in Week 11, the Yellow Jackets were leapfrogged by Miami.
Last week, it was Vanderbilt that had a week off, presumably to scrub glitter and hot sauce off the field after renting out FirstBank Stadium to a bachelorette party. What happened? The Commodores, too, were jumped in the rankings by Miami.
So, to sum up: Miami’s head-to-head win over Notre Dame did not matter to the committee, but compared the Canes to a blank void, and the committee slightly favors Miami.
Let’s do a quick blind résumé here.
Team A: Best win vs. SP+ No. 20, next vs. No. 30. Losses to SP+ Nos. 12 and 13 by a combined 29 points. No. 14 strength of record.
Team B: Best win vs. SP+ No. 37, next vs. No. 51. Losses to SP+ Nos. 3 and 17 by a combined 27 points. No. 18 strength of record.
Who’s better?
Both have understandable losses. Neither has an elite win, but clearly Team A has beaten better teams. Neither exactly looks like playoff material at the moment, but Team A, for what it’s worth, still has a monster opportunity on the horizon.
OK, you’ve probably guessed Team A is Michigan. Team B is Utah, ranked six spots higher.
If anything, Utah’s spot in the rankings is confounding — ahead of Miami, USC and Vanderbilt, all with markedly better wins. But the frustration for the Wolverines is that they have a shot to knock off Ohio State again this year, and even if they do, the end result probably will look just like 2024. The Buckeyes will still cruise into the playoff, and Michigan — despite being far better than a year ago — doesn’t have much of a shot.
If Michigan was hovering around the No. 12 or 13 spot, there’s a path — with a win over Ohio State — to a playoff berth. At 18? Not likely, even if they beat the Buckeyes by 40. Instead, all they’ll be left with is a trip to the Music City Bowl and a long offseason, sipping on the tears of Ohio State fans everywhere. It’s hardly fair.
5. The committee
We’ll never quite know what’s discussed in the committee room, but this week, we imagine, as the hours ticked by, someone spoke up and said, «Well, we have to include Virginia, so put them at 19, and then let’s just draw names from a hat.»
Seriously, look at the bottom of these rankings. Who’s good? Tennessee? The Vols’ best win was a loss to Georgia. Illinois? Indiana beat Illinois so badly that the descendants of the 1916 Cumberland team sent condolence cards. Houston was housed by West Virginia less than three weeks ago. Missouri is like «Criminal Minds.» The Tigers pop up on the rankings, and your first thought is … «That’s still on? Didn’t Beau Pribula retire like six years ago?»
So, after spending so much time berating the committee for its limitless lack of creativity and nuance, it’s only fair we include those folks in the Anger Index. Finding 25 teams worth ranking is no easy task. But you know what they call the person who graduates last in medical school? Doctor.
Also angry this week: East Carolina Pirates (7-3, unranked), North Texas Mean Green (9-1, unranked), Notre Dame Fighting Irish (8-2, No. 9 and really wanting everyone to stop mentioning that Miami game), Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (9-1, No. 16 behind seven two-loss teams), Lane Kiffin’s realtor. Make up your mind already, Lane!
