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David Hale
The first College Football Playoff rankings came out five weeks ago. They looked a lot like tonight’s rankings.
We’ve had precious little movement at the top, with a few teams jockeying up or down a slot, but effectively no seismic shifts in the landscape. BYU and Texas are the only two teams that were projected in the field in the committee’s first ranking that aren’t now — and they’re just barely on the outside with reasonable arguments for inclusion.
Teams ranked in the top 18 by the committee this year are a combined 55-9, with six of those losses coming to other teams ranked in the top 18. All three outliers are courtesy of — you guessed it — the ACC (Louisville to Cal, Virginia to Wake and Georgia Tech to Pitt).
That’s a massive anomaly. Last year, top-18 teams at this point had lost 19 games, including 14 to teams outside their own grouping. Top-10 teams are 33-4 this year. In the first 11 years of the playoff, top-10 teams had lost an average of nine games by this point in the season.
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The two words that best describe this year’s playoff push are «status quo.»
That, of course, has been bad news for all the teams on the outside looking in — from those with valid cases such as Miami, BYU and Vanderbilt, to underdogs such as USC, Utah or Arizona that might’ve had a shot in a more chaotic year.
But the real loser in this copy and paste rankings season is all the fans who just want to see things get weird. It’s a sad state of affairs when we’re left to rely on MACtion and the ACC to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to college football drama. The power players need to step up — or, perhaps, ratchet down — their game to add a bit more drama.
The good news is, the committee’s ad hoc reasoning, mush-mouthed explanations and mind-boggling about-faces still leave plenty to argue about, even if the big picture hasn’t changed all that much.
Here’s this week’s biggest slights, snubs and shenanigans.
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The comparison to last year’s SMU isn’t even a particularly fair one. The Mustangs were at No. 8 before the ACC title game. Alabama is at No. 9 (and probably should be a spot or two lower). SMU’s game against Clemson was new territory. A loss to Georgia would actually undermine Alabama’s best argument for inclusion — the three-point win in Athens in September. And while SMU ultimately did make the playoff field last year, a last-second loss on a 56-yard field goal still dropped the Mustangs from No. 8 to No. 10 in the rankings.
Play this scenario out now: Alabama, ranked at No. 9, plays a team that currently counts as the Tide’s best win. Imagine if Georgia wins the rematch and does so convincingly. The committee docked SMU two spots for a last-second loss, so surely it would do at least that much to Alabama for a more convincing defeat, right? And here’s the other thing: Even with the ACC title game loss last year, SMU was 11-2 — one less loss than Alabama had. A Tide loss in the SEC title game now would be defeat No. 3 — one more than Notre Dame or Miami or (presumably) BYU.
It’s hard not to see a conspiracy here given the committee’s inexplicable flip-flop between Alabama and Notre Dame. It’s hard not to see brand bias in how the Tide’s championship week narrative diverges from SMU’s a year ago. It’s not at all hard to envision a scenario where Alabama loses to Georgia, gets in as the last team anyway, and it’s all explained away as a completely reasonable decision.
Well, the committee finally weighed in on more than one team outside the Power Four — mostly because it was just impossible to find enough Power Four teams worth ranking — and the news isn’t good for JMU. With the committee deciding already that North Texas is the higher ranked team, the Dukes’ only hope for the playoff would seem to be a Duke win in the ACC title game.
But what exactly has the committee seen to warrant that decision? Check out the numbers.
Best win (by average FPI, SP+ and Sagarin ranking)
JMU: No. 54 Old Dominion
UNT: No. 62 Washington State
Next best
JMU: No. 62 Washington State
UNT: No. 68 Navy
Loss
JMU: No. 29 Louisville
UNT: No. 24 USF
Wins vs. bowl-eligible
JMU: six
UNT: five
Strength of record
JMU: 18th
UNT: 22nd
FPI
JMU: 28th
UNT: 37th
There are certainly some check marks in North Texas’ favor, including a more impressive win over common opponent Washington State and a slightly better SP+ ranking, but on the whole, James Madison has had the tougher path here. That can reasonably change should UNT beat Tulane, but the committee should’ve waited for that to happen. Instead, they’ve made it clear JMU isn’t sniffing the playoff unless it comes at the expense of the ACC.
Also angry this week: Vanderbilt Commodores (10-2, No. 14); The ACC leadership who voted on its tie-breaker policies; Manny Diaz, who has to try to make a coherent argument for his five-loss Duke Blue Devils getting in ahead of a one-loss JMU; Every 8-4 team with a markedly better résumé than 9-3 Houston who isn’t ranked this week; Lane Kiffin’s yoga instructor and Juice Kiffin’s dog walker.
