As always, there was a ton of immediate outrage with the newest committee rankings on social media, but they seem to have shown more consistency overall than they usually do. Let’s start with the talking points at the top and work our way down.
First of all, Oklahoma at No. 3 is the first major talking point. What precipitated such a jump? For starters, the Sooners have a strong resume. It was pretty strong last week and just got even better this week. Oklahoma has beaten six teams with records better than .500, something Jeff Long has mentioned as a talking point a few times this year. They also picked up a pretty strong win over Baylor last week, which only got better this week when the Bears knocked off Oklahoma State. And while Oklahoma did not look good at all (especially on offense) in the second half against TCU, Jeff Long did point out that the committee noticed how dominant they were before Baker Mayfield got hurt. As long as Mayfield will continue to play, there is no reason not to judge Oklahoma by their first-half performance in that game.
Next we have two Big Ten teams, with Iowa and Michigan State checking in at Nos. 4 and 5, respectively. It was a little surprising to see Michigan State so low with their three wins over teams in the committee’s top 17, but the difference between them and Iowa is pretty meaningless at this point, as they will play each other if both win their next game. Long mentioned that Iowa is being respected for being undefeated, which is fair and makes sense. The Hawkeyes do only have three wins over teams with +.500 records and only one ranked win. If they win their last two games that won’t matter, but it isn’t unfair to have them so low at this point.
People were similarly surprised and upset to see Notre Dame fall to No. 6, especially when Jeff Long has told us that Notre Dame was a “solid No. 4” the past two weeks. Of course, only beating a 3-8 team by a field goal can hurt your perception. Also, Notre Dame’s big wins have taken a few hits in recent weeks. Temple’s loss to South Florida had to hurt, even if the real effect was only shown by the committee a week later. The Irish will probably earn all of that back and more if they beat Stanford, but the committee sent a fairly strong statement by jumping Oklahoma that high. Unless we see something strange happen, we probably won’t see Notre Dame jumping anyone ahead of them. They might gain a spot or two with a win over Stanford, but it’s nothing that the winner of Michigan State vs Iowa wouldn’t gain back one week later.
People wrote Michigan and Stanford off when they picked up their second losses, but both of those teams are in the Top 10 and ahead of multiple one-loss Power 5 teams. Both of them also have opportunities for better wins to close the season than those one-loss teams behind them (except for Florida). They are very much alive in this race, especially if Oklahoma State wins the Big 12. Both of them are indications of a trend that we have seen with the committee in the past–namely that the committee won’t punish a team too much for a loss to a ranked team out of conference. North Carolina isn’t being punished for that–they are being punished for having only one win of any real value and for losing to a bad team out of conference.
Speaking of North Carolina, they interestingly jumped Navy this week for no apparent reason. That happens with the committee sometimes, though. They do re-rank teams from scratch every week, and if the teams were close to each other last week those little variations should be expected. We saw this last year, when Michigan State and Mississippi State flipped positions in the final rankings even though both had been on byes during conference championship weekend. Navy probably has the better resume right now, but being in a Power 5 conference, even the ACC Coastal, still commands more respect.
Northwestern at No. 16 is an interesting team that we have to speak about. They are a conundrum for the committee. If a team is solely based on its resume, they are criminally underrated. If a team is ranked on their overall performance, then the Wildcats might be overrated. Northwestern is an enigma that falls between these two methods of ranking teams, which makes them an interesting barometer to judge the committee by. We have seen them use mostly the “eye test” for some teams (Ohio State) while others get judged mostly by their resume. Northwestern is the rare team with a great resume that has looked awful doing it. F/+ has Northwestern outside the Top 40. The committee seems like they have found their happy middle with Northwestern; they are keeping the Wildcats behind where their resume deserves but far above where the “eye test” or “game control” alone would put them.
We saw an exodus at the bottom of the rankings last week, so it is not surprising to see Washington State jump all the way in to No. 20. That’s usually a high place to debut, but with five teams dropping out of the rankings (and with Utah in free-fall), it makes a lot of sense. A 27-3 win over Colorado isn’t much to move Washington State into the rankings, but they were very close last week and, if the committee is being honest, were probably a mistaken omission last week. If they hadn’t lost to FCS Portland State to open the season, that team would probably be near the edge of the Top 10 now.
The one final thing we have to note are the Group of 5 teams. Houston is not ranked now that they have picked up a loss. In fact, they are the only one-loss team in the country to not appear in these rankings. That is probably a statement, like the committee made with Marshall last year, about the lack of respect that Group of 5 teams with weak nonconference scheduled will receive. Houston’s nonconference schedule this year was far stronger than Marshall’s last year, but the Cougars still have an atrocious overall SOS. It will be interesting to see how high they can jump in if they beat Navy. The American Athletic Conference seems to control the race for that Group of 5 access bid to a New Years 6 bowl, but Toledo is ahead of two of the contenders from that conference. Of course, for Toledo to even be a viable choice, Northern Illinois will have to lose to Ohio (game is in progress at time of publishing). But if Toledo is on the table and someone other than Navy wins the AAC, it will be very interesting to see who can jump the Rockets and when. If Houston beats Navy but Temple beats Houston, will Temple’s victory be enough to jump them that one spot, especially if Toledo beats a 9-3 Bowling Green in their own conference championship game?
There is much to keep an eye on these next two weeks, but we are finally seeing a bit of clarity in the committee’s rankings. Detailed explanations for every spot will always be nice (We can dream, can’t we?), but until then we will just have to study these rankings and try to figure out their trends in each season. Some trends are definitely coalescing this year, though. Wins over +.500 teams seems to be a major factor, but if Michigan State is any indication, ranked wins don’t matter quite as much as last year. There is also a very consistent trend of a team not being punished for a close loss to a good team. We saw that with TCU only dropping one spot this week. We have also seen that a close win over a bad team will be punished. We saw it with TCU dropping three spots for barely beating Kansas last week and the committee kept that consistent when they dropped Florida four spots this week.
