From the files of, “things I never thought I’d say without losing a bad, bad bet:” the CFB Playoff committee has been (gasp!) not complete rubbish this season. I mean, you have the usual “let’s pretend the SEC is waaaaaay better than it really is” stuff going on, but aside from that, it’s been marked improvement from last year’s edition, where the rankings resembled this back room conversation, “go to a bar in Tuscaloosa and ask them to rank the teams, then give the list to us at least five minutes before we go on television.”
Either that, or the bar in Tuscaloosa is getting more objective. It would also explain Alabama. At any rate, “not rubbish” doesn’t mean there isn’t room for questioning.
As always, no, none of the editors watch the show so no commentary is taken into account that was said on it.
1. Okay, we get it: they don’t like the Big Ten much
Even though I still want to beat that drum, I’m not giving the Northwestern – Stanford thing an entire spot. It sure seems, though, for all the actually decent wins the Big Ten teams have had, the committee doesn’t seem to give two squirts. Michigan State has without question the best resume in college football, yet they’re stuck down at five. Northwestern is at 14 now, and yeah, Stanford has better wins if you want to use that qualification to dismiss the head to head. So then, why does MSU not get their rightful spot at #2 or #3 for having better wins, easily, than Iowa and Alabama?
Why does it matter? Because it sure seems like they come in with a baseline idea of who they think is good and it’s harder moving them off that spot than throwing pea gravel at a moving steam roller and expecting it to stop on a dime. That’s dangerous, at least as non dangerous things go.
2. The CFB Playoff Committee loves themselves some Mississippi State for some reason
Mississippi State was considered a big win for Alabama a few weeks ago when the Tide rolled into Starkville and came out 31-6 and no worse for the wear. Folks started talking about them overtaking Clemson. Now, Ole Miss goes in there and wins against those same Bulldogs and they jump up from 18 to 13, scaling teams like Northwestern (damn it, I did it again) and Oregon (both of whom won non-home rivalry games this past weekend) and Florida (who destroyed Ole Miss earlier in the season). I mean, those Bulldogs must have a pretty impressive resume to just continually be bolstering the fortunes of others every time they get paddled around the yard. The only problem? They have all of one win over a Power 5 team with a winning record … Arkansas at 7-5.
The problem is that the committee has decided, absent of any proof other than their own internal belief, I guess, that wins over certain teams matter a lot more than wins over other teams, the resume be damned. A look at the recent past is pretty funny. The Bulldogs were 17th before getting euthanized by Bama, and then crept back in to 21st after a 51-50 win against aforementioned Arkansas. You just never know who the committee is randomly going to designate as “good” based on no actual proof in the resume.
3. The North Carolina conundrum is real, especially if Stanford goes down to USC
I think this is the part where us “conference champ or bust” folks go into our crypts and wait until the stampede passes, right? Nah, though you know the committee will be wearing orange. I mean, more of them than just Dan Radakovich, the Clemson athletic director and committee member. The issue with UNC winning is that all of the sudden you’re looking at potentially moving a team up from number 10 into the top four based just on conference championship and holding your nose at their two FCS out of conference wins.
You might be able to shoehorn Stanford in there and not get much of a tantrum from the social police of college football (read: media and Twitter), but if the Cardinal lose … whoa, Nelly. Then you’re looking at UNC or Ohio State, the defending champ but a team that didn’t even win its division. So what message do you send … that loading up on whipping posts from another division out of conference is okay … or that not winning a conference championship is okay? I know the committee would probably rather not have to weigh the least worst of, in that case.
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