Just to reiterate the rules:
No, the author does not watch the show because it’s nothing but a cheap ratings grab passed off as some attempt at transparency. So anything said on the show to justify the rankings is not taken into account. Just because you spray yourself with cologne to cover up the smell doesn’t make you any cleaner. A guy who puts on a dress is still a guy, only with a dress on. And the whole “lipstick on a pig” deal.
1. With Michigan State being ranked outside the top four, the committee is saying, point blank, “we don’t care that much about good wins.”
Part of this is grandstanding on my part, because the bottom line is, if they win out, they’re in. Still, MSU has gone on the road and defeated top 10 Michigan; They’ve gone on the road and defeated top 10 Ohio State; they defeated top 20 Oregon. No other team in college football has two top 10 skins on the wall, let alone on the road. No other team in college football (to my knowledge) has defeated three teams ranked in the top 17 currently. Even if you want to call the Michigan loss a little hokey, karma water found its level when Sparty got hosed by Nebraska.
What is Alabama’s signature win? Destroying a mediocre Wisconsin team? Thumping LSU at home, who has since been exposed like a lousy employee on “Undercover Boss?” How has Oklahoma’s resume been more impressive? Their loss is by far worse than MSU’s in the sense that they got it taken to them on a neutral field by a bad football team. This is what the committee is also saying: if we like your team name, you’re getting bonus points. That’s flat out it right there, and they’d NEVER admit it.
2. The committee still hasn’t been sent a link that Northwestern actually defeated Stanford
Look, when all things are mostly equal, head to head needs to matter. I get so sick and tired of people saying, “eye test.” Does anyone ever see a prosecutor say, “well, the evidence suggests he’s innocent … but … he doesn’t pass the eye test so you’ve got to convict.”? Northwestern’s losses have been to better teams. Northwestern’s best win is Stanford. Stanford’s is Washington State, who is ranked below Northwestern. So basically, the team that won head to head, has losses to better teams, and also has the better win betwixt the two is seven spots lower? This isn’t to say that head to head is the catch-all when it comes to this stuff. WSU and Oregon have the same record. WSU won at Oregon, no less, but is ranked below them. However, WSU also lost to Stanford at home while Oregon won in Palo Alto, easily the best win betwixt the two of them. Stop. Hating. Northwestern.
3. Early season games don’t seem to matter very much to this bunch
While it’s true that how teams are playing now is more representative of who they are than in September, is the goal of this thing to be to reward who is hot late (like a 9-7 playoff team in the NFL getting a home game just for winning a crappy division) or is it to take the full body of work, where “every week is the playoffs” feels like a true statement? They seem to have amnesia on the already mentioned games like Northwestern over Stanford and Michigan State over Oregon. They also seem to have forgotten than ND stomped Texas and Oklahoma was outclassed by them. There are other examples as well.
It’s like they don’t know Alabama lost to Ole Miss because the result got lost in the mail and they’re using the Pony Express to get box scores, anyhow. Teams are essentially “punished” for playing good teams early rather than late, and sometimes, you have no control over that. I commend the committee that it doesn’t have a broad stroke rule for all of these situations, and they took things into account like Baker Mayfield’s injury situation. That’s what they need to do. But it’s clear that when it comes to big happenings early in the year, the committee will mostly have forgotten about them in November.
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Find anything else that looks out of place with the playoff rankings?
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