Most of the focus concerning what the CFP selection committee did this week was on the Oregon/Florida State flip and the fact that TCU is still ranked ahead of Baylor. And there is a lot to be learned from those decisions, which we will get to later. But first, I want to look at a team towards the bottom of the rankings.
The committee has shown a trend of not dropping teams that lose to higher-ranked teams. Last week, we saw Utah stay exactly where they were after losing to Arizona State. On the other hand, Ole Miss dropped six spots after a tight loss to fellow Top 5 team at the time Auburn. This week, LSU dropped only one spot after almost upsetting Alabama.
Now, we can’t quite know for sure why LSU didn’t drop at all. On the one hand, teams directly behind them don’t really seem to have resumés worth jumping LSU with. Clemson, Duke, Wisconsin, and Georgia Tech don’t have a win anywhere near the caliber of LSU’s over Ole Miss. Also, the Tigers still have that head-to-head win over Wisconsin.
A few other unnoticed things are that some teams made big jumps that aren’t really quickly explainable. The biggest of them is that UCLA jumped seven spots after a 14-point win over Washington. Four of the teams they jumped lost, which is a bit of an explanation. More likely, though, the reason behind the jump is that the committee took a closer look at their resumé this week than they did in previous weeks and realized that the Bruins have one of the strongest two-loss resumés in the country.
Georgia’s jump is a lot less explainable. The Bulldogs jumped over a few teams that lost but also leapfrogged Nebraska. I honestly cannot explain why they jumped LSU, let alone Nebraska. Georgia has beaten exactly two teams with a winning record (Missouri and Clemson), coupled with losses to 4-5 South Carolina and a blowout loss to Florida. Maybe it has something to do with the return of Todd Gurley, but Georgia is probably the most confusing team ranked this week.
Now, back to discussing the more high-profile teams in the rankings. First of all, Ohio State at eighth is pretty much what we expected. They are ahead of every two-loss team but towards the back of the one-loss power conference teams. That resumé actually stacks up favorably against even Baylor’s, but the Buckeyes have to be happy with where they are now. They know that if they win out, all they need is a slip-up by Florida State or TCU and they will be squarely in the conversation for a Top Four spot at the end of the year.
Honestly, I think the committee’s decision to jump Oregon over Florida State is meant as a statement that they have completely forgiven Oregon’s loss to Arizona. The old BCS used the tagline “every game matters.” The CFP committee told us this week, basically, that if you lose a game with a major player injured, they’ll forgive it as the season goes on if you can prove that the injury caused the loss. Oregon was a very different team without Jake Fisher and it showed. The committee is essentially saying that since the Ducks have Fisher back now, they will pretend that the loss never happened. Otherwise, there is no real reason for Oregon to have jumped Florida State while TCU and Alabama didn’t. (To compare the resumés, see my Bubble Watch.)
And finally, we reach the biggest talking point of this week’s rankings: TCU is still ahead of Baylor. The fact that Baylor jumped every two-loss team and closed the gap is big. Compare the resumes in the Bubble Watch, and it’s clear that TCU’s is better. It’s also clear that, as the season goes on, those resumés will get closer. If Minnesota starts losing games and Baylor routs Kansas State, TCU’s lead will be much more tenuous.
It is clear, though, looking at Baylor and (the lack of) Marshall, that the committee is punishing weak nonconference schedules. Whether the same logic will apply to Mississippi State if they lose a game is anybody’s guess.
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