The CFP selection committee could have saved themselves a ton of grief if they had just released one ranking with a Top 4 at the end of the year and assigned the other games. Which, really, is all that their job is. Instead, they are releasing rankings every single week. While this is great because it allows fans to scrutinize what the committee could possibly be considering and emphasizing in order to get to those rankings, it is also awful because it allows fans to scrutinize what the committee could possibly be considering and emphasizing in order to get to those rankings.
The committee taught us one main thing this week, and it isn’t pretty. It’s very clear that there are no factors; there are no numbers. They are just making this up as they see fit.
How do I know this? Let’s just use what they have told us. The committee has said that they value quality wins and SOS over everything else. Of course, they’re not using any actual SOS metric, just eyeballing how tough the schedule looked.
What the CFP Selection Committee Taught Us: Week 12
So if this is the case, why is Alabama at #1? Alabama has just one win over a ranked team so far (Mississippi State). Jeff Long said that Alabama clearly looks like the best team in the country. So now we’re using the eye test, nothing else. Meanwhile, TCU is 3-1 against teams in the CFP’s Top 25. But they are stuck at #5 behind Mississippi State, who also has only one Top 25 win (#14 Auburn).
Mississippi State’s ranking is puzzling in its own right. Jeff Long said that part of it was due to the late touchdown that they scored, keeping the game close. But that’s just one game. The committee showed us in their opening rankings that losing a close game to a top team (Notre Dame) doesn’t give you a rankings boost. Yet that’s exactly what they did for Mississippi State.
The committee has another double standard in play as it applies to Mississippi State. The Bulldogs played one of the worst nonconference schedules in the country (South Alabama, UAB, Southern Miss, and FCS UT-Martin). Baylor has also played one of the worst nonconference schedules in the country and are clearly being punished for it in the rankings. They have consistently been towards or at the bottom of the 1-loss teams. If they are being punished for an awful nonconference schedule, why isn’t Mississippi State?
There is one more double standard that I want to point out this week. Auburn dropped five spots for being blown out by Georgia (in Georgia), who themselves gained five spots. Meanwhile, Wisconsin blew out Nebraska in a stronger offensively but less defensively dominant fashion. Wisconsin rose only four spots, while Nebraska fell seven.<
It is clear that the committee isn’t really judging resumes in any particular way like we expected. They aren’t looking at any of the criteria they said they would look at. Or, if they are looking at it, they’re not utilizing it. What the committee has essentially done is create another arbitrary poll. Which isn’t inherently wrong–after all, it’s all college football used until 1998. But don’t tell fans that you’re judging resumes and using certain criteria when really all you are doing is arbitrarily ranking who you think is “best”.
The one other major thing we need to realize is that it is a horrible idea for ESPN to ask Jeff Long the questions at the end of each rankings release. He is doing nothing to inspire any confidence in the committee’s ability to rank teams. If anything, he is inspiring the opposite.
Perhaps his most egregious comment was about TCU at the end of their game against Kansas. TCU had the ball in the red zone but took knees to run out the clock. When asked if TCU scoring again would have mattered, he responded, “Would another score have made a difference? Yes. But I don’t know how much of a difference”. In essence, the committee just told teams to run up the score because ending with a two-score difference is more valuable than a one-score.
Jeff Long also stressed that “game control” is a big deal with the committee. Game control, according to Long, means how far ahead teams are and for how long. Maybe that explains why TCU is ranked ahead of Baylor–they clearly controlled that game, even though they lost it. But Alabama hasn’t really controlled any road games. If anything, they have been controlled against both Arkansas and LSU. Their only real blowout wins were against Texas A&M and Tennessee (and cupcakes). If game control matters so much, the Tide shouldn’t be #1. It should either be Oregon or TCU (even with that Kansas aberration). Or maybe even Ohio State, aside from that Virginia Tech loss.
By dropping Florida State and overemphasizing this “game control” factor, the committee is essentially saying that style points matter just as much as actually winning the games. And, of course, the most absurd thing is that using this “game control” idea gives off the impression that the committee watched the entirety of every single game, which is obviously untrue.
And one of the things that Long said made Alabama the “most complete team” in the country right now is their kicking game. A statement like that certainly won’t inspire any confidence that he has actually watched any Crimson Tide games.
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