Clemson Football: Predicting the first CFP rankings

The College Football Playoff committee will release their inaugural rankings for the 2022 season on Tuesday evening on ESPN. It is always fun to see how close the opinions of the experts on the committee will match the opinions of AP voters and the public at large, not to mention where they place Clemson football.

I think the CFP committee values resume more than voters or pundits. While people learn this every season, they often forget this fact until the first rankings announcement.

Let’s take a quick look at last year’s AP Top 6 in 2021 right before the CFP rankings were announced:

1. Georgia
2. Cincinnati
3. Alabama
4. Oklahoma
5. Michigan State
6. Ohio State

This is what the Top 6 of the first CFP rankings looked like that week:

1. Georgia
2. Alabama
3. Michigan State
4. Oregon
5. Ohio State
6. Cincinnati

It wasn’t a shock that Cincinnati, a Group of Five team, wouldn’t be valued as highly by the committee as they were by the AP voters. What was a surprise was that one-loss Oregon was included in the Top 4. Why? Oregon went on the road to Columbus and defeated Ohio State, which was still ranked in the Top 10 several weeks later. The committee valued that road victory much more than anyone else did. Oregon was ranked 7th in the AP poll that week.

Then there was the committee leaving Oklahoma out of the top 6, even though they were #4 in the AP poll. The Sooners were undefeated, but at that point after Week 10, none of their opponents were ranked in the AP Top 25. Even Cincinnati had a win over a ranked opponent (Notre Dame). The resume just wasn’t there for the Sooners and they ended up 8th in the first CFP rankings.

I think there will be a fair amount of consternation among many pundits this week when they see where the CFP has this season’s contenders ranked. I think people forget just how important they consider the resumes to be in the rankings process.

I am going to reveal my projections the same way ESPN will, starting with No. 21-25.