The first College Football Playoff rankings were released Tuesday, and Clemson Football was at #4, behind only Tennessee, Ohio State & Georgia. Michigan, Alabama & TCU followed behind the Tigers.
As usual, the rankings reveal created a fair amount of conversation and hand-wringing by pundits and fans alike. I tried to predict the full CFP Top 25 before the reveal, and while I correctly predicted Clemson at #4, I didn’t get much of the rest of the order correct.
Here are my quick thoughts on the rankings:
#1 Tennessee: The Volunteers are a worthy #1 team. They have the best win in the nation by ranking (Alabama) and the best road win in the nation by ranking (LSU). I didn’t think the committee would put Tennessee on top because they are a newcomer to the playoff conversation. I just assumed the committee would go with someone they had seen as a contender before like Georgia.
#2 Ohio State: The Buckeyes do have a singular resume argument, as they do have the second-best road win by ranking (Penn State), but I don’t think that is what got them the #2 ranking. Ohio State is here because they have the best eye test. They make offensive football look easy often. I favor resumes for making these rankings, but I also favor committee members asking the question “Who would I favor in a real college football game between these two teams?” That is speculative, but the answer has to at least be taken into account.
#3 Georgia: The Bulldogs don’t have a bad resume. They have a win against a CFP Top 10 team. Their problem is that their other wins to date haven’t been against impressive teams. I also thought the committee would buy into recency bias, and they didn’t. All Georgia needs is a win over Tennessee this weekend. They are the home team and would likely jump to #1 with a win.
#4 Clemson: While there are some salty people who have been dragging Clemson just to get attention, many fans nationally are just falling victim to biases when it comes to evaluating Clemson’s resume.
This is oversimplifying, but basically, there are two common viewpoints:
- Clemson defeated the #20, #21 & #22 teams in the rankings
- Clemson defeated Syracuse, Wake Forest & NC State in the rankings
The people who see viewpoint #1 are seeing things accurately. The people who see viewpoint #2 are falling victim to biases. They aren’t paying attention to the 2022 season and instead want to look at programs historically. The people who see #2 literally believe that #20 Syracuse, #21 Wake Forest & #22 NC State in 2022 isn’t as good as a hypothetical season where we have #20 Miami, #21 Florida State & #22 Virginia Tech.
Fortunately, this committee sees viewpoint #1, as professionals should.
#5 Michigan: I want to make this clear – I think the Wolverines are a very good team. I don’t think they should be at #5 or lower because they are bad. I think they are appropriately ranked, but if anything they are ranked a tad high, because their resume isn’t as good as the resumes of the other undefeated teams, and their eye test is suspect because of the quality of the teams they have played.
#6 Alabama: I think they are ranked here because of their reputation. Who is their best win to date? Texas? Should the Longhorns even be ranked? Mississippi State? Arkansas? I put Alabama in my top 10 but there is no way they should be ranked ahead of TCU.
#7 TCU: I think they are ranked here because of their lack of reputation. TCU shouldn’t just be ahead of Alabama but should be ahead of Michigan too.
Otherwise….
While the focus was on Clemson football at No. 4, there were other questionable decisions
LSU at #10 is conference bias. If LSU is this good, why isn’t Florida State ranked? Texas can get ranked with three losses when their best win is a close loss to Alabama, but the Seminoles can’t get ranked with a Top 10 win and all three losses came to ranked teams? You whiffed on that one, committee.
I need to see a solid win by Penn State against Maryland in two weekends to believe the Nittany Lions are correctly ranked. Very little meat on that bone.
I’m also not a big believer in UCF being in these rankings. I think they have more work to do.
It’s going to be a fun weekend of football – two big Top 10 games. I am looking forward to seeing how the rankings shake out.