We had a lot of questions coming into the first CFP selection committee rankings this year. After all, 2020 is one of the strangest seasons in modern college football, because of the lack of an organized schedule and teams starting the year at different points. How would the committee judge different number of games played? How do they judge strength of schedule when we have no real good way to compare power conferences and when schedules are so much less in teams’ control than usual.
In some ways, then, this first committee rankings showed the committee kept to similar standards that it has in recent years. For starters, I have noted numerous times that the committee consistently does not punish a team for a close loss to a better team. It seems to have a philosophy that a one-score loss to #1 means a team could still be #2. That trend is borne out with Clemson’s ranking. The Tigers have a better top win than Ohio State, a better schedule overall so far, and the only loss is to the #2 team. Therefore, Clemson slots in at #3 ahead of Ohio State.
Take a look at the full #CFBPlayoff Top 25 rankings for games played through November 21.
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Similarly, the selection committee consistently punishes weak schedules. Often that comes in the form of not ranking Group of 5 teams particularly high, and that held true. In fact, by its own standards the past six years, Marshall at #21 and Coastal Carolina at #21 are pretty high for teams with schedules that weak. BYU at #14 is very high for a team with such a weak schedule. For comparison, Marshall was as dominant in 2014 as BYU is this year. The Thundering Herd were not ranked in the initial committee rankings that year, and did not show up until they were 11-0, breaking in at #24.
On the other hand, the disparate number of games played obviously had some impact. Teams playing fewer games just don’t have enough film or body of work to look at to judge. That seems to be why Big Ten and Pac 12 teams are somewhat behind their expected positions, which makes sense. If you only have four games to judge, you have less to look at than teams that have played more games. The best example of this is Indiana. The Hoosiers have only a one-score loss to #4 Ohio State, but they’re all the way down at #12.
Cincinnati is in the picture
I don’t usually use this space to map out scenarios (we’ll discuss that much more in CFP Implications this coming week), but I just have to note that the committee sent a clear message that Cincinnati is a serious contender this year.
The Bearcats are undefeated, have won impressively in every game other than a road trip against UCF, and have a strength of schedule that holds up well when compared to most Power 5 teams this year. That’s why the undefeated Bearcats are the highest-ranked Group of 5 team in the history of the selection committee rankings (UCF reached #8 twice in 2018).
Looking at the rankings, Cincinnati has a clear path to the Playoff. We’ll discuss the path how after this weekend’s games, but it’s there and the Bearcats should be extremely happy with this ranking. It’s a show of respect that the committee has never given a Group of 5 team in the past.
Rest of the rankings
I don’t want to go into every team and focus on what the rankings show, but a few things stand out. Georgia at #9 might scratch some heads, but it makes some sense. The Bulldogs aren’t punished too much for losses to better teams, and the win over Auburn earns some credit. Could they be below some teams behind them? Sure. But it’s not crazy. Nor is Oklahoma at #11. Neither of the Sooners’ losses is particularly bad, and Oklahoma has looked impressive in its recent wins.
The committee kept head-to-head as a factor in some cases, like with Texas A&M ahead of Florida, but that didn’t hold true with Oklahoma and Iowa State. This likely is due to the fact that Oklahoma State breaks the straight head-to-head comparison, plus Iowa State’s loss to Louisiana is much worse than Oklahoma’s loss to Kansas State.
Oregon at #15 is a team we can’t really judge. Are the Ducks that low because they really don’t look like a top team yet? Or is it just because with only three games, there’s not enough to rank them higher? Either is possible, and there’s no real way to know which was the main cause. The same is true of USC at #18. The lack of any other ranked Pac 12 team is not a good sign for the conference, though.
There are a few head-scratchers in the rankings, though the committee often seems less precise at the bottom of the rankings than at the top. North Carolina has an awful loss and no particularly impressive wins, so their #19 ranking is puzzling. It’s certainly hard to figure out why the Tar Heels are ahead of Oklahoma State, who has better losses and better wins. A similar point is true of Iowa being ranked.
The bottom of the rankings this year, including the higher-than-expected spots of Coastal Carolina and Marshall, do give an indication that the committee ran out of teams to rank towards the end. Usually there are Power 5 teams with one or two impressive games on top of a record inflated with non-conference wins. Without those inflated records, it’s harder to justify ranking teams that might have won a good game (or lost a close one to a good team). That’s created far more choices at who to put in the back of the rankings, but more choices also means fewer easy ones.
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