In its history, the CFP selection committee has actually been someone consistent in being immune to criticism from media outlets. We haven’t really seen big shifts in rankings based on criticism from college football media. The closest we’ve ever seen to that was in the very first year of the rankings, when the committee flipped Mississippi State and Michigan State in the final week of 2014, changing the lineups for the Orange and Cotton Bowls.
This year, people were looking forward to what the committee will do with BYU this week. BYU has received very generous coverage from most of ESPN’s experts–ESPN, of course, is the network that owns the rights to broadcast the College Football Playoff and the rankings shows–who expressed surprise and frustration with BYU’s low ranking of #14 last week. Well, the committee wasn’t swayed, keeping the Cougars at #13. BYU doesn’t have the quality of wins or the strength of schedule of Cincinnati, and it’s showing in the rankings.
Here’s the full #CFBPlayoff Top 25 rankings for games played through November 28.
Is your team in? 👀
— College Football Playoff (@CFBPlayoff) December 2, 2020
There was very little change at the top of the rankings this week. For the first time in CFP history, the top seven in the rankings all stayed the same. So the discussion at the top of the rankings stays basically the same as last week. Gary Barta said the committee discussed what Texas A&M showed in a win over LSU and whether that is enough to jump Ohio State, but it ultimately wasn’t.
Towards the bottom of the rankings, though, there are some strange developments. North Carolina moving up after a two-score loss to the #2 team in the country might surprise some fans, but it’s not too far out of line with what the committee has done in the past–especially considering the teams in front of the Tar Heels that lost this week.
Iowa State at #9 is a ranking worth discussing. The committee is clearly impressed with Iowa State’s collection of wins–including Oklahoma and Texas. I eliminated the Cyclones months ago right after their loss to Oklahoma State. I’m sticking with that, though, even with Iowa State’s current #9 ranking. The Cyclones lost to Louisiana–and while the strength of that win earned the Ragin-Cajuns a spot in the Top 25 this week, that loss will keep Iowa State from serious consideration when push comes to shove.
I don’t want to get into too much depth at the back of the rankings. Without real nonconference games this year, there is very little to discuss in terms of resume as we get towards the end of the Top 25. It’s basically going to be all eye test and computer metrics at that point. However, it seems worth noting that there is a strange collection of teams as we get to the final few.
Washington jumped into the rankings (all the way to #22) with a win over winless Utah. Now, Utah looks like a pretty good team. But the Utes held a 21-0 lead over Washington and played pretty poorly down the stretch to lose the game. This gives the indication that, essentially, the committee started running out of teams it was willing to rank as we approached the end of the rankings.
This is further indicated by USC. The Trojans didn’t play, but their resume lowered in quality enough that they got jumped by North Carolina–who, as mentioned above, lost to Notre Dame by two touchdowns. One of those USC wins is over Utah (the other two are winless Arizona and Arizona State). So the committee doesn’t respect a double-digit win over Utah in USC’s case but likes a late comeback win enough to push Washington to #22? It seems pretty clear there was a dearth of strong teams as we got to the end.
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