Welcome to Before The Snap, For The Win’s college football show where we’ll break down the sport’s trending storylines, examine each week’s biggest matchups and track the College Football Playoff and Heisman Trophy races.
The first College Football Playoff rankings came out Tuesday, and some fan bases are thrilled, comfortable or outraged because of course. In this subjective process of selecting the top-4 teams to compete for a national championship, the selection committee is never going to please everyone.
The top-10 teams in the College Football Playoff rankings going into Week 11 of the 2019 season are:
1. Ohio State (8-0)
2. LSU (8-0)
3. Alabama (8-0)
4. Penn State (8-0)
5. Clemson (9-0)
6. Georgia (7-1)
7. Oregon (8-1)
8. Utah (8-1)
9. Oklahoma (7-1)
10. Florida (7-2)
If the playoff teams were selected today — they are not — defending national champion Clemson would be excluded, and the semifinal games would have two SEC teams playing each other and two Big Ten teams playing each other.
Fans are not happy about this, particularly with Penn State being No. 4 and Clemson occupying that No. 5 spot. But did the selection committee get it right in the initial rankings?
Yes, for the most part. (We have additional thoughts about the bottom half of the rankings.)
These rankings are based on a variety of factors, including record, strength of schedule, head-to-head matchups, shared opponents and, eventually, conference champions. Clemson is undefeated, but so are five other teams that are also ranked higher in strength of record.
Going into Week 11, the Tigers’ record is ranked No. 8, which is also behind one-loss Oregon and two-loss Auburn, according to ESPN Stats & Info. Clemson is a talented team with a strong defense, but it has no wiggle room moving forward.
The good news is it’s expected to win out and win the ACC, and if that happens, the selection committee likely won’t be able to ignore it.
Also, two of the top-4 teams will have a loss at some point because LSU and Alabama play each other Saturday, while Ohio State and Penn State meet later this month. So chances are when someone moves down in the rankings with a loss, Clemson will be waiting to jump into the top four. Then is just has to hang on.
And, possibly the most important thing here, these initial rankings don’t mean much because there is so much football still left, and a lot can happen. Remember when Ohio State was No. 16 in the opening CFP rankings in 2014 and went on to win the national championship that year? Us too.
