What are the most important things to watch for in the first 2020-2021 College Football Playoff rankings to come out Tuesday night?
– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak
– How will we know if the committee is on its game?
– How the heck do you rank the Pac-12 teams?
– How much will the committee tease Cincinnati and BYU?
– Miami vs. Northwestern vs. Texas A&M
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5. What will the top 4 be?
This is the one thing that everyone really cares about, and it’s actually one of the least important aspects to the first College Football Playoff rankings.
Super-fun trivia time. The first ever No. 1-ranked team in the College Football Playoff rankings was … ?
The answer coming in a moment, but it’ll prove a point.
In 2014, Florida State was No. 2, Auburn was third, and Ole Miss was fourth. Ohio State won the national championship, and where was it ranked?
16th.
Florida State, Oregon, and Alabama got in, too, with the Ducks starting out ranked fifth and Bama sixth.
The first ever CFP No. 1 was … Dak Prescott’s Mississippi State team, and it finished seventh in the final rankings.
Out of the 24 teams ranked in the top four of the first six initial College Football Playoff rankings, only 13 of them ended up in the CFP.
Remember, even in this wacky year the rules – implied and suggested – still apply.
These rankings get thrown out and the committee starts over next week, all that really matters are the final rankings, and you’re a mortal lock if you go unbeaten and win your Power Five conference championship, and you’re almost a lock if you lose one game but win your Power Five conference championship.
Oh, and to answer the question, Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State, and to go on a bit of a limb, Texas A&M.
– How will we know if the committee is on its game?
– How the heck do you rank the Pac-12 teams?
– How much will the committee tease Cincinnati and BYU?
– Miami vs. Northwestern vs. Texas A&M
NEXT: How will we know if the College Football Playoff committee is on its game?
4. How will we know if the College Football Playoff committee is on its game?
The whole point of the way the College Football Playoff committee does its rankings is to be so meticulous and so well thought out that they’re above reproach as much as they can possibly be.
Each position from 25 up to 1 is argued over, debated, and then agreed to so at the very least, you know that each aspect of the rankings is up for discussion and well thought out.
That doesn’t mean the committee can’t whiff.
Here are the two things that you should be looking for to know whether or not this year’s committee is on its game.
1) Is Louisiana ranked ahead of Iowa State?
This has driving me up a wall all year in the AP and Coaches polls. Louisiana beat Iowa State 31-14 in Ames, and its only loss is to an unbeaten Coastal Carolina. If the committee has this right, it has Coastal Carolina, then Louisiana, then Iowa State, and then Oklahoma, because the Sooners lost to Iowa State.
Now, Oklahoma being ranked higher is sort of okay – mostly because the committee can decide that it likes the way the team has improved in a Best Team At The Moment ranking sort of way – but if the Ragin’ Cajuns are behind the Cyclones, you will be in the right to fire out a mean tweet.
2) Texas A&M and Florida
I fully expect the the committee to shank the Louisiana/Iowa State thing, but this is the equivalent of making the CFP putt out from 14 inches away.
There’s no reason whatsoever to have Florida ranked higher than Texas A&M, since A&M’s only loss is Alabama and it beat the Gators.
Here’s why this one matters.
You can argue that Iowa State has improved, it plays a Power Five schedule, and so on, and at the end of the day, you’re probably right to put it ahead of Louisiana, even though it would be grossly unfair.
However, if Florida is ranked higher than Texas A&M, then it means the committee hasn’t really watched the Aggies, and it means the results on the field don’t matter and the fatally-flawed “eye test” does.
– What will the top 4 be?
– How the heck do you rank the Pac-12 teams?
– How much will the committee tease Cincinnati and BYU?
– Miami vs. Northwestern vs. Texas A&M
NEXT: How the heck do you rank the Pac-12 teams?
3. How the heck do you rank the Pac-12 teams?
Pac-12ers, I’m warning you now. Do NOT overreact to your teams being ranked very, very, very, very low, or not at all in some cases.
The massive discrepancy in games played will be one of the most unique aspects of the 2020 rankings. How do you fairly rank a 3-0 USC compared to a 9-0 BYU compared to a 7-1 Clemson?
Again – and I can’t stress this enough – these records get thrown out each and every week, and they start over. I wouldn’t be the least bit shocked if Oregon or USC get ranked 21ish-to-23ish to start, and then not move up all that much over the next few weeks no matter what.
However, if the Ducks, or the Trojans – or Colorado, or Washington – end up going undefeated with a Pac-12 championship, then one of the teams could rocket up from the 11-13ish range to the top four if the committee decides to give preferential treatment to an unbeaten Power Five champion.
The other key to this will be how the Pac-12 dictates the rest of this season. If its teams are ranked hilariously low, watch out for the conference to move heaven and earth to force a non-conference game against something solid – like BYU, or Cincinnati – in a panicky move that could backfire big if the Pac-12er loses.
When then begs the question …
– What will the top 4 be?
– How will we know if the committee is on its game?
– How much will the committee tease Cincinnati and BYU?
– Miami vs. Northwestern vs. Texas A&M
NEXT: How much will the College Football Playoff committee tease Cincinnati and BYU?
2. How much will the College Football Playoff committee tease Cincinnati and BYU?
(Don’t shoot the messenger … I don’t vote in this thing; I’m just telling you what I think is going to happen.)
Cincinnati and BYU aren’t going to be in the College Football Playoff.
You’re going to hear a lot of people going crazy about how high Cincinnati is, and BYU should be around the top ten, but there’s going to be a rock-hard ceiling on how high both these teams can get because neither one has a Power Five game on the schedule.
Now, that might change, and one or both of them could end up hooking up with a Pac-12 team. Even then, that might not make a difference.
Again – to be a broken record – the rankings for the next few weeks don’t matter, and it all changes up once the conference championship games are done.
Unless something insane happens, the ACC, Big Ten, and SEC champions are going to get in. That one extra spot would go to a top one-loss Power Five program that played a full slate of Power Five games over an unbeaten Group of Five team – or BYU – that didn’t even play one P5er, much less go through the weekly grind of dealing with Power Five team after Power Five team.
In a lot of ways I hope I’m wrong – even though I don’t really think it would be fair schedule-wise – and a Cincinnati or a BYU lands that fourth spot in the final rankings to get a shot in the ring with Creed.
But I’m warning you now.
It won’t be out of malice, and it won’t be because the committee is trying to come up with any sort of a PR stunt. The committee really will – most likely – decide that Cincinnati and BYU are top ten teams right now – and maybe way-close to the top four – and then change its mind in later rankings once the bigger Power Five games are played.
– What will the top 4 be?
– How will we know if the committee is on its game?
– How the heck do you rank the Pac-12 teams?
– Miami vs. Northwestern vs. Texas A&M
NEXT: Miami vs. Northwestern vs. Texas A&M
1. Miami vs. Northwestern vs. Texas A&M
I told you throughout this entire piece not to get into a twist over the first College Football Playoff rankings, and I’m going on appearance after appearance talking about how everyone will need to R-E-L-A-X on how this all goes.
However, blow that all off when it comes to Miami, Northwestern, and Texas A&M, because it’ll be fascinating to see just how much the committee respects what those three have done so far.
Texas A&M should be somewhere around the top five, and it has to be a head of Florida. If it’s behind Cincinnati and/or BYU, then that’s going to be a big, big problem, because eventually, it won’t be if it keeps on winning.
It’ll be a bad look for the CFP if it ranks the Aggies behind teams that don’t have any sort of win within 100 miles of being as good as the A&M victory over Florida. It’ll be a worse look if it punishes A&M for having to play at Alabama.
Northwestern’s ranking is just out of curiosity. It’s one of the few teams that controls its own destiny – win out, win the Big Ten Championship, in no matter what – but how much does the committee respect the team that just stuffed Wisconsin to a dead stop?
A&M and Northwestern will work themselves out in the rankings over the next few weeks. Miami, though, will be the most interesting under-the-radar case because it will have a strong theoretical shot of getting close in the end if it wins out.
The Canes don’t and won’t have a win as good as Texas A&M’s victory over Florida, but if the one loss is at Clemson – perfectly acceptable – and that’s it in a one-loss regular season, then what happens in the ACC Championship could matter.
And here we go. It’s College Football Playoff rankings night. Let’s have some fun.
– What will the top 4 be?
– How will we know if the committee is on its game?
– How the heck do you rank the Pac-12 teams?
– How much will the committee tease Cincinnati and BYU?
