College Football Playoff Rankings: Will Boise State, San Diego State Start in the Top 25?
The Broncos and Aztecs will contend for a New Year’s Six bowl, but will they crack the first College Football Playoff rankings this week? We make our first projection.
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One is all but guaranteed, the other is up in the air.
The first College Football Playoff rankings of 2019 will be unveiled on Tuesday, which means that the race to the Cotton Bowl is about to get a whole lot more interesting.
The Boise State Broncos and San Diego State Aztecs, with just one loss apiece, figure to be in the mix for a potentially crowded Group of 5 field that thinned only slightly this past weekend (our condolences to Appalachian State, but not so much to SMU). And now that there are no undefeated G5 teams left standing, the free for all seems likely to take a lot of unpredictable turns before the dust is settled. Will Boise State and San Diego State both make the initial cut, though?
The first thing to keep in mind: A lot can change in a week and in the College Football Playoff era, things have definitely tended to change quite a bit over the course of a month or so, so missing the initial cut is anything but a harbinger of doom.
What about Air Force, you might ask? There’s no doubt the Falcons might have more momentum than any other team in the Mountain West right now, as the Falcons actually lead the conference by SP+ and rank 38th nationally in Jeff Sagarin’s rankings. Their fourth-quarter collapse at Navy seems particularly damaging, though, so they may not even be college football’s best service academy team right now. They are better classified as lurkers until further notice, but a few more wins and a few breaks could help them close the distance.
Let’s examine the case for both Mountain West contenders:
Boise State (7-1, 4-0 Mountain West)
SP+ rank: 45 | FEI rank (through Week 9): 32 | Sagarin rank: 27 | FPI rank: 32 | Yards per point margin: 36
The case for the Broncos: While the Mountain division may not be quite as tough as the AAC West, Air Force looks like a significant feather in the cap and Wyoming looks like it could be considered as such, too, heading into next week’s critical game. Florida State and Marshall haven’t totally sunk their non-conference bonafides, either, with the Seminoles probably rating (for now) as a better win than Ole Miss and UCLA and similar to that of TCU.
The case against the Broncos: Fairly or not, Boise State currently has the worst loss of any team in the picture for now. BYU can alleviate this by pummeling a bad slate of November foes and toppling a one-loss San Diego State before the Broncos do so themselves in the title game, but they’ll also need some carnage in the American Athletic Conference to jump back into the pole position.
San Diego State (7-1, 3-1 Mountain West)
SP+ rank: 68 | FEI rank (through Week 9): 66 | Sagarin rank: 59 | FPI rank: 66 | Yards per point margin: 17
The case for the Aztecs: One metric that may help the Aztecs, as ESPN’s Bill Connelly wrote this morning, is yards per play. As problematic as that measure might be, SDSU currently ranks 17th among FBS teams in YPP margin thanks to a strong defense that ranks 12th. That latter mark is the second-best among G5 teams, trailing only Wyoming, so if defense wins championships, San Diego State probably has a sound edge on the field down the stretch.
The case against the Aztecs: One hurdle the Aztecs will have to overcome is that, among the teams reasonably in the mix to crack these first rankings, their current strength of schedule is the most lacking. Per Jeff Sagarin, here’s where each team stands on the front for the moment:
- Cincinnati: 56
- SMU: 69
- UCF: 83
- Memphis: 86
- Boise State: 88
- Navy: 96
- San Diego State: 101
That isn’t a completely insurmountable deficit, but their remaining schedule consists of running through the West division, which has been wildly uneven, and hoping that BYU beats up on a crappy back half of the schedule. Doing what Boise State and Utah State could not would provide a modest boost to the overall resume.
This leads to the Aztecs’ bigger problem: Good teams typically dominate bad teams and San Diego State hasn’t done that consistently. If they are going to bank on their strengths (defense and special teams) to carry them to the championship game, they need to look more like they did against New Mexico State and Colorado State and less like they did against UNLV. This isn’t to say the Aztecs are in danger of repeating last year’s November slide but that, in a hunt like this, all it takes is one stumble to get knocked out for good.
By Way of Comparison: The Rest of the G5 Field
Appalachian State: SP+ rank: 36 | FEI rank (through Week 9): 31 | Sagarin rank: 41 | FPI rank: 47 | Yards per point margin: 19
Cincinnati: SP+ rank: 35 | FEI rank (through Week 9): 18 | Sagarin rank: 26 | FPI rank: 31 | Yards per point margin: 23
Louisiana Tech: SP+ rank: 71 | FEI rank (through Week 9): 50 | Sagarin rank: 85 | FPI rank: 81 | Yards per point margin: 25
Memphis: SP+ rank: 19 | FEI rank (through Week 9): 25 | Sagarin rank: 30 | FPI rank: 38 | Yards per point margin: 20
Navy: SP+ rank: 31 | FEI rank (through Week 9): 19 | Sagarin rank: 32 | FPI rank: 42 | Yards per point margin: 14
SMU: SP+ rank: 40 | FEI rank (through Week 9): 20 | Sagarin rank: 39 | FPI rank: 39 | Yards per point margin: 40
UCF: SP+ rank: 16 | FEI rank (through Week 9): 10 | Sagarin rank: 19 | FPI rank: 18 | Yards per point margin: 27
So what do I think the first top 25 will look like? Read on.
Projected College Football Playoff Poll
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Ohio STATE
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ALABAMA
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CLEMSON
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LSU
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PENN STATE
-
Georgia
-
Oregon
-
Oklahoma
-
UTAH
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baylor
-
MINNESOTA
-
AUBURN
-
florida
-
michigan
-
NOTRE DAME
-
wisconsin
-
Iowa
-
memphis
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Cincinnati
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Wake forest
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kansas state
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Boise State
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texas a&m
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southern methodist
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texas
Sorry, Aztecs fans, but right now you’re up against a double whammy. The Group of 5 field is still very crowded, more so than it’s been since probably 2015, and the strength of schedule argument is the same problem that Utah State faced last season. Remember, the Aggies were 18th in the AP poll that preceded 2018’s first CFP rankings and couldn’t make the cut until they reached 9-1 on November 13.
Be patient, though, because college football looks to be as goofy as ever and anything can happen.
