Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football (hope sold separately at Oklahoma State, which actually led into the second quarter Saturday, the deepest the Cowboys have gone with a lead since, um, August). First Quarter: Slouching Tigers, Shrinking Canes. Second Quarter: The Rapidly Disappearing Hiring Class of 2023. Third Quarter: The Must-Win Math Isn’t Mathing.
Fourth Quarter: Getting Pre-Annoyed at the CFP Ranking Show
As athletic directors like to say when firing coaches during the season, that which must be done eventually should be done immediately. The Dash is applying that same philosophy to getting mad about the College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings, which will be revealed for the first time this season Tuesday night. The weekly TV show is nice for ESPN and loudmouths in the media, but it’s a largely useless exercise that serves to undermine the committee’s credibility.
On that cheerful note, let’s get the anticipated laments on the table right away.
- Please explain the additional weight being given to strength of schedule and strength of record (31).
In August, the CFP announced the following: “Changes for the upcoming season include enhancements to the tools that the selection committee uses to assess schedule strength and how teams perform against their schedule. The current schedule strength metric has been adjusted to apply greater weight to games against strong opponents. An additional metric, record strength, has been added to the selection committee’s analysis to go beyond a team’s schedule strength to assess how a team performed against that schedule. This metric rewards teams defeating high-quality opponents while minimizing the penalty for losing to such a team. Conversely, these changes will provide minimal reward for defeating a lower-quality opponent while imposing a greater penalty for losing to such a team.”
Dash reaction: Show us your work, and it cannot be on “From the Desk of Greg Sankey” letterhead. Explain the actual components of the metrics, and the “greater weight” that was added (like, how much greater weight). Publish a metrics ranking. And answer us this: What’s the respective merit placed on metrics matter vis-à-vis human appraisal? If the whole thing is being punted to a computer ranking, send up a flare.
- How is the committee balancing good wins with bad losses (32), particularly in the case of Alabama?
The Crimson Tide are 7–1 and have beaten four currently ranked teams—Georgia on the road, Vanderbilt, Missouri on the road and Tennessee. Nobody in the country has a better résumé of wins.
But can we talk about that loss? The one by two touchdowns to a Florida State team that is now in 15th place in the ACC? If that’s somehow not a bad loss for the Tide, then it must be a good win for 8–1 Virginia, 6–2 Miami and 7–2 Pittsburgh, which beat the Seminoles. The latter two did it in the same stadium where the Seminoles handled the Crimson Tide.
- Is the Notre Dame mojo (33) as strong with the committee as it is with the AP and coaches poll voters? And if so, why?
The Fighting Irish have moved into the Top 10, with the home win over USC doing a lot of work on the résumé. The other wins: Big Ten last-place Purdue; SEC last-place Arkansas; three-loss Boise State; four-loss North Carolina State; ACC last-place Boston College.
The loss to Miami is losing starch, given the Hurricanes’ drop to 6–2. The loss to Texas A&M remains no shame, other than the way it happened.
But the Irish are four spots ahead of Louisville (34) in the polls for reasons that are unclear beyond brand name. The Cardinals have a better record and won at Miami, where Notre Dame lost, and their lone loss is to ACC-leading Virginia in overtime. Will the committee give the Irish the same boost?
- Will the committee gin up a fourth Big Ten contender (35) out of thin air?
Ohio State and Indiana are the clear top two teams in the nation at present, in either order. Oregon is certainly going to be in the Top 10. But after that, the conference runs into a quality wins problem outside its own echo chamber.
Among the top contenders for the fourth highest-ranked Big Ten team, here’s what they did in nonleague play: Iowa lost to Iowa State; USC lost to Notre Dame; Michigan lost to Oklahoma; Washington played nobody.
The only Big Ten members outside Ohio State that have done anything in nonconference play are a pair of three-loss teams: Illinois, which routed turnover-prone Duke in Durham, N.C.; and Nebraska, which held off Cincinnati in a virtual home game in Kansas City, Mo. (And the Cornhuskers have now lost quarterback Dylan Raiola for the year to injury.)
This is a great example why Tony Petitti wants to guarantee his league four automatic bids—because it’s going to be hard in a lot of years to find four teams capable of earning those bids on merit.
- Reconciling Oklahoma vs. Texas (36). Putting the Sooners and Longhorns in the correct order against each other will be tricky.
Oklahoma has two significant wins, over Tennessee on the road and Michigan at home, plus two losses to ranked teams. Texas has a home win over Vanderbilt and the head-to-head win over the Sooners, plus losses to Ohio State and unranked Florida.
Oklahoma is ahead of Texas in the polls, perhaps based on the fact that quarterback John Mateer was just coming back from hand surgery when the two teams met in the Red River Rivalry game. But the game also wasn’t very close, with the Horns winning by 17 points.
Subsequent results may make this an easier call. But how they start could matter.
- Will the committee beat the late-November rush and start disrespecting the American (37) right away?
You might recall the 2021 season, in which the committee grudgingly came around to undefeated AAC champion Cincinnati, dragging its feet the entire way. With five quality teams to appraise, does more than one make the CFP Top 25?
The upper echelon of the league maximized its opportunities in the nonconference, with Memphis beating Arkansas, and Tulane beating Northwestern and Duke, and South Florida beating Florida and routing Boise State. We'll see how much that translates in the rankings compared to the downstream power-conference teams.
Coach Who Earned His Comp Car This Week
Jason Eck (38), New Mexico
The first-year coach has the Lobos ticketed for their first bowl game since 2016 after upsetting UNLV 40–35. Eck arrived to find the cupboard bare in Albuquerque, particularly on offense, with dynamic quarterback Devon Dampier having departed for a starring role at Utah. Undeterred, Eck rebuilt an offense that ranks in the top half of the Mountain West in scoring, yards per game and yards per play. With winnable games up next against Colorado State and Air Force, New Mexico could have eight wins going into a potentially impactful finale against San Diego State (if the Lobos get some help elsewhere).
Coach Who Should Take the Bus to Work
Dabo Swinney (39), Clemson
With the Tigers having already lost more games than in any season since 2009, Swinney took out his frustrations in several directions. He reamed his defense during the loss to Duke, then he ripped the ACC refs after the game (that earned a fine). The Blue Devils gouged his defense for 6.86 yards per play, the most Clemson has allowed to an ACC opponent since 2016. A season that began in the top five has completely collapsed, and there could be more losses on the way.
Point After
When hungry and thirsty in Covington, Ky., just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, The Dash recommends a visit to Smoke Justis (40), a sports bar that nails everything. There are all the necessary TVs. There are excellent chicken wings. There is Cincinnati-brewed Rheingeist Truth on tap. And the backstory on the name of the place is great.
Walter “Smoke” Justis pitched for the minor league Covington Blue Sox in the early 1900s. After having a cup of coffee with the Detroit Tigers in 1905, he went on to be something of a minor league legend. He threw four no-hitters in a single season with the Lancaster Lanks in 1908, and pitched a shutout in the home opener of the inaugural season of the Blue Sox in 1913.
Stop by the place and thank The Dash later.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Forde-Yard Dash: Why We’re Already Annoyed About the CFP Rankings.
