While I didn’t have an article out earlier this week recapping the results from the weekend, I decided to wait until we got the first set of College Football Playoff Rankings, so that we could have a little more information about the playoff picture. Now that they’re out, let’s go through some of the more surprising rankings and talk about what they mean for the Playoff.
PAC-12 Erasure
To be honest, we probably should have expected this. Whether or not it’s just a function of the PAC-12 only playing 3 games so far (Big Ten has played 5, which apparently is significantly more), or just a general disrespect to the conference, the PAC-12 seems poised to miss the Playoffs again this year, despite likely having an undefeated champion. With Oregon sitting at 15th, and USC sitting at possibly the most fraudulent ever 18th, it seems very unlikely that the committee will get them into the Top 4 by the end of the season. Part of this is obviously due to them feeling the other teams in the conference are not very competitive, but it is hard to not feel that the PAC-12 here is being mostly ignored by the committee, in favour of mid-tier teams from other conferences.
As an aside, with USC ranked as 18th, I dare you to argue for that placement for them. I would literally take any other team below them on the Top 25 Ranking MONEY LINE, without even thinking about it. It’s very notable because that list of teams includes Iowa, a team which has beaten Penn State, Michigan State and Minnesota, but lost to Northwestern and Perdue, none of which inspires any confidence about Iowa as a team. USC has done literally nothing to deserve this spot in the rankings.
Why is Clemson so high?
One of the earliest mandates of the committee was to take into account team injuries when evaluating losses. The reason for this, is obviously that if a team lost one of their star players for a game, and lost against a strong opponent, then they should still be ranked high enough that if they were to avenge that loss in a conference championship game, they could reclaim their spot in the playoff. While obviously when the committee was created, they did not know about COVID-19, that definition seems to almost perfectly fit with the current pandemic. Typically, an injury to your star Quarterback would end your season, not only cost you one game. However, with Trevor Lawrence contracting the virus, but now recovered, it gives us a perfect ability to test that hypothesis.
My concern here isn’t that Clemson is in the Top 10, or even the Top 5, but that they are ranked above Ohio State, even after Ohio State’s win against Indiana. Outside of a win against Miami (which looks worse and worse each week as Miami underperforms expectations against their opponents) Clemson doesn’t have a signature win. The last few weeks their defense has looked terrible, and their offense without Trevor Lawrence struggled heavily. On top of that, this week their coach, Dabo Sweeny, has taken himself out of the running for the “all-around great person” award in 2020 while continuing to attack Florida State for not playing them after one of the Clemson’s players tested positive for COVID the night before the game.
What does it all mean? At this point, it would appear that the committee is setting themselves up to allow both ND and Clemson into the playoff, if Clemson were to beat ND in the conference championship game. However, if Clemson were to lose, or to fall before the championship game, then they will likely fall very far, very fast in the rankings.
It’s going to be hard, but it is possible to get Cincinnati or BYU into the playoffs
With Cincinnati at 7th, and BYU at 14th, there is a clear path into the playoff for either team, which involves them winning out and playing each other. Obviously there has been much hype on twitter about these two teams scheduling each other in the coming weeks as they both have open dates, and I think their only chance to get into the playoff is for them too, but even then, many things would have to go right for them to get into the playoffs. Let’s assume for the second that they are basically interchangeable. If BYU (the lower ranked team) were to beat Cincinnati, I would assume that they would either replace them at the exact same ranking spot, or they would be very close to the 7th spot that they are now. So let’s examine Cincinnati’s path. As they are currently in 7th, they would need to climb 3 spots, which actually isn’t as bad as you think, because 1 of them (Texas A&M) very likely can’t play in a conference championship, and 4 of them (Alabama vs Florida, Notre Dame vs Clemson) are very likely to have to play against each other before the season is over. So a path is there. However, the issue is if chaos starts happening in the championship games. If Clemson were to get revenge against Notre Dame, would the committee pick Cincinnati or a Notre Dame team who’s one loss was to a team that made it into the playoff? If Florida were to upset Alabama, would they pick Cincinnati or a one loss Alabama, who’s only loss was to the SEC Champion? Also, they want minimal chaos in the Big Ten, as they want a perfect Ohio State to destroy Northwestern in their Conference Championship game, while also wanting chaos in the PAC-12, and more chaos in the Big 12, to potentially avoid a two loss Oklahoma or Iowa State from getting back into contention. Is it possible? Yes. Do they need to play each other? Very likely yes. However, from experience, both of them face a mountain to climb as they are not from the Power Five conferences. Will 2020 continue it’s weird streak and give us the first non-power five conference team in the playoff? We’ll know in only a few weeks time.