The week’s rankings don’t matter. Where will these take us? That’s what matters. Georgia lost to a weak South Carolina team and gets dinged using the same logic as was used last year to disqualify OSU (which lost to Purdue). Precedent is a b*tch. Of course, if UGA wins out they go to the CFP but otherwise no.
What no one acknowledges is the great damage done to college football by the egregious disrespect shown to conferences. If Alabama does not even play for the SEC championship, surely they cannot get picked.
Meanwhile, either Utah or Oregon is likely to have one loss, the PAC12 championship and a compelling case.
The reality is that each year there are one or two teams that stand out; and every once in a while a third. Beyond this tail in the distribution there is a big drop off, lots of talent through teams seven, eight, nine, maybe even ten and nothing but navel gazing to draw meaningful distinctions. Each year the choice of team #4 makes the committee look like a bunch of clowns.
Drellberg, the committee ditched the ‘conference champion’ criteria a few years back when Bama didn’t even play in their conf championsip game and still made the playoff. They used to lambast the Big 12 for not having a conference game at all, the “extra data point” as they called it, like it mattered to them, until it didn’t matter to them.
Other criteria that used to matter to them but no longer matters, game control, quality wins, quality losses, my favorite was “big boy football”. AKA, defense. But you don’t hear that one anymore ever now that SEC teams give up big points to any quarterback with a pulse. Turns out all those mighty SEC defenses were just playing against inferior quarterbacks for years. About the time Texas A&M and Johnny Manziel and Missouri came into the SEC. Manziel was roasting SEC defenses, and I think Mizz played in the SEC conference championship game their first year in the conference.
It’s not just this years Bama/LSU shootout, but going back several years now. Oklahoma alone put 34 on Bama last year, 48 on Georgia in 2017, 35 on Auburn the year before, 45 on Bama in 2014. No more “big boy football” as they called it.
The committee and their ever changing criteria.