As expected, the first College Football Playoff committee rankings shed a light into the committee’s thought process to date and provided insight as to how the top four teams will ultimately be chosen.
- First and foremost, as pointed out by several on Twitter, conference championships will be a key component, and nobody except a Big 12 regular season champion will be crowned prior to December 6.
- The two most important numbers right now are LOSSES and STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE. Only one undefeated team (Marshall) and three one-loss teams (East Carolina, Duke, and Colorado State) were jumped in the rankings by teams with more losses. All four schools had strength of schedule rankings lower than #90.
- By that account, it’s going to be next to impossible for the SEC West to get three teams into the playoff based on head to head games remaining. The upcoming Georgia-Auburn crossover game adds to that difficulty and will save #SECBias from trending on Twitter in December.
- Watch how far the loser of the Auburn-Ole Miss game falls in next week’s rankings. By the committee’s logic, the loser should be grouped at the top of the two loss teams, but I bet you that won’t be the case.
- Head to head does matter, but is not and cannot mathematically be absolute. One can contend that Baylor should be ahead of TCU and Arizona should be ahead of Oregon because of head to head wins, but using that logic 4-4 Virginia Tech should be ahead of Ohio State and Washington State should be ahead of Utah (the biggest outlier on the board this year). At some point, the value of the remaining resume trumps head to head.
- BUT, head to head wins for Mississippi State (Auburn), Mississippi (Alabama), and Oregon (Michigan State) are ranked according to the head to head.
12-person Selection Committee will rank #CFP25 teams weekly
Top 4 at end of season will be seeded in semifinals pic.twitter.com/iD2slzYeN6
— ESPN CollegeFootball (@ESPNCFB) October 28, 2014
The following chart ranks teams first by number of losses, than by their CFP Ranking. KPI Ranking, KPI Strength of Schedule, and Future Strength of Schedule (adds in KPI SOS of games scheduled yet still yet to be played)
0-Loss Teams:
| Mississippi State | CFP Ranking: #1 | KPI: #1 | KPI SOS: #6 | Future SOS: #9 |
| Florida State | CFP Ranking: #2 | KPI: #4 | KPI SOS: #45 | Future SOS: #35 |
| Marshall | CFP Ranking: NR | KPI: #32 | KPI SOS: #123 | Future SOS: #117 |
1-Loss Teams:
| Auburn | CFP Ranking: #3 | KPI: #2 | KPI SOS: #1 | Future SOS: #2 |
| Mississippi | CFP Ranking: #4 | KPI: #3 | KPI SOS: #3 | Future SOS: #4 |
| Oregon | CFP Ranking: #5 | KPI: #7 | KPI SOS: #33 | Future SOS: #51 |
| Alabama | CFP Ranking: #6 | KPI: #6 | KPI SOS: #8 | Future SOS: #3 |
| TCU | CFP Ranking: #7 | KPI: #10 | KPI SOS: #74 | Future SOS: #65 |
| Michigan State | CFP Ranking: #8 | KPI: #11 | KPI SOS: #72 | Future SOS: #63 |
| Kansas State | CFP Ranking: #9 | KPI: #24 | KPI SOS: #52 | Future SOS: #39 |
| Notre Dame | CFP Ranking: #10 | KPI: #20 | KPI SOS: #30 | Future SOS: #17 |
| Georgia | CFP Ranking: #11 | KPI: #5 | KPI SOS: #35 | Future SOS: #27 |
| Arizona | CFP Ranking: #12 | KPI: #18 | KPI SOS: #44 | Future SOS: #20 |
| Baylor | CFP Ranking: #13 | KPI: #28 | KPI SOS: #85 | Future SOS: #66 |
| Arizona State | CFP Ranking: #14 | KPI: #13 | KPI SOS: #42 | Future SOS: #23 |
| Nebraska | CFP Ranking: #15 | KPI: #15 | KPI SOS: #53 | Future SOS: #57 |
| Ohio State | CFP Ranking: #16 | KPI: #16 | KPI SOS: #79 | Future SOS: #59 |
| Utah | CFP Ranking: #17 | KPI: #17 | KPI SOS: #58 | Future SOS: #22 |
| East Carolina | CFP Ranking: #23 | KPI: #37 | KPI SOS: #110 | Future SOS: #104 |
| Duke | CFP Ranking: #24 | KPI: #31 | KPI SOS: #101 | Future SOS: #78 |
| Colorado State | CFP Ranking: NR | KPI: #26 | KPI SOS: #90 | Future SOS: #98 |
2-Loss Teams (If Ranked in Current CFP Top 25):
| Oklahoma | CFP Ranking: #18 | KPI: #17 | KPI SOS: #18 | Future SOS: #45 |
| LSU | CFP Ranking: #19 | KPI: #9 | KPI SOS: #17 | Future SOS: #14 |
| West Virginia | CFP Ranking: #20 | KPI: #14 | KPI SOS: #26 | Future SOS: #28 |
| Clemson | CFP Ranking: #21 | KPI: #8 | KPI SOS: #10 | Future SOS: #40 |
| UCLA | CFP Ranking: #22 | KPI: #12 | KPI SOS: #7 | Future SOS: #6 |
| Louisville | CFP Ranking: #25 | KPI: #30 | KPI SOS: #50 | Future SOS: #29 |
The Eliminator: The Eliminator assumes (not necessarily justly) that a Power 5 conference team with three or more losses and a Group of 5 team with one or more losses will not make the playoff. Under that assumption, 30 teams remain in play for the postseason playoff.
- ACC (5): Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Duke
- BIG 12 (5): TCU, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas State, Baylor
- BIG TEN (6): Michigan State, Nebraska, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa
- CONFERENCE USA (1): Marshall
- PAC-12 (5): Oregon, UCLA, Arizona State, Arizona, Utah
- SEC (7): Mississippi State, Auburn, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Missouri
- INDEPENDENT (1): Notre Dame
Top 10 Week 10 Games ranked by G-Score (KPI Rankings entering Thursday’s games)
- #2 Auburn (6-1, 3-1 SEC) at #3 Mississippi (7-1, 4-1 SEC): Saturday 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT, ESPN
- #10 TCU (6-1, 3-1 Big 12) at #14 West Virginia (6-2, 4-1 Big 12): Saturday 3:30 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN2 Outer-Market
- #18 Arizona (6-1, 3-1 Pac-12) at #12 UCLA (6-2, 3-2 Pac-12): Saturday 10:30 p.m. ET/7:30 p.m. PT, ESPN
- #4 Florida State (7-0, 4-0 ACC) at #30 Louisville (6-2, 4-2 ACC): Thursday 7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN
- #27 Utah (6-1, 3-1 Pac-12) at #13 Arizona State (6-1, 4-1 Pac-12): Saturday 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT, FOX Sports 1
- #41 Arkansas (4-4, 0-4 SEC) at #1 Mississippi State (7-0, 4-0 SEC): Saturday 7:15 p.m. ET/6:15 p.m. CT, ESPN2
- #40 Stanford (5-3, 3-2 Pac-12) at #7 Oregon (7-1, 4-1 Pac-12): Saturday 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT, FOX
- #42 Florida (3-3, 2-3 SEC) vs. #5 Georgia (6-1, 4-1 SEC): Saturday 3:30 p.m. ET, CBS
- #38 North Carolina (4-4, 2-2 ACC) at #21 Miami (FL) (5-3, 2-2 ACC): Saturday 12:30 p.m. ET, ACC Network/ESPN3
- #45 Boston College (5-3, 2-2 ACC) at #29 Virginia Tech (4-4, 1-3 ACC): Saturday 12:30 p.m. ET, ACC Network/ESPN3