My top 4 agrees with the committee’s, and I would even have the same matchups. I would have had Washington and Texas in the Rose Bowl though, which makes more sense geographically; and I wouldn’t have made the Longhorns (who are supposedly the worse seed) close being at home.
My top 4 is based on the best teams. I’m not saying that I don’t think a team like Florida St., which went undefeated and even played two programs with multiple championships in the last 20 years out of conference, should be included in the top 4; but I think Alabama and Texas both have strengths of schedule that cancel out the additional loss and then some.
Florida St.’s Exclusion
The committee’s instructions do not include something that says, “an undefeated conference champion should be given priority over a conference champion who is not undefeated.”
I would be OK with adding such a stipulation, especially if it also added language that said an exception could be made if the non-conference schedule is particularly weak, which would certainly not be the case here.
My point is the committee did its job. If I were a one-man committee with the same instructions, I would have put aside my preference for including Florida St. and given the same list of best 4 teams.
There is also language that the committee can consider injuries to major players. I don’t consider anything like that in my formula, and I can’t think of any consistent way you could apply that to any formula. There are no strict standards for injury reporting in college football like there is in the NFL. Even if there were, it would be difficult to enforce that and provide consistent oversight for injury reports of all 133 teams and then add those reports to a formula. I don’t like the idea of using that as an argument because every team has a mix of players who are hurt or otherwise unavailable from game to game that can affect any outcome. Others are playing hurt or playing with some other type of stress or distraction.
In the only touchdown drive of the game by either team, Lawrance Toafili (#9) rushed for 75 yards in two plays. Florida St. won the ACC championship, 16-6, over Louisville in Charlotte last night. It was the Seminoles’ first conference championship (and first 13-0 start) since Jimbo Fisher and Jameis Winston led the team in 2014.
What I do think is fair, and what I think the committee did, is to look at how they played at the end of the year. They did not look like a top-4 team against Florida or Louisville. I don’t think they looked like a top-20 team in either game. I have Louisville in the top 20; but if I considered the trajectory of their season, I wouldn’t have them anywhere close. I have Kentucky #47 right now, and the Wildcats won at Louisville 8 days ago.
I don’t include that in my formula, but I’ve never had a problem with the basketball or baseball committee’s giving more weight to recent results, and I don’t fault the football committee for doing so. If there were no SEC championship and Alabama beat Georgia earlier in the year, I wouldn’t want them to be given less credit for that, but obviously the committee isn’t being unfair about when you any played a given game. If anything, I think they’re being charitable to Texas for not considering how long ago the Alabama game was (or any game against a top-20 opponent was) in ranking Texas #3. But the point is that’s why I don’t include it in my formula. It could yield unfair results that way, but a person can avoid such outcomes.
So I have Florida St. fifth without considering margin of victory, how the Seminoles looked in those games, or the Jordan Travis injury. I also didn’t consider how Florida and Louisville were playing, just their respective seasons as a whole. So I think there are more than enough factors not to consider Florida St. to be a top-4 team. It’s not just one thing. But as I said, I’m very sympathetic if you ask me who should get to play for the championship instead of who the four best teams are.
Some people are coping by saying, “at least it’s an expanded playoff next year”; but that doesn’t give me any consolation personally. None of the major-conference championship games would have been for a spot in the top 12 this year. I might not even watch next year if LSU isn’t in it. There is a good chance the committee will already know exactly who the top 12 is by championship weekend, and the games will solely be for seeding. I’ll have my opinions again, but it will lose a lot of the excitement.
Alabama vs. Texas
To go back to the Alabama-Texas discussion I began in previous blogs (especially the last rankings blog) and touched on a couple of paragraphs ago, I think too much attention is being paid to a head-to-head game in September and not enough attention is being paid to all the games since then. I have Alabama #2 in strength of schedule vs. FBS teams and Texas 21st. Texas does get a little more credit for playing all FBS teams though. If I ignore Chattanooga from Alabama’s schedule and drop Baylor from Texas’s schedule, Alabama still ends up stronger. The average of the best 12 teams Alabama faced is about equal to that of #39 Iowa St. The average of the best 12 teams Texas faced is about equal to that of #51 Northwestern.
So now I’m going to get to arguments from outside of looking at the computers. Alabama has a better loss from longer ago. The #1 wins by each team are roughly even (Alabama vs. Georgia), but I would give Alabama more credit for getting the win in December versus September. Even if you still give Texas a point from there to make the two teams even, I don’t know how you argue LSU and Ole Miss aren’t better wins than Oklahoma St. and Kansas St.
I think Texas would have to have a far superior list of the more middle-of-the-road wins to overcome that, and I don’t think they do. Texas beat Wyoming, Iowa St., and Texas Tech. Alabama beat Kentucky, Texas A&M, and Auburn. Those are pretty similar lists of three. Although it did fall a little short, I do think the Longhorns made a very good attempt at playing the necessary type of schedule to prepare them for an SEC season. If you’re one of those people who says, “sorry, that win over Auburn was ugly and if they’re that close, I’m going with head to head,” that’s a reasonable point of view. It’s just not how I see it. I would have been perfectly happy to have joined you in laughing at Alabama if Texas and Florida St. had made it ahead of the Tide though.
Alabama WR Isaiah Bond (who may have pushed off first) catches the go-ahead touchdown pass on fourth and 31 in Auburn 8 days ago. The need for a miracle finish in this situation is one argument against Alabama’s inclusion in the top 4.
As I mentioned, what I don’t like is when someone says, “I don’t care what else they did, they each have a loss and Alabama’s is to Texas. End of story.” That’s just wanting to rush to a conclusion and not consider the season as a whole. Word keeps telling me not to use the phrase “season as a whole,” but I don’t know a better way to distinguish my more holistic approach from the approach of just cherry-picking a couple of factoids and stopping there.
Washington vs. Michigan
I don’t have strong feelings about Washington ahead of Michigan, but I’ll lay out the arguments. I have Michigan about 99% as good as Washington, so there isn’t a huge separation. I like that Washington had a much tougher game this weekend, but obviously Michigan had a much tougher rivalry-week opponent. Maybe some of the narrow margins of victory (both Oregon games, Arizona, Arizona St., Utah, Oregon St., and Washington St. were all within one possession) hurt the Huskies. Michigan had a robust list of top-three wins: Ohio St., Penn St., and Iowa. I think Oregon would beat Ohio St. and Penn St. but it was just unfortunate for the Ducks that they had to play a top-2 team twice instead of Ohio St.’s once. Iowa is a better third win than Washington’s third, which might be Arizona. But then Michigan’s fourth- and fifth-best wins are UNLV and Bowling Green (they didn’t play Northwestern or Wisconsin, which are my two highest Big Ten teams after Iowa). I strongly believe both would lose to both Oregon St. and Utah and probably USC as well.
LSU Bowl Selection Reaction
D’Cota Dixon celebrates the game-clinching interception of LSU QB Brandon Harris in 2016 in Green Bay, Wisc., as LSU was driving with just under a minute left in the game. This was one of the final nails in the coffin for LSU head coach Les Miles, who was fired three weeks later.
I’m sure I’ll go more into bowl match-ups later, but I’m disappointed that LSU will be playing Wisconsin. I was hoping for either Notre Dame, which would give the Tigers a chance to get revenge for some foolishness in bowl losses over the last 10 years (as well as being the Brian Kelly bowl), or Iowa. The contrast in styles for Iowa/LSU would have been worth getting up early for. Wisconsin isn’t an offensive juggernaut – they haven’t scored more than 30 points in a game since September – but they’re not Iowa. Wisconsin isn’t even in my top 50. I think either LSU won’t get up for the game and it will be ugly regardless of the winner or we could get another blowout like last season. Neither would be a very satisfying end to the year. It’s one of six bowl games between the SEC and the Big Ten.
Top 25 Later This Week
I have my top 25 ready. Of course it’s mostly based on my ratings with a few adjustments, but I don’t want to overshadow it with all of the discussion of the top 4, so look for that later in the week.
The Bayou Blogger
Alabama, Arizona, Auburn, College Football, College Football Playoff, Florida, Florida St., Georgia, Iowa, Kansas St., Kentucky, Louisville, LSU, Michigan, Ohio St., Oklahoma St., Ole Miss, Oregon St., Penn St., SEC, Texas, Texas A&M, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming
Reaction to CFP and LSU’s Bowl Selection
In College Football, College Football Playoff, General LSU, Post-game, Rankings, Rankings Commentary on December 3, 2023 at 4:47 PMMy top 4 agrees with the committee’s, and I would even have the same matchups. I would have had Washington and Texas in the Rose Bowl though, which makes more sense geographically; and I wouldn’t have made the Longhorns (who are supposedly the worse seed) close being at home.
My top 4 is based on the best teams. I’m not saying that I don’t think a team like Florida St., which went undefeated and even played two programs with multiple championships in the last 20 years out of conference, should be included in the top 4; but I think Alabama and Texas both have strengths of schedule that cancel out the additional loss and then some.
Florida St.’s Exclusion
The committee’s instructions do not include something that says, “an undefeated conference champion should be given priority over a conference champion who is not undefeated.”
I would be OK with adding such a stipulation, especially if it also added language that said an exception could be made if the non-conference schedule is particularly weak, which would certainly not be the case here.
My point is the committee did its job. If I were a one-man committee with the same instructions, I would have put aside my preference for including Florida St. and given the same list of best 4 teams.
There is also language that the committee can consider injuries to major players. I don’t consider anything like that in my formula, and I can’t think of any consistent way you could apply that to any formula. There are no strict standards for injury reporting in college football like there is in the NFL. Even if there were, it would be difficult to enforce that and provide consistent oversight for injury reports of all 133 teams and then add those reports to a formula. I don’t like the idea of using that as an argument because every team has a mix of players who are hurt or otherwise unavailable from game to game that can affect any outcome. Others are playing hurt or playing with some other type of stress or distraction.
What I do think is fair, and what I think the committee did, is to look at how they played at the end of the year. They did not look like a top-4 team against Florida or Louisville. I don’t think they looked like a top-20 team in either game. I have Louisville in the top 20; but if I considered the trajectory of their season, I wouldn’t have them anywhere close. I have Kentucky #47 right now, and the Wildcats won at Louisville 8 days ago.
I don’t include that in my formula, but I’ve never had a problem with the basketball or baseball committee’s giving more weight to recent results, and I don’t fault the football committee for doing so. If there were no SEC championship and Alabama beat Georgia earlier in the year, I wouldn’t want them to be given less credit for that, but obviously the committee isn’t being unfair about when you any played a given game. If anything, I think they’re being charitable to Texas for not considering how long ago the Alabama game was (or any game against a top-20 opponent was) in ranking Texas #3. But the point is that’s why I don’t include it in my formula. It could yield unfair results that way, but a person can avoid such outcomes.
So I have Florida St. fifth without considering margin of victory, how the Seminoles looked in those games, or the Jordan Travis injury. I also didn’t consider how Florida and Louisville were playing, just their respective seasons as a whole. So I think there are more than enough factors not to consider Florida St. to be a top-4 team. It’s not just one thing. But as I said, I’m very sympathetic if you ask me who should get to play for the championship instead of who the four best teams are.
Some people are coping by saying, “at least it’s an expanded playoff next year”; but that doesn’t give me any consolation personally. None of the major-conference championship games would have been for a spot in the top 12 this year. I might not even watch next year if LSU isn’t in it. There is a good chance the committee will already know exactly who the top 12 is by championship weekend, and the games will solely be for seeding. I’ll have my opinions again, but it will lose a lot of the excitement.
Alabama vs. Texas
To go back to the Alabama-Texas discussion I began in previous blogs (especially the last rankings blog) and touched on a couple of paragraphs ago, I think too much attention is being paid to a head-to-head game in September and not enough attention is being paid to all the games since then. I have Alabama #2 in strength of schedule vs. FBS teams and Texas 21st. Texas does get a little more credit for playing all FBS teams though. If I ignore Chattanooga from Alabama’s schedule and drop Baylor from Texas’s schedule, Alabama still ends up stronger. The average of the best 12 teams Alabama faced is about equal to that of #39 Iowa St. The average of the best 12 teams Texas faced is about equal to that of #51 Northwestern.
So now I’m going to get to arguments from outside of looking at the computers. Alabama has a better loss from longer ago. The #1 wins by each team are roughly even (Alabama vs. Georgia), but I would give Alabama more credit for getting the win in December versus September. Even if you still give Texas a point from there to make the two teams even, I don’t know how you argue LSU and Ole Miss aren’t better wins than Oklahoma St. and Kansas St.
I think Texas would have to have a far superior list of the more middle-of-the-road wins to overcome that, and I don’t think they do. Texas beat Wyoming, Iowa St., and Texas Tech. Alabama beat Kentucky, Texas A&M, and Auburn. Those are pretty similar lists of three. Although it did fall a little short, I do think the Longhorns made a very good attempt at playing the necessary type of schedule to prepare them for an SEC season. If you’re one of those people who says, “sorry, that win over Auburn was ugly and if they’re that close, I’m going with head to head,” that’s a reasonable point of view. It’s just not how I see it. I would have been perfectly happy to have joined you in laughing at Alabama if Texas and Florida St. had made it ahead of the Tide though.
As I mentioned, what I don’t like is when someone says, “I don’t care what else they did, they each have a loss and Alabama’s is to Texas. End of story.” That’s just wanting to rush to a conclusion and not consider the season as a whole. Word keeps telling me not to use the phrase “season as a whole,” but I don’t know a better way to distinguish my more holistic approach from the approach of just cherry-picking a couple of factoids and stopping there.
Washington vs. Michigan
I don’t have strong feelings about Washington ahead of Michigan, but I’ll lay out the arguments. I have Michigan about 99% as good as Washington, so there isn’t a huge separation. I like that Washington had a much tougher game this weekend, but obviously Michigan had a much tougher rivalry-week opponent. Maybe some of the narrow margins of victory (both Oregon games, Arizona, Arizona St., Utah, Oregon St., and Washington St. were all within one possession) hurt the Huskies. Michigan had a robust list of top-three wins: Ohio St., Penn St., and Iowa. I think Oregon would beat Ohio St. and Penn St. but it was just unfortunate for the Ducks that they had to play a top-2 team twice instead of Ohio St.’s once. Iowa is a better third win than Washington’s third, which might be Arizona. But then Michigan’s fourth- and fifth-best wins are UNLV and Bowling Green (they didn’t play Northwestern or Wisconsin, which are my two highest Big Ten teams after Iowa). I strongly believe both would lose to both Oregon St. and Utah and probably USC as well.
LSU Bowl Selection Reaction
I’m sure I’ll go more into bowl match-ups later, but I’m disappointed that LSU will be playing Wisconsin. I was hoping for either Notre Dame, which would give the Tigers a chance to get revenge for some foolishness in bowl losses over the last 10 years (as well as being the Brian Kelly bowl), or Iowa. The contrast in styles for Iowa/LSU would have been worth getting up early for. Wisconsin isn’t an offensive juggernaut – they haven’t scored more than 30 points in a game since September – but they’re not Iowa. Wisconsin isn’t even in my top 50. I think either LSU won’t get up for the game and it will be ugly regardless of the winner or we could get another blowout like last season. Neither would be a very satisfying end to the year. It’s one of six bowl games between the SEC and the Big Ten.
Top 25 Later This Week
I have my top 25 ready. Of course it’s mostly based on my ratings with a few adjustments, but I don’t want to overshadow it with all of the discussion of the top 4, so look for that later in the week.
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