It’s a tough assignment even under ordinary circumstances, comparing far-flung teams to choose four for the College Football Playoff.
It’s even more difficult for the CFP selection committee in this pandemic-disrupted season.
“The committee came into this year knowing it was going to be different, knowing … we were comparing teams that had played three games to teams who had played as many as nine,” said Gary Barta, the committee chairman and Iowa’s athletic director. “Certainly, that (is a) challenge … but everybody embraced it.”
The 13-member committee’s first rankings of the season, compiled earlier this week, demonstrate the difficulties.
Teams ranked within the top four have played as many as eight games (No. 2 Notre Dame and No. 3 Clemson) and as few as four (No. 4 Ohio State). That may explain why the CFP committee ranked Clemson, whose lone loss was on the road to Notre Dame in double overtime without starting quarterback Trevor Lawrence, ahead of the unbeaten Buckeyes.
The committee also had the challenge of assessing the late-starting Pac-12 teams and ranked Oregon (3-0) the highest from that conference at No. 15, six spots lower than the Ducks’ No. 9 rating in this week’s Associated Press poll. The Pac-12 is off to a bad start in its bid to place a team in the playoff for the first time in four seasons.
The Big 12, whose highest-ranked team is two-loss Oklahoma at No. 11, likely will be unrepresented in the field, given that no two-loss team has made it in the playoff’s six-year history.
Another challenge facing the CFP selectors is the scarcity of non-conference games this season.
“You’ve got to hope this year, more than any other year, that your conference is really strong,” said Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl president and CEO Gary Stokan, a close observer of the annual playoff selection process, “so that the wins you get account for a huge impact in the CFP selection committee’s eyes, because you don’t have the big non-conference games to use as a differentiation point.”
If the committee is faced with close calls when it sets the playoff field with the final rankings of the season Dec. 20, it’ll have to figure out whether teams that played more games have an advantage over those that played fewer.
“You know, that is a question we’ve discussed,” Barta said. “We are not putting an absolute number on how many games a team does or doesn’t have to play. We’re going to continue to look at the body of work. … Watching games is always important (for committee members), but maybe as important this year as ever before. We’re going to identify the top four teams and the top 25 teams based on games they do play and how strong they are, and so we’re not going to hold somebody back because they played a certain number of games.”
Still, the fewer games a team plays, the fewer chances to impress the selectors.
“Certainly, the number of games that we’re able to watch is going to play at least some factor,” Barta said.
KEEP AN EYE ON …
The road to the playoff goes through the Auburn Tigers.
Auburn’s next two scheduled games are against opponents ranked in the CFP’s top five – at Alabama on Saturday and at home versus Texas A&M on Dec. 5. Alabama will be without coach Nick Saban, who this week tested positive for COVID-19, for Saturday’s game.
Auburn, 5-2 with losses to Georgia and South Carolina, is ranked No. 22 by the CFP.
Alabama (7-0) was solidly the No. 1 team in this week’s rankings. Barta noted the Crimson Tide has won each of its games by 15 or more points and averages almost 50 points per game (49.4). “There were just so many things about Alabama that led the committee to put them in that No. 1 spot,” he said.
Texas A&M (5-1) was ranked No. 5, the second of four SEC teams in the top nine.
PEACH SCENARIOS
At No. 7, Cincinnati is the highest-ranked “Group of Five” team in the playoff committee’s initial rankings – in other words, the highest-ranked team from any of the five FBS leagues outside the “Power Five.”
If the Bearcats remain the highest-ranked Group of Five team and win the American Athletic Conference championship, they figure to wind up in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on Jan. 1 – provided, of course, they don’t reach the playoff by moving into the committee’s top four.
Although the Peach Bowl isn’t part of the playoff this season – the semifinals will be played in the Rose and Sugar bowls – the CFP committee will assign non-playoff teams to the Peach, Fiesta and Cotton bowls. The highest-ranked Group of Five conference champion is assured a berth in one of those bowls, likely the Peach because the Fiesta and Cotton hosted Group of Five teams the past two seasons, against an opponent ranked in the CFP’s top 12. Currently ranked No. 9, Georgia (5-2) is a strong possibility for the Peach.
Cincinnati (8-0) won’t play this week as its game against Temple was canceled because of COVID-19 issues with both teams. The Bearcats’ next game is Dec. 12 at Tulsa, which is 5-1 and ranked No. 25 by the CFP.
ASKED AND ANSWERED
Q: What impressed the playoff committee about Georgia, the highest-ranked two-loss team?
A: “Well, to begin with, one of the things, we liked their win over Auburn,” Barta said. “Their only losses were against (No. 1) Alabama and (No. 6) Florida, so they clearly had come up against a very tough schedule, and so we took that in mind. We did note early on and throughout the season maybe some of the inconsistencies on both sides of the ball, including the quarterback position. But (because of) the quality win over Auburn, the fact they’re 5-2 and their only two losses were Alabama and Florida, they landed in that ninth spot.”
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