The College Football Playoff Committee released the third installment of their weekly rankings Tuesday night on their ESPN reveal show, and their findings included some shockers.
9-1 Oregon was ranked number two ahead of undefeated Florida State, and TCU slipped in at #4, ahead of Alabama and Baylor.
Baylor beat TCU head-to-head but has played a weak nonconference schedule. The Horned Frogs have two wins over Top 25 teams, including Kansas State last weekend.
Ohio State came in at #8, and one-loss Nebraska ranked behind 7 two-loss teams at 16th.
Gone are the SEC-loving BCS computers and a system that favored the usual suspects. This committee voted independently and weighed the teams with fresh eyes. They started with a “blank sheet of paper” in committee chairman Jeff Long’s words, weighing strength of schedule, Top 25 wins and each team’s “overall body of work” in coming to its hard-won conclusions as to how the top 25 teams in the country should be ranked.
It’s clear they’ll regard each week as fresh information, and they won’t be swayed by reputations or past seasons.
That’s good for the Ducks, and the PAC-12. In fact, the committee ranked six PAC-12 teams in their Top 25, and all six were equal to or higher than their AP ranking:
At the teleconference following the unveiling of this week’s vote, Long explained why they ranked Oregon ahead of defending national champion Florida State, which is undefeated at 9-0 and ranked #2 by the AP:
“Well, again, we’re charged to look at something beyond just wins and losses, so we look at other factors that indicate the overall strength of a team. Again, we looked at Oregon, three top 25 victories, two of those on the road against Utah and UCLA, and a very impressive home victory against Michigan State. You combine that with Florida State, and again, Florida State is a quality team, very slight difference between these two, but you look at Florida State, they have two top 25 wins, both at home, both very close, an overtime victory versus Clemson and a right down to the wire victory against Notre Dame. Yes, those factors went in, and that gave us – comparing those two, it gave us a very slight edge to Oregon for the No. 2 spot.”
Clearly the committee placed the highest value on quality wins, and penalized teams for cupcake schedules and ducking quality competition. It recognized that injuries are a compelling factor, and didn’t excessively penalize Oregon for a tough loss to #14 Arizona.
At the same time it’s important to remember that the rankings are far from final. There’s likely to be considerable shuffling after Alabama and #1 Mississippi State meet this weekend in Tuscaloosa, and the evaluation of Oregon’s “body of work” will be effected by games like Stanford-Utah, UCLA-USC and Arizona-Arizona State.
That phrase comes up constantly in Long’s explanations. It appears to be the group’s guiding principle.
If the Ducks finish at 1, 2, or 3, they’ll play in the “West Regional” at the Rose Bowl, a decided advantage in travel, time zone adjustment, makeup of the crowd and familiarity. Oregon would travel perhaps 30,000 strong to Pasadena, probably 15-20,000 to the Sugar Bowl.
For the ranking to have any meaning at all, they take care of business to beat Colorado and Oregon State and prevail in the conference title game, which could very likely be a showdown of Top Ten teams, #2 Oregon versus current #6 Arizona State. Winning that matchup should be enough to get the PAC-12 Champion into the playoff.