College Football Playoff Rankings, Week 10: 5 biggest takeaways
There’s plenty to talk about with the first edition of the College Football Playoff Rankings, including these five big takeaways.
The race to the national semifinals is heating up following the release of the first College Football Playoff Rankings on Tuesday evening.
As always, the selection committee provided some interesting choices in its initial rankings. Everyone expected the top three of Alabama, Clemson and Michigan, albeit perhaps with the Tigers and Wolverines switched, but there were a few huge surprises further down the rankings.
The biggest shock of the week came with one-loss Texas A&M taking the fourth and final playoff spot ahead of undefeated No. 5 Washington. While the Huskies still very much control their own destiny, nobody expected Texas A&M to occupy a playoff spot over Washington, Louisville or even Ohio State at this point.
Texas A&M was far from the only team the committee ranked much higher than expected. Penn State was the biggest surprise of the entire rankings at No. 12, while No. 9 Auburn and No. 13 LSU are also a couple of spots above their ranking in the AP Poll, further showing the committee’s respect for the SEC.
The path to the National Semifinals for the top three and Washington hasn’t changed, but there were still a few important takeaways from the first committee rankings.
5) Current performance was valued very highly
A few of the committee’s decisions show just how much recent performance was weighed over early season games, which hasn’t always been the case in the past.
That is the only explanation for Penn State checking in at No. 12, a full eight spots above its ranking in the AP Poll. The Nittany Lions lost to a middling Pittsburgh team and were crushed by Michigan in September, but the committee decided their win over No. 6 Ohio State two weeks ago was enough to rank Penn State ahead of a few teams with better overall resumes.
The same could be said of LSU, which has the overall profile of a team more in the 15-20 range. LSU has won four straight and looks much better on offense since Ed Orgeron took over, which was enough for the committee to forget a 2-2 start, even if the Tigers’ best win is over a 3-5 Ole Miss team.
While current performance has always carried some weight, it seemed to matter much more than usual in the past. Such a philosophy could cost one of the top four teams dearly, as a late-season loss could push a playoff contender out even with a strong full-season resume.