College Football Playoff Rankings: How the BCS standings would have looked
The College Football Playoff rankings are out but how would their top four teams compare if the old BCS format was deciding who played for the championship?
New Year’s Day will be rocking this year with Clemson and Alabama playing for the third year in a row, although this one won’t be in the National Championship Game. The last two national champs will meet in the Sugar Bowl as the No. 1 and No. 4 seeds. Alabama got in the last spot despite not winning their conference or their own division. Their one loss to Auburn wasn’t enough to drop them out of the field, but Ohio State losing by 31 at Iowa and by 15 at home to Oklahoma was enough to knock them out despite winning the Big Ten Championship Game over then-undefeated Wisconsin.
The Rose Bowl will see Oklahoma and Georgia meet in the first semifinal game on New Year’s Day. The seeding by the playoff committee doesn’t matter so much who was No. 2 and who was No. 3. However, it would have made all the difference in the old BCS format that determined the top two teams that played for the national championship.
So how would the BCS rank the top four teams this year? Not that different from the playoff committee as it would turn out.
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According to the simulated BCS standings, you can see in full below, Clemson, Georgia, Oklahoma and Alabama still make up the top four spots. Although Georgia gets the nod over Oklahoma for the No. 2 seed so in the old two-team format, it would have been Clemson playing Georgia for the national title, which would have been a fun game, and it could still play out that way if they win their semifinal games. And the BCS would still have Ohio State fifth, although narrowly behind Alabama.
Here it is, the final simulated BCS rankings of the season. Alabama edges Ohio State by the smallest of margins for No. 4 pic.twitter.com/QMHzsyCFPm
— BCSKnowHow.com (@BCSKnowHow) December 3, 2017
One thing that does stick out from the BCS standings is how much more respect they give UCF than the committee that ranked the Knights at No. 12 in their ranking after they went undefeated, won the AAC and led the nation in points scored.
Perhaps the BCS methodology used to rank the teams could return and eliminate the need for the human element that is the 13-person committee?