The College Football Playoff selection committee is all over the place with its rankings. Week after week, it assembles the top 25 teams in college football, yet we’re left with ambiguity, subjectivity and little real explanation for why teams are placed where. For once, the top seven are actually justified.
After that, the CFP selection committee's subjectivity takes over. The rankings don't follow a consistent standard, and the more the committee tries to explain itself, the less clarity it actually provides. If the goal is confidence in the process, the contradictions aren't helping.
Why the CFP selection committee needs more rigid rules
Kudos to you if you can identify the College Football Playoff selection committee’s current protocols for filling out the field. You get a gold star if you can find the most important part of their decision-making. Here's the thing: It doesn’t exist.
The CFP selection committee has rules in place, but they act more as guardrails than actual policy. It doesn't operate under rigid guidelines like its predecessor, the BCS rankings, and that’s the problem.
Here’s the CFP selection committee’s “official” criteria:
- Strength of schedule
- Head-to-head competition
- Comparative outcomes of common opponents
- Other relevant factors such as unavailability of key players and coaches that may have affected a team’s performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason
Having official criteria sounds objective, but isn’t. We never know which is weighted more heavily, and it varies from season to season. So in years past, conference titles mattered (until they didn't) or head-to-head was the most decisive factor (until it wasn't).
And don't forget about the eye test. The committee specifically outlines that algorithms or metrics aren’t used to help them make all decisions, rather “their own collected data and information.”
The CFP selection committee abandoned objectivity after the BCS
Between the eye test and a list of criteria, it's hard to know which matters most. That's why Miami can beat Notre Dame in the regular season and be ranked behind them in the CFP field. That's why committee members are lobbying to get Texas into the field, despite having three losses. The rankings increasingly suggest that brand value and conference perception matter just as much as on-field results.
I’m not saying the BCS was perfect, nor am I a BCS fanatic, but at least the decisions made by the BCS were justified and understandable; they could be quantified. When it comes to the College Football Playoff, the only reasoning we have is whatever the chairman decides to disclose behind their closed-doors meeting each week.
It’s clear that some teams are favored not just for what they’ve done on the field, but for how they serve the TV product. The committee leans toward the most appealing brands rather than simply the best resumes, and that shows up in the rankings. If Miami were truly viewed as a lock, there wouldn’t be serious discussion about how a team like Duke could keep the ACC out of the CFP.
The chairman issue is one of the biggest problems with the College Football Playoff
With the selection committee rotating every three years and the chairman every year, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the subjectivity of the committee shifts from season to season.
That means the face of the committee isn’t the same for more than one season, which would explain why the selection committee is all over the place. If there was more continuity in the leadership, there would be more fluidity with the process.
Every year, it feels like there are different priorities the selection committee values, and it’s clear that having a new chairman every year plays a role in that. This year, head-to-head isn’t a priority for the committee like it has been. It also feels like reaching the conference championship game isn’t top of the list either.
Last year, an emphasis was made that losing the conference title game would not punish you. This year, BYU could fall out of the field with a loss, despite only having two losses to the same team, one in the Big 12 title game, to three-loss Texas. Alabama could get left out in favor of Miami if it loses the SEC title game.
There’s a lot the CFP selection committee has to figure out, and the most important thing is finding a strong foundation. Right now, the rankings feel driven by the room rather than by a consistent standard. Until that changes, the CFP will continue to resemble little more than a glorified AP Top 25.