Michigan #17 In 1st CFP Rankings

By smwilliams — November 3rd, 2015 at 8:13 PM — 6 comments

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From ESPN:

ESPN CollegeFootball @ESPNCFB

College Football Playoff Rankings 16-20 » #CFP25 pic.twitter.com/klU1TNCxJH

Sandwiched in between #16 Florida State and #18 Ole Miss.

EDIT: Can mod delete this? Meant to post to the board.

EDIT 2: Since this is being left up for some bizarre reason, let's get to some actual analysis and compare some resumes.

Humans love to argue. We pay lawyers obscene amounts of money to argue for us because we're not good at arguing. Click bait sites generate "discussion" by posting "controversial" articles or arbitrary rankings of things that are entirely subjective. Last night, the College Football Playoff Committee transformed into Bleacher Report's wet dream. They ranked 25 college football teams in order of, I dunno, bestness or something. Aside from the obvious elephant in the room (pun absolutely intended because nobody from Alabama gets puns and so it doesn't matter), Michigan was ranked for the first time ever (except in Brady Hoke's fever dreams), coming in at #17. But, what does that #17 really mean?

What criteria did the Committee use to rank the teams? Strength of schedule is a factor, apparently. Top 30 wins might be too. Why the Top 30 and not the Top 25? The Committee wants to create controversy, man. Shake up the establishment. Why can't we have a Top 27?

Look at the programs on either side of Michigan. Florida State at #16. Ole Miss at #18. Is there an argument to be made for Michigan to be higher than the 'Noles or lower than the school with a horrible, racist mascot that's a remnant of one of the darkest period in American history.

I think this calls for a chart.

METRIC	FSU	MICHIGAN	OLE MISS
VS. TOP 25	0-0	1-2	2-2
SOS	#64	#39	#41
BEST WIN	UH, MIAMI	NORTHWESTERN	BAMA
2ND BEST	UMMMM	BYU	A&M

Florida State has one loss to a 3-6 Georgia Tech team. Michigan and Ole Miss have two losses a piece. Michigan lost to the committee's #7 team and its #12 team. Ole Miss lost to the committee's #10 team and it's #13 team. Clearly, the committee values losing less games even if your 2 losses are better than the other team's 1 loss.

But, wait, if that's the case then why is 1-loss Alabama and 1-loss ND ranked ahead of undefeated Michigan State? Is it quality of wins? Alabama's best win is #19 Texas A&M. State's best win is, sigh, us. Alabama's 2nd best win is Wisconsin. Their 3rd best win is Georgia or Tennessee. Is that difference between Wisconsin and Georgia vs. Oregon and nobody so great that it warrants Alabama at #4? Or maybe it's SOS. Alabama has the 9th ranked schedule and State is in the low 50s (all SOS #s from Sagarin).

Then, wait, if SOS and quality wins trump the # of losses, then why is Florida State ranked ahead of Michigan and Ole Miss? Michigan and Ole Miss have a better SOS, better top 3 wins, and their 2 losses are way better than Florida State's one loss.

Michigan is ranked #17 and that's nice, but at this point, it's no different than the ranking in the AP or Coaches Poll. The Committee is another arbitrary body that uses a vague methodology or no methodology at all to rank the 25 "best" teams in the country. The only difference is that their poll actually matters.