CFP Rankings Out - No Change in top 4

LSU is a horseshit pick at 5. Blown out at home by UT, and another home loss to FSU. USC clearly more deserving but SEC.

“The Game is 40 hours away....”

Are you referring to the Lions/Bills game?

This has got to be some sort of SEC playoff insurance policy or compulsory butt kissing. Like maybe they figure LSU is going to lose to Georgia so it’s not going to matter

Even if they do beat Georgia somehow, ain’t no way they drop them out of the top 4, so we’re likely to have a 2 loss LSU above a 1 loss Michigan or OSU and it’s horsedung. 

I was wondering how the playoff rankings jive with SP+ rankings. I don't have an ESPN+ account, so I had to use the aggregate SP+ score from Football Outsiders. In case anyone else is interested, here's what it looks like (horizontal bars are the mean SP+ score for each conference):

At first blush, PSU seems to be getting the short end of the stick, but given the relatively weak B1G this year, they don't really have any quality wins to hang their hat on.

Clemson is sitting on top of an otherwise dogshit ACC. TCU is benefitting from a relatively strong Big12. They don't have any really top programs, but they also don't seem to have many super weak teams in the conference either. 

Not surprised by no change in the top 4, but LSU at 5 perplexes me.  USC just got utterly screwed.  Now they have virtually no chance to pass the loser of M-OSU.  I could see LSU as the first 1-loss team if you want to sell SEC, but in front of USC?  No fucking way.

LSU at #5 is objectively ridiculous.

The cfp committee is very subjective most of the time, even though they attempt a mantle of objectivity, especially when it comes to the sec.

Right now, there is no direct data point that suggests Alabama, for instance, is any better than PSU. Yet, the committee subjectively is using past years results to prop up Alabama, and by extension, much of the rest of the sec as far as how good they are compared to other teams. 
 

There IS a direct data point (that the committee claims to use in comparing teams) that suggests that PSU is better than LSU, that being a common opponent in auburn. PSU blasted auburn off of their own field, while lsu trailed auburn for much of their game and escaped with a 4 point win. LSU, however, gets the benefit of the subjective idea that the sec is so much better than everyone else, so their victory over Alabama boosted their resume as compared to PSU. So much so, in fact, that LSU jumped around 10 spots in the polls after that win, distancing itself from all the other 2loss teams not named Alabama. An Alabama that hasn’t really shown this year that it is anywhere close to as good as they have been in the past. 
 

It’s this kind of subjectivity, in favor of the sec, which hurts all of the other conferences, and makes the polling itself more of a self fulfilling prophecy regarding the sec. 

Lsu being #5 at this time is bs. USC may not have a “better win” (subjectively I might add) than LSU’s victory over Alabama, but they only have one loss, compared to lsu, and it is a better loss than either of LSU’s losses. Of course, comparing losses with no direct data points is also a subjective comparison. 
 

The only reasonable conclusion to make, then, is that the committee looks much more favorably upon the sec than the other conferences, and uses subjective, indirect data points to continue to prop up the idea of the strength of the sec, even when there are objective direct data points that might suggest otherwise. In other words, there ABSOLUTELY is an sec bias when it comes to polling, especially with the cfp.