NCAA Football Rankings: Analyzing Biggest Surprises and Shockers in Latest Polls
There is a problem with college football that doesn't apply to any other major sport in this country because of the way champions are determined. The new College Football Playoff system was supposed to be an improvement over the BCS, yet with one week to go, the shouting is as loud as it has ever been.
It's also an unfortunate product of circumstance that the Associated Press and USA Today Top 25 polls have been rendered largely irrelevant this time of year. They may serve as a starting point for the selection committee, but all that matters at this point is the College Football Playoff rankings.
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However, if you look at the two major polls, they may have done a better job with the rankings for Week 15 than the selection committee. As a look ahead to the final weekend of college football's regular season, here are the biggest surprises and shockers from the polls.
Biggest College Football Playoff Surprise: No. 3 TCU
The fact that TCU is in the College Football Playoff isn't a surprise. What is a surprise is that the Horned Frogs not only leaped over an undefeated Florida State team, but are three spots ahead of a Baylor team that defeated them on October 11.
However, if you take the selection committee at its word, which is to say evaluating teams on a weekly basis, TCU has as good of an argument to be in this spot as anyone. David Ubben of Fox Sports Southwest makes a compelling case for the Horned Frogs with these bullet points:
"• Has three wins over current CFP Top 25
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• Only loss came on the road on a last-second field goal to a top-six team (my sources tell me the likelihood that team was Baylor was high)
• Did not lose to an unranked team by two touchdowns
• Of the seven common opponents Baylor and TCU have played, margin of victory has favored TCU in five games
• The most emphatic: TCU beat Texas Tech by 55 points. Baylor beat Texas Tech by two points.
• Has five wins over teams who have qualified for bowls, compared to just three for Baylor
• Has won six consecutive games
Now, Baylor will have a chance to make its statement this weekend against ninth-ranked Kansas State. If the Bears win that game and get some help from Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game, they should leapfrog their Big 12 rivals.
The argument for Florida State maintaining its previously held position as the No. 3 team in the College Football Playoff rankings is more tenuous than TCU being ranked third.
If you watched these games, specifically last weekend with the Seminoles against a 6-5 Florida team, can you say that Florida State is better than Alabama, Oregon or TCU?
That sounds arbitrary, but the selection committee and this entire process is completely arbitrary. It's people watching games to determine which teams are the best four teams in college football.
Winning games does count for something, as the Seminoles are still in the playoff and not in danger of falling out if they defeat Georgia Tech in the ACC Championship Game. However, you have to factor in style points with so many teams bunched so close together.
Florida State looked terrible against a mediocre Florida team, while Alabama beat a ranked Auburn team, Oregon did what it was supposed to do against Oregon State and TCU beat a mediocre Texas team by 38 points on the road.
Looking at that argument, it's easier to make a case for Baylor having the biggest complaint for where it's positioned instead of a Florida State team that hasn't played a complete game virtually all year.
Worst Ranking: UCLA (No. 15 in CFP Top 25, No. 16 in AP Top 25)
UCLA started the season overrated, ranked seventh in the preseason AP Top 25 poll, and has done nothing to warrant staying in the top 20 as the season has progressed.
The Bruins do have to big wins over Arizona State and Arizona, though the former doesn't look as good as it once did with the Sun Devils losing two of their last three games including an inexcusable defeat against Oregon State.
However, since everyone wants to punish Florida State for not playing well, look at UCLA. The Bruins struggled to beat Virginia, Memphis, Texas, California and Colorado. They lost a close game against Utah, but Oregon and Stanford blew them out of the water in home games.
Stanford hasn't scored against anyone this year, yet the Bruins allowed the Cardinal to put up 31 in the Rose Bowl on Senior Day.
This isn't just a one-year anomaly, either, as Eric Sondheimer of The Los Angeles Times noted Stanford and Oregon have been kryptonite for UCLA under Jim Mora:
According to the College Football Playoff rankings, UCLA is still better than a Missouri team competing for the SEC championship. According to the AP Top 25, the Bruins are eight spots ahead of a Utah team that defeated them earlier this season and is a respectable 8-4.
It's not an egregious mistake by the people who make these polls, but the Bruins still stick out like a sore thumb.
Team with Most to Gain: Ohio State
No team playing this weekend is in a more precarious spot than the Ohio State Buckeyes. Urban Meyer's team was supposed to enter the Big Ten Championship Game riding high after winning 10 straight games and putting the final nail in Brady Hoke's coffin at Michigan.
Instead, the Buckeyes are facing all sorts of questions because of the unfortunate injury to quarterback J.T. Barrett that ended his brilliant debut season prematurely.
Not only does Ohio State have to groom a new quarterback in one week, but oddsmakers have jumped shark on the Buckeyes, who are currently a three-point underdog to Wisconsin, per OddsShark.com.
The selection committee may not have been sure what to do with Ohio State this week, as the Buckeyes struggled to beat Michigan and lost its most important player. They didn't get bumped down thanks to Mississippi State's loss.
However, by virtue of getting a game against a team ranked 14th in the playoff rankings, Ohio State gets that signature matchup on its schedule. It also wouldn't be a surprise if at least one of Florida State (vs. Georgia Tech) or Baylor (vs. Kansas State) lost on Saturday.
If one or both of those teams lose, combined with an Ohio State win over Wisconsin, the selection committee would be unable to deny the Buckeyes even with a backup quarterback.
Doug Lesmerises of The Cleveland Plain Dealer noted that one of those scenarios helps Ohio State more than the other:
"The greatest help for Ohio State would be a Florida State loss. The committee won't put both TCU and Baylor, two Big 12 teams, in the playoff ahead of Ohio State. So an OSU win and an FSU loss could make things pretty simple. That would be a playoff of Alabama, Oregon and Ohio State, with the only decision a choice between Baylor and TCU.
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While that does seem to dismiss the Big 12 quickly, it's a great point to be made. All year, the talk has been about the SEC getting two teams in the playoff. That won't happen, but would the committee really want to put two Big 12 teams in the playoff?
There's a great argument to be made for TCU and Baylor to get in under the right circumstances, yet there's a national perception of the Big 12 that would cause a lot of people more outrage than they currently have, especially if Ohio State is 12-1.
No team stands to gain more with a victory this weekend than Ohio State. It will be a difficult task considering how good Wisconsin is and how limited in experience new quarterback Cardale Jones is, but hardly an impossible one considering what we've seen Meyer do with this team in 2014.
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