Who's Ranked Too High, Too Low in First College Football Playoff Rankings
This is the most jumbled college football has been at this stage of the season in a long, long time.
While the NIL and transfer portal have made things difficult on coaches, it's certainly brought a bit more parity to the sport. A few teams have moved to the forefront of the rankings, but it's really a free-for-all for the College Football Playoff with several spots up for grabs.
It's an awesome time for fans, but not so much for the College Football Playoff committee. But those folks huddled in a room to come up with the first rankings, and what they came up with was largely solid.
As if their jobs weren't hard enough and scrutinized so much in previous years, they'll surely be sweating under the spotlight with so many teams feeling worthy of crashing the party.
There's a lot of football left to be played, plenty of twists and turns left and miles to go before we sleep, but tonight we got our first glimpse inside the room where they make the decisions. What did they get right? What did they miss?
What's right this week may be wrong next week, but we'll break it all down and have plenty of opinions regardless. Here are our estimations on who the committee overvalued and undervalued as the first CFP rankings were released.
Too High: No. 2 Indiana Hoosiers
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I'm a little bit old-school when it comes to rankings. I'm not quibbling with Ohio State being ranked No. 1 because of how dominant the Buckeyes have looked on defense, how Julian Sayin is coming along nicely and—let's face it—they're the defending champs.
Keep them at 1, fine.
But while Indiana certainly passes the eye test at No. 2, the College Football Playoff rankings are built on metrics. That's why the Hoosiers belong just a spot lower.
That's no disrespect to Curt Cignetti's team. Nobody wants to play the Hoosiers right now. But they are behind Texas A&M in schedule strength and record strength—a new metric this year.
This is more about what A&M has accomplished and what the numbers say about them rather than what IU hasn't.
"When we looked at statistics and we included Texas A&M as part of the discussion, again, we just felt like the separator there was defensively," College Football Playoff chairman Mack Rhoades told the ESPN crew. "Those two teams—both Ohio State and Indiana—were better defensively."
Indiana handled No. 9 Oregon by 10, dismantled then ninth-ranked Illinois and sweated out a 20-15 win over No. 20 Iowa. But they should have slotted in at 3, and while this isn't an egregious miss, it certainly feels the Aggies were shorted.
Too Low: No. 3 Texas A&M Aggies
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Perhaps the biggest surprise team in the nation right now just because of how good they've looked as an unbeaten team in the rugged SEC is Texas A&M.
But despite having better overall metrics than Ohio State and Indiana, the unbeaten Aggies are behind both of them despite a road win over fellow CFP participant (for now) Notre Dame and an LSU team that was ranked at the time.
While the committee pointed to the defensive difference as the reason why IU and Ohio State were ranked ahead of Texas A&M, that's a tough sell. The Aggies are first nationally in opponents' third-down conversions (22 percent).
While they are much farther behind Ohio State (first) and Indiana (seventh) in total defense, the Aggies (31st nationally) have played better offenses than the Hoosiers. The average offensive ranking of A&M's opponents are 62nd while IU's is 76th.
There's also no denying that Texas A&M's road win over Notre Dame is stout, even though it's probably comparable to Indiana's road win against Oregon.
The bottom line is with remaining games against No. 22 Missouri and No. 11 Texas, A&M will get to continue to prove its worth between the lines. But can they do enough to jump into the top two? Does it even matter since they get a bye regardless?
Too High: No. 10 Notre Dame Fighting Irish
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There's a grumble out there that you hear every year that Notre Dame gets the benefit of the doubt with the national media and there's a bias in favor of the Fighting Irish, despite them not playing in a conference.
While you can shrug a lot of that off as sour grapes, it's certainly a little puzzling that a two-loss Irish team is ranked higher than any ACC team and two-loss teams like Texas and Oklahoma, who have played a tougher schedule.
The best two teams the Irish have played were at the start of the season, and both Miami and Texas A&M beat them. Yes, they were late-game, last-minute losses, but they were indeed losses.
The only win of any substance for Notre Dame came against USC.
Listen: There's nothing wrong with the Irish making the CFP if they win out in a remaining schedule that includes a pesky Navy team and a very dangerous Pittsburgh team, but they feel a little overvalued to me at this early juncture.
Does the Irish offense look nasty? Yes it does. Is the defense that let them down early in the year much-improved? Absolutely. So, they're passing the eye test.
But what wins exactly are we rewarding? It feels like they should be just on the outside looking in right now, having to play their way in.
Too Low: No. 9 Oregon Ducks
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If you're going to place as much value as the College Football Playoff committee did on the Big Ten, putting their top two unbeaten teams No. 1 and 2, Oregon has to feel like it got the shaft, at least a little bit.
The Ducks' only loss of the season is a 10-point home letdown against an Indiana team that has essentially dominated teams week-in and week-out. While the double-overtime win over Penn State didn't exactly age well, come on, that was a different Nittany Lions team then.
Things spiraled for James Franklin and Co. afterward, but that was a big-time game on the road. The Lions were unbeaten, and that started their slide. A win over Northwestern is aging well, too.
But if you're going for teams looking explosive, why not the Ducks? This is a very good offense led by Dante Moore that has missed arguably its biggest weapon all year in receiver Evan Stewart. If they can get him back, they're even more dangerous.
Again, we're kind of splitting hairs with the Ducks here, as they were mentioned as a team that simply didn't have enough resume wins right now, and that's fair.
With remaining showdowns at Iowa (this week) and against Washington and USC, there's a lot to be determined and plenty of meat left on this schedule. The Ducks have the opportunity to show that they were underrated by the committee in this first ranking.
Too High: No. 13 Utah Utes
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There is way too much value being placed on coach Kyle Whittingham's Utes' mediocre resume.
I guess this is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world, so a 45-14 dismantling of No. 17 Cincinnati last weekend in Salt Lake City is fresh on everybody's mind, but that's pretty much the only feather in the Utes' headband.
If you want to point to a dominant 42-10 win over then-No. 21 Arizona State, remember the Sun Devils were playing without starting quarterback Sam Leavitt, so they were severely handicapped in that one.
Otherwise, the Utes lost to the only other ranked teams they played—the pair that stands atop the Big 12 standings—when Texas Tech whipped them 34-10 and BYU edged them 24-21 on the road.
Devon Dampier is an exciting quarterback, and the Utes are playing some very good football, but you can't speak out of one side of your mouth and say Oregon hasn't played anybody but then reward a Utah team that hasn't beaten anybody.
There's not a single ACC team ranked ahead of them, and arguably Iowa, Michigan and Missouri have better resumes as two-loss teams. The ESPN crew had a lot of praise for Whittingham's Utes who did get a nice win last weekend, sure.
But this looks like a team that is three or four spots too high.
Too Low: No. 15 Louisville Cardinals
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While I have to hold my nose when I say it, I guess I can understand Virginia being ranked a spot ahead of Louisville due to the Cavaliers' head-to-head, overtime win over the Cardinals in Louisville.
But coach Jeff Brohm's team has a much better resume as a one-loss team and has simply, consistently looked better than the Hoos. Even if they can't gripe about being ahead of UVA, both those teams could be frustrated with looking up at Utah and Oklahoma.
Don't sleep on Brohm's Cardinals. They may be the best team in a horrific ACC and the only real team that can give anybody else in the nation a scare. With Miller Moss playing quarterback and the electrifying Isaac Brown running the ball, the Cardinals can have big nights.
While it's hard to have a good-looking bunch of style points in a league as bad as the ACC, Louisville's 34-27 win over Pittsburgh on September 27 is looking better and better. They went to Miami and beat the Hurricanes by a field goal. This is also a team that has a good early-season win over a quality Group of Five opponent in James Madison and another win over an improving Virginia Tech team.
The home loss to UVA is a blip on the radar, sure, but even so, how do you look at what they've done and say, "That's worse than Utah." You can't. It makes no sense. Louisville belongs at 12 or 13.
