Being the first to do something often puts you at a disadvantage. Everything you do is precedent setting, and there’s no manual to sort out tricky situations.
That’s the space the College Football Playoff selection committee occupies as it navigates an expanded postseason field. After releasing the second top 25 of the season Tuesday, we now have a good understanding of just what sort of overarching message the committee is sending to programs far and wide: strength of schedule is a myth.
Look no further than the Georgia Bulldogs. Kirby Smart’s team checked in at No. 12 this week after falling to the No. 11 Ole Miss Rebels and are behind the No. 10 Alabama Crimson Tide.
That’s as it should be, with the Bulldogs losing in both Oxford, Miss., and Tuscaloosa, Ala. Head-to-head rules all, unless you are fine with putting the No. 22 LSU Tigers behind the No. 21 South Carolina Gamecocks they beat on the road just a few weeks ago (insert shrug emoji).
But why is Georgia the first team out of the field when the bulk of the teams ahead have even thinner resumes? (The Boise State Broncos are slotted in as the 12-seed by virtue of projecting as the fifth highest-ranked conference champion.) It should count for something when it comes to playing one of the toughest slates in the sport but, curiously, the Bulldogs are not getting the benefit of the doubt right now.
Georgia has a 15-point, convincing road win at the No. 3 Texas Longhorns. The Bulldogs thumped the No. 20 Clemson Tigers by four touchdowns at a neutral site. They’ve done it all while playing just two FBS teams at home prior to the showdown against the No. 7 Tennesseee Volunteers between the hedges this Saturday. It’s a tough road no matter how good you are.
Notably, it’s also a resume flush with more ranked wins than the Longhorns, No. 4 Penn State Nittany Lions and No. 5 Indiana Hoosiers. Combined. It’s also more than another team that has been living dangerously in recent weeks, the No. 9 Miami Hurricanes.
The selection committee has one task in this era of superconferences, varying conference schedules and a lack of prolific non-league meetings: considering strength of schedule and adjusting the rankings accordingly. So far, they haven’t as the overriding evidence is that wins and losses are driving the bus over who those wins and losses are against.
“We look at strength of schedule in every comparison that we do,” Michigan Wolverines athletic director and selection committee chair Warde Manuel told the media Tuesday. “For each team, we see different data points and strength of schedule is always there. We also look at the games, obviously, and see how a team is playing, see the results of the games and how teams play. We take [strength of schedule] into consideration. It’s one of the things we look at each and every time early in the deliberations as we review teams and compare them to others.”
The group of former players, coaches and administrators who meet in the Dallas area like to claim they start fresh each week. In terms of process, that’s true. But if they’re truly looking at things with a blank slate, the additional data points are leading less to a coherent line of thinking and even more to some head scratching.
The BYU Cougars moved up to No. 6 despite a narrow escape in the Holy War against an unranked, and struggling, rival in the Utah Utes. Indiana also moved up despite a close call against the Michigan Wolverines. The Vols won going away against the similarly undermanned Mississippi State Bulldogs and just stayed put. The No. 14 SMU Mustangs were off this past weekend, but increasingly look like their only shot at making the field is to win the ACC despite a lone, close loss to the current Big 12 favorites.
Manuel noted that Texas, now the SEC’s top-ranked team, moved up not just because of losses by teams ahead of them, but cited a “decisive” win against the Florida Gators as adding to the picture around how they played. Florida was down to its walk-on, third-string quarterback so a lopsided score in Austin was probably to be expected, but it is still hard to come to grips with the third-best team in the country having zero victories over ranked teams and their best win being a close one over the Vanderbilt Commodores.
This isn’t a Vandy team like in years past—just ask Alabama—but it’s hard to get over the mental logistics of thinking that’s just fine and dandy.
Nobody is saying Georgia should be back in the top five or even right outside it. It hasn’t looked like the program that was one of the preseason favorites to win the national title (nor should that early opinion matter). Quarterback Carson Beck has struggled and turned into an interception machine. The offensive line isn’t getting much push up front, and even Smart’s normally reliable defense has slipped.
Yet here we are, with the committee all but turning the Bulldogs into a bit of a sympathetic figure. Georgia has had to navigate a gauntlet and instead of factoring that in compared to its competition, it’s being overlooked.
“Every team in America is going to realize what I’m saying when the best thing that people can do is continue to win and then let everything fall as it may in terms of the rankings,” Manuel said.
How very Al Davis of him.
Just win, baby, isn’t the official slogan of the College Football Playoff as it enters the 12-team era but, based on two weeks of committee rankings, it’s increasingly looking like it should be.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Georgia’s Omission From 12-Team College Football Playoff Projection Shows Strength of Schedule Is a Myth.
