Playoff Ranking Rapid Reactions

Well, here at Dawg Sports, the home team is number one without much drama. Yet, that won't stop us from offering our unsolicited takes on the Committee Rankings. We look forward to what you guys think about our takes and the rankings.... let ‘er rip!

MaconDawg: Has Bama looked beatable at times this season? Absolutely. Could they lose in the Iron Bowl? Sure. But if you had to put the rent money on any particular one of the teams behind them to beat the Tide straight up on a neutral field? Me neither. Also keeping Oregon ahead of Ohio State when it’s solely a comparison of those two teams makes sense to me. Also, Tulsa is baadddd, and this weekend they may have gotten the kind of bad on Cincinnati the committee would have trouble pretending not to smell even if they wanted to.

DawgStats: I have tracked Net YPP and it’s apparent that 2.0 net is playoff quality. Of the contenders for a birth in the field, only UGA, Ohio State, and Cincinnati are above the 2.0. The chance that the Bearcats, Ducks, and Sooners win out is extremely low. A loss for any or all would all but eliminate them. Though, a 1 loss OU Big 12 Champ is probably in.

If we track the contenders, Oregon pops as a team who is on an upward trajectory, but is only 1.2 Net YPP for the season. Michigan to me is the most intriguing and will have the schedule which could impress the committee as a 2 loss B1G runner up with a competitive loss to OSU if there is chaos down the stretch.

My playoff today:

1. UGA
2. Ohio State
3. Alabama
4. Cincinnati

HNDawg: The Committee putting Michigan over Michigan State is amazing and wild. Gary Barta said Michigan is the more complete team and the better team this week, and luckily the Big Ten mess will *likely* sort itself out on the field. Most teams at the top just moved up one spot with many teams winning but unimpressive, aside from Georgia. There are plenty of juicy matchups this weekend (hello Oklahoma at Baylor and Purdue at Ohio State) and given how 2007-esque this season has been, I’m sure we will see more upsets come Saturday night. Go Dawgs!

RedCrake: At this point, the only thing the committee can do that no one (with a lick of sense) would argue with is put Georgia at #1. And, gosh, that sure is nice, innit? Almost as nice is being a top tier Big 10 team. The conference has been kind enough to backload all of their schedules, so we have this inflated sense of how good the conference is late in the season. Fantastic! But Georgia ain’t played nobody… as you’ve likely heard. Still, if we all just pump the brakes a bit, this too shall pass and sort itself all out. The big playoff talk this year is always gonna come down to Cincinnati. The Bearcats moved up a slot, which is great considering the Big 10 comeuppance we just went over. But I have a feeling they will still feel disrespected… to which I’ll just say that they’ve struggled at times with one, two, and three win opponents the last three weeks running. It’s not a great look. Neither is playing this weekend’s “big game” on a Friday night. I know they don’t make the schedule, but it is what it is.

DawgOutWest: The committee took a strong “If you were losing at halftime to Kansas there’s no way in hell you should be allowed to play for a title” stance last week with Oklahoma, and I’m happy to see that they did that again this week. Needing to convert a 4th down at midfield late in the fourth quarter to keep the ball away from a Kansas offense that had gone up and down the field on you all day means you’re not a playoff team. Sorry, Oklahoma.

This committee has done a ton wrong over the years, but they have come up with a rule here that should carry forward in perpetuity. In addition to Kansas, it should also apply to Vanderbilt, Arizona and Duke. In any given year a couple of these teams can be swapped out, but Kansas and Vandy always stay. If you face one of these teams and do anything but dispatch them with quickness and ease you should be disqualified from title contention.

Looking at this Top 4, and then going down the list through the rest of the Top 15 makes me feel like we are in one of those seasons where the BCS would be just fine. I know many of my co-authors and quite a few readers will skewer me in the comments for this, but I don’t need to watch 12 of these teams play for a national title. There aren’t 12 teams deserving here. I don’t need to watch the 27 future pros that Georgia fields on defense risk injury ripping Coastal Carolina apart in order to know they are great.

I hope you all enjoy watching this committee use ranking Michigan over Michigan St despite the Spartans head-to-head win over the Wolverines as a precedent when they put Notre Dame into the 4th spot over Cincinnati a month from now. I feel it coming…

“We evaluated both team and the eye test just really stood out in favor of the Irish.”

DavetheDawg: On an earlier broadcast elsewhere on the World Wide Leader, Trevor Matich was arguing that Ohio State should be ranked ahead of Oregon because “they’re playing better right now.” They pay this guy? I was very happy to see that the head-to-head Ducks’ victory still mattered. I have no issue with the top 5 and Bama belongs at 2 because of their pedigree. However, no way Michigan should be ahead of Michigan State. That’s all moot, probably, as they’ll take their annual loss to tOSU in a few weeks and that’ll be that. I agree with RedCrake’s assessment regarding Cincinnati. They’ll still probably feel disrespected not cracking the top 4, but they really looked average and the committee probably wanted to keep everything status quo this week with the Bearcats holding at 6. Purdue screwed that up with their victory over Michigan State. Meanwhile, I’m trying to remain calm until I see DawgOutWest’s breakdown on how we’re going to annihilate Tennessee. He makes me feel better. That, and some Maker’s on a few rocks. Dawgs STILL on Top!

JasonisaSmith: This is dumb.

That’s the first thing we should say and it needs to be repeated.

This is dumb.

And we probably shouldn’t do it and frankly it only exacerbates the problematic dynamics of global capitalism acting upon various institutions of higher education that are subject to such a ridiculous ritual, not to mention the way that their financial futures are subject to the markets in which they are forced to particip—

MEEP MEEP MOTHERF******

Sorry, sorry I don’t know what happened there.

But anyway this is dumb.

Still, if there is something to love about this crop of meaningless rankings it is that Cincinnati was one fumble away from dumping down to 17^th but now gets to sit there behind a shaky Ohio State and a clearly overrated Oregon and just lurk, lurk like a silhouette of a serial killer outlined on the treeline of a lake that isn’t haunted but where it frankly would be foolish to go out for a walk alone at night. But Ohio St and Oregon don’t care about that. They once flipped over in a canoe in this very lake. That’s how they got together, you know. They know what they’re doing. They have their knife and a whistle. They’re going out. They’ll be fine.

Does this serial killer have a Wolverine as a ward?

THAT’S WHAT THE LEGEND SAYS BUT OHIO STATE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT THE LEGENDS THEY ARE THE HIGH SCHOOL QUARTERBACK FOR PEACEFUL VALLEY HIGH AND NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG THEY ARE GOING TO WIN STATE AND OREGON IS CHEER CAPTAIN AND THEY ARE GOING TO NATIONALS.

Wait…..did you hear that?

Ok, I’m done now.

Gary Farta.

Okay. Now I’m done.

Lugnut Dawg: Let’s call this deal what it is. A dog and pony show. But it’s the only show in town, and I’m thankful that if there’s going to be a made-for-TV contrived playoff, the Dawgs benefit the most for the time being. It made zero chance last week for Alabama to be second, and it makes zero sense this week for Michigan to be in front of Michigan State. The committee is ranking teams to generate conversation, but because it’s worried about who the best four teams really are.

It’s nonsensical if throw lobs of criticism at Ohio State and Oklahoma for failing ‘the eye test’ when Alabama does the same against a hapless LSU team and there’s no penalty for doing the same.

Like most things, the CFB wants to divide and get fans talking. It may not be an ethical thing to do, but the committee once again proves that it knows that it is doing and is very good at it.

SarahG1561: I am that millennial who doesn’t have cable. The only live tv I ever invest in watching is the games themselves. This means of course, I miss ESPN sucking on the very small content teat that is a rankings show based on rankings that almost every person could predict to a 95% accuracy simply being alive since 2009.

But still there is a part of my cheap streaming self that misses those guys having to basically get up with a top hat and a cane for 30 minutes doing their dance trying to find a new angle of why these four teams this week are good. An angle not yet covered. As somehow this is different from every year for about the last decade. And collectively, I think the sport groans at this concept. We hate the same old same old. (For the record, Dawgs are *not* the same old same olds and we have the deep-seeded trauma to prove it).

Now, I love the underdawg. I love the scrappy teams and the 9-15 teams of this world. And sure Bama looks mortal (please please please please oh pretty please), and Ohio State was a few bounces away from losing to a 3 win Nebraska team with a head coach who truly doesn’t understand you have to score more points to win a football game. I don’t *want* these boring somewhat human teams in the top four with us, I would love to have something interesting. But the fact of the matter is, as it stands now, they are the top teams. College football teams sometimes mostly all look bad one week. They are still the best. Sorry. Yawn.

Then we get to Oregon. Who is in because Ohio State is. Oregon- to me, just isn’t a top-four team. The Ducks are in because the committee has to act like they have a system that is more scientific than the rest of ours- which is just us turning to our friend at the bar and y’all both arguing the top five for an hour, even when you know the top three already. But these dudes get paid the big bucks to act like they are some magically gifted tribunal- so even though agree with us, they've got to fake like this all a magic formula they alone can provide us. So the Ducks are in because they beat Ohio State. That’s it. Oh and also probably because of Nike, but that’s another rant for another day. I don’t know if the Ducks make it to December.

But the most important team, of course, who is number 1. The team whose fans don’t want to act like we’ve been here before cause we are afraid one wrong move might scare it away. But the thing is, we haven’t. It’s November. Georgia isn’t crossing fingers and toes waiting for fate to swing our way anymore. We are our own fate. Being the best is better than wishes. Elite works better than a ranking. And I don’t ESPN to tell me the team we have. But man, number one feels damn good.