Checking In on College Football’s Playground Rankings

College football season is over, which means it’s time for some playground rankings. Playground rankings, if you aren’t familiar (I don’t know why you would be, I think we’ve only done this once before and it was for Major League Baseball), are the sort of rankings one would use if one were looking for the power players on the playground. The kids who the other kids look at and know, deep down, carry more weight than they do (basically, if Texas A&M wanted to play four square and Alabama wanted to play tag, everyone on the playground would know tag was about to be played, and Alabama was going to win that game of tag, even though tag isn’t really a game you can win). Not “alphas,” exactly (that word’s gotten pretty weird in recent years). Just ones who, when the eye contact is made, know they hold the trump card. Recency matters. Head-to-head matters. Peaks matter. I suppose another way to describe this is just who the best programs are in the current moment. But “playground rankings” is ambiguous enough to give us more leeway.

We’ll start at the top.

1. Alabama

Obviously.

2. LSU

Here’s where it gets interesting. LSU’s only made the playoff once. They’ve been pretty bad at times in recent years. They were kind of bad, by their standards, this year. But when they made the playoff, they dominated it, end-to-end, at the end of a season they’d pretty much dominated end-to-end. Clemson can pull its more-championships card, but LSU still has the memory of Joe Burrow tossing them aside like they were Northwestern State.

Also boosting LSU’s claim is the fact that they were the ones who stopped UCF from claiming back-to-back titles—which might seem inconsequential but has a counterfactual in which the playoff system would be under a lot more fire. They’ve had plenty of bad years, but they’ve showed up when it’s counted. Once in a massive way. And there’s not a lot you can say that gets to them.

3. Clemson

The two titles are a lot—enough to hold onto the edge over Ohio State despite the Buckeyes having the more recent blowout victory in the series.

4. Ohio State

They, too, have won a title. It was a while ago, but it was a title, and they’ve been in legitimate contention in most seasons since, even the ones where they shat the bed against Iowa and Purdue.

5. Georgia

The consistent legitimate contention is what Georgia’s lacking, but they’ve come the closest of anyone outside those four to winning a title, which counts for something. They’re one of only six teams to win a playoff game, which also counts for something. And it doesn’t hurt that their playoff win came against Oklahoma, the next team on the list, or that they swept their home-and-home with Notre Dame.

6. Oklahoma

No, Oklahoma’s never won a playoff game, and their losses, with the exception of the Baker Mayfield Rose Bowl, haven’t been close. But they’re always a factor, and they’ve done some work for themselves by shithousing SEC teams in the Sugar Bowl the last two times they’ve missed the cut.

7. Notre Dame

Lastly, Notre Dame. No, Notre Dame hasn’t won a playoff game, but if the knock against them is that they were blown out both times they made it (and blown out back in 2013 in the BCS title game), it’s worth remembering that the teams that beat them went on to beat their championship opponents by even more. Notre Dame has at least made it twice. No team that’s made a playoff, besides LSU, has not been blown out at least once in a playoff game. Blowouts are part of the deal. Notre Dame’s at least done enough to get on the stage.

Also Considered

Oregon’s the toughest to kick out, because they did win a playoff game once, and they did it by blowout. But it’s hard to say if Oregon’s even eighth because their down years have been so bad, and because the Pac-12 as a whole has been so unable to produce playoff appearers (Washington, it follows, is also hard to rank).

UCF has a case by having had those two great years, but losing that Sugar Bowl to LSU was a missed chance. As far as Group of Five dynasties go, Boise State’s from the 2000’s dwarfs that of UCF.

Florida State and Michigan State have each made the playoff, but neither’s done anything while they’ve been there, and even moreso than Oregon, both of these programs have been disasters at times in the years since. The Jameis Winston championship feels like forever ago.

Auburn has a sneaky claim, finishing the BCS era strong and having at least been in the mix for a lot of the playoff era. Their inability to knock down the door makes it ambiguous between them and those that have, though, and their recent coaching search was enough of a mess to drag them down further into the fray.

Basically, from here it gets less linear. The top seven are stacked up neatly. The next however many there are aren’t stacked up neatly, and there are some circular circumstances (Maryland has the edge over Texas, Texas has the edge over Nebraska, Nebraska has the edge over Maryland). But perhaps next year we’ll get another entrant into the mix. Or at least some movement towards the top.