We get another set of rankings tonight, and not a lot should change. If you’re looking to manufacture a debate, you can debate Texas A&M vs. Indiana, but A&M’s offered plenty of performances worse than what the Hoosiers did in Happy Valley on Saturday. Really, there are three things to watch:
First, the mid-major picture. We’ll get to this later, but our model does expect one mid-major team to be ranked. If none are ranked, that isn’t all that bad of a sign for any one of them in particular, but it’s collectively a bad sign for those hoping the American champion and James Madison can thread the needle and edge whoever wins the ACC. (More on this situation in yesterday’s CFP Bracketology.)
Second, how far Texas Tech climbs. More on this below, but it could impact the bye situation.
Third, how far BYU drops. As we wrote yesterday, the chalk scenario (all of Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas Tech, Oregon, and Notre Dame make the playoff) probably won’t hold. If it does, though, that only leaves one remaining at-large spot. The Cougars would theoretically be the leader for that. But do they fall behind Notre Dame? Do they fall behind Texas? Do they fall behind Notre Dame, Texas, and Oklahoma? If they do, it’s less worrisome for BYU in a “BYU vs. Texas” lens than it is as a sign that the committee really doesn’t respect the Cougars’ current body of work.
There’s a fourth thing, and it isn’t actually something to watch with the rankings. It’s something to watch with the reactions. Will the same people who rent their garments over Notre Dame being ranked ahead of Miami last week be equally upset about Virginia and Louisville’s placement tonight? According to those people’s logic, because Virginia beat Louisville and Louisville beat Miami and Miami beat Notre Dame and Notre Dame beat USC and USC beat Michigan and all of those teams have exactly two losses, all of those teams should line up in that order, with no regard for anything else on their résumé. Hopefully these head-to-head freedom fighters stick to their guns. It’d be a shame to see them recognize the flaw in their argument.
Here’s what our model expects, with commentary on where we expect it to be wrong. Scores in parentheses are where each team lines up in our model’s eyes on a scale from the worst team in the FBS at 0.0 to the best at 100.0.
1. Ohio State (100.0)
2. Indiana (95.6)
3. Texas A&M (94.9)
Texas A&M could jump Indiana, and our model does have them moving closer together based on Saturday’s results. Even if A&M does jump the Hoosiers, though, it doesn’t really affect anything. The Big Ten Championship, SEC Championship, and any upsets along the way will shake up the top three.
4. Georgia (89.7)
5. Mississippi (88.9)
6. Texas Tech (88.7)
7. Alabama (87.9)
We don’t think our model’s right about Alabama’s placement here. Alabama won’t drop behind Georgia tonight, let alone the rest of them. But Georgia did play well, and Alabama was underwhelming, and the committee showed last week that it has a very high opinion of Mississippi.
Texas Tech vs. Mississippi is a curious one. If you took last week’s rankings out, our model would expect Tech to be ranked 4th and Ole Miss to be ranked 9th. That’s how far apart their résumés are on paper. Does the committee’s high opinion of Mississippi stick? As we said with BYU above, this isn’t about Texas Tech vs. Mississippi. This is about whether the committee likes Tech enough to eventually push them across an inflection point. Specifically, it’s about how much of a chance a hypothetical 12–1 Tech has at a bye. To eventually get that bye, Tech might need to pass two if not three of those four SEC teams ahead of them prior to the Big 12 Championship.
8. Oregon (85.2)
9. Notre Dame (84.2)
10. BYU (82.3)
11. Oklahoma (82.3)
12. Texas (81.1)
Teams’ opponents’ results are a big piece in the résumé equation, which is why our model has Oklahoma jumping Texas here. That won’t happen, but Texas’s résumé did get worse with Kentucky’s bashing of Florida. That loss was bad. It is now even worse.
The real question here is the one we asked above: Does BYU stay ahead of these two-loss teams? How many of them?
13. Utah (80.6)
14. USC (79.3)
15. Georgia Tech (78.4)
16. Vanderbilt (78.3)
17. Miami (77.7)
18. Michigan (76.2)
Last week, the order of these teams went Utah, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, Miami, USC, Michigan, with three other teams in there who all lost. Will that order hold up? Vanderbilt struggled against Auburn. Georgia Tech’s win over Clemson looks a little better thanks to the Tigers thumping Florida State. USC’s loss to Notre Dame might look better to some given how badly the Irish beat Navy, and USC’s win over Nebraska could become a ranked win soon. (Probably not this week, though it’s not outside the realm of possibility.)
We don’t expect the committee to pivot from its priors here. That’s a shame. Whether you agree with last week’s rankings or not, these résumés are different than they were a week ago.
19. Tennessee (73.4)
20. Iowa (73.2)
21. Cincinnati (72.6)
22. Pitt (72.3)
23. Virginia (71.4)
24. Illinois (71.2)
We’re cutting the list off here because we’ll talk mid-majordom in the next section. Really, though, from #19 onward, this is anybody’s guess. It was already chaotic, and then Iowa, Virginia, Louisville (next section), Missouri (next section), and Washington (off the page) all lost.
Ultimately, this section’s order (and whether it’s its own section or if it’s mixed in with the next one) doesn’t really matter. It’s close, and the teams who have a playoff shot are all banking on a conference championship to get them there. But for whatever it’s worth, the anchor last week was that Pitt should be ahead of Tennessee who should then be ahead of Illinois and Cincinnati in some order. That’s what the committee thought last week, and while all four of those teams’ résumés changed, none of them played a game themselves.
25. North Texas (70.8)
26. USF (70.6)
27. Louisville (70.5)
28. James Madison (69.4)
29. Missouri (69.0)
30. Houston (69.5)
Here’s the big one for the mid-majors. Last week, we learned Memphis was ahead of James Madison, and seemingly ahead of both UNT and USF as well. Memphis then went and lost to Tulane. Our model expects North Texas to be ahead of USF by the tiniest of margins, with USF’s head-to-head win outweighed by UNT’s better overall record. I’d personally expect USF to get the nod as the fifth automatic bid in tonight’s projected bracket.
Will USF be ranked? Will any of those three be ranked? We mentioned this above. It’s a big question, and it’ll impact the ACC’s probability of getting its champion into the playoff.
I do suppose there’s a chance JMU’s ahead of UNT and USF—the committee didn’t explicitly say they weren’t—but it would be a shock.
I also suppose there’s a chance the committee will love Tulane, but Tulane got throttled by UTSA just two weeks ago. Our model has the Green Wave 37th.
If no mid-majors are ranked, we’d assume one or more of Louisville, Missouri, and Houston will be in the top 25. Houston’s 8–2. Louisville and Missouri were ranked last week. Louisville only has two losses still. Mizzou has three, but so does Tennessee.
It’s safe to assume Washington will drop out. Others in their neck of the woods include Arizona State, Nebraska, and SMU. After that, you get to LSU, which is where we’ll cut this off. Maybe a rogue argument gets SMU into the top 25, but that’s not happening for LSU.
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