Waiting on Georgia: The Week 11 CFP Rankings Abide

We got our second College Football Playoff rankings of the season last night, and there is less from them to report. Washington’s impressive victory in Los Angeles was not enough to push the Huskies past Florida State or Michigan. Penn State’s blowout of Maryland was not enough to push the Nittany Lions past anyone ahead of them. Oregon State got some love—so much that our model now gives them a 1-in-500 chance of making the playoff where there was previously less than a 1-in-10,000 chance—but we expected what we saw regarding Washington and Penn State, and Oregon State is explicable. This committee’s rankings are perhaps stickier than those of prior committees, more of a horse race than a weekly reassessment, but that may be a temporary phenomenon. It’s still early in the cadence. Michigan has yet to play a ranked team.

We’re about to show you three tables. Really, it’s the same table sorted three ways. The table shows each team’s “Total FPA”—how much Forgiveness/Punishment Adjustment they’re receiving from the committee right now (how far the committee’s ranking of them deviates from precedent, as judged by our model)—as well as their “New FPA”—how much FPA was added to their plate this week. Three tidbits:

• New FPA doesn’t sum to zero because teams that left the rankings saw their FPA wiped clean, and we don’t have them in the table.
• We don’t know or even think that the committee has Liberty 26^th. They’re just the only unranked team receiving any FPA.
• The “Ranking Score” is scaled such that the worst-ranked team in the FBS, were these rankings to go all the way through the subdivision, would always be at 0.0 and the highest-ranked is always at 100.0.

The table, from 1–25 (plus Liberty):

The table, from most benefit of the doubt to least benefit of the doubt:

The table, from most new benefit of the doubt to most new doubt:

What are we seeing? From the top, with thoughts on the week thrown in (new bowl projections and probabilities are below, for archival purposes):

Ohio State may have a narrative problem. Their 19-point win over Rutgers, in which they led for 55 minutes, was billed by many as a close escape. Thankfully for Ohio State, this isn’t yet showing up in the committee’s assessment of them. Whether that remains the case after this week is up in the air. Ohio State has a big rooting interest in Penn State vs. Michigan, and their interest is in a Penn State victory.

Georgia danced with disaster yet again, needing a boneheaded Brady Cook pass (after a very good game, to be clear) and aware surehandedness from Nazir Stackhouse to bury Mizzou. Mizzou is a good team—somewhere between 21^st and 24^th, going by Movelor, SP+, and FPI—but they’re more accomplished than their ability would suggest. Georgia did the equivalent of beating them by six on a neutral field. That was Georgia’s best performance of the season to date. The way our model measures the quality of victories, 24 teams have a more impressive win than Georgia’s best win. That list includes South Alabama, Pitt, Virginia, Army, Georgia Tech, and Missouri.

The thing about this discussion is that Georgia’s tests are ahead of them. They host Mississippi this week. They visit Tennessee next week. Win one or both of those and they’ll in all likelihood play Alabama in Atlanta in four weeks’ time. The thing about this thing is that we aren’t trying to figure anything out about the committee’s assessment of Georgia. We’re trying to figure out Georgia. Is Georgia a great team? Or is Georgia a good team? Brock Bowers is reportedly getting closer to playing, which affects things, but Bowers’s presence or absence is more likely to be a red herring than it is to dramatically change the quality of this Georgia team. They’ll get more benefit of the doubt (and FPA) if they lose with him out, but again, we’re not at the point of caring too much what the committee thinks of Georgia. We’ll get there if there are enough undefeated and one-loss teams to warrant it, but for now, we’re more interested in whether or not they can keep winning.

There was no pivotal shift in Michigan’s performance in their first game back after the sign-stealing scandal broke. Does this mean anything? We’re not sure. Even if this cloud wasn’t over Michigan, we’d be saying we don’t know how good they are, with none of their opponents so far in the Movelor, SP+, or FPI top 40. Partly of their own volition and partly because of how the Big Ten schedule is designed and worked out, Michigan is playing a three-game schedule this year. In that sense, they’re about to play their first game of the year.

Florida State wasn’t great against Pitt, but they weren’t terrible, and they only briefly looked to be in any sort of danger. It’s a little telling that the committee didn’t push Washington ahead of them, but Washington has more meat on the bone (it’s possible the committee recognized this and wanted to save itself from the awkward scenario where Washington squeaks by good teams while FSU pounds bad ones).

Washington! That was a statement win, in our opinion, but it also came against a now-unranked foe, an opponent Movelor only marks as the 38^th-best team in the country (SP+ and FPI are much higher, placing USC 17^th). Michael Penix Jr. reinvigorated his Heisman campaign, we all got to meet Dillon Johnson, and Alex Grinch was finally canned in the shootout’s aftermath. That wasn’t enough for the committee, though, and that’s ok. Washington will have its chances, and few are seriously calling Washington “great” right now. They get Oregon State on the road in two weeks, and the committee is all over the Beavers. Washington has the chance there and in its other remaining games to prove things to the committees, to the computers, and to us.

Oregon continues to roll, with Bo Nix jumping close to the front of the Heisman race himself. Movelor now has Oregon favored in a hypothetical neutral-site matchup with Georgia, and FPI shares that view. We all know how good Georgia can be. They haven’t been that good yet. Oregon is playing great football. They aren’t just beating up on the Pac-12.

Texas survived Kansas State in a game where both teams dramatically underperformed their potential, and it’s looking like the Longhorns could have Quinn Ewers back soon, which would be a godsend. Texas isn’t playing like a top-five team, but they might not need to be even a top-ten team to beat TCU, Iowa State, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma. They did their work in September, and while they have no margin for error (especially if Ewers does return), that work is carrying them far.

Alabama is being capped right now in the rankings by Texas, but they’re good. Alabama is good. They’ve now beaten three teams in the top 20 by 14 points apiece. They’ve had their bad games, but their good games have been more than solid, and while two remaining games are tricky, they’re likelier than not to get to the SEC Championship at 11–1. Again, no margin for error, but we have more questions about Georgia than we do about Alabama.

Mississippi beat Texas A&M in dramatic fashion, and that’s just what Mississippi has to do. They don’t have the talent or athleticism to compete with the best versions of Georgia and Alabama and Ohio State. They do, though, have the ability to compete with bad versions of those three teams, and if they manage the upset of Georgia, they’re going to be one road win in the Egg Bowl away from an 11–1 playoff candidacy, something we’d generally expect to keep them in the conversation all the way to the end.

There’s an explanation of Penn State which relies on an explanation of Ohio State, so let’s start with that latter one. The Ohio State explanation is that Ohio State’s defense is otherworldly, and that its offense is limited but has enough Marvin Harrison Jr.’s (one of them) that it gets the job done. This Ohio State makes itself look worse than it is, like when 2011 Alabama played LSU the first time. This Ohio State thereby makes teams it beats look worse than they are. We are lightyears away from writing off Penn State as they welcome Michigan on Saturday. Bettors appear to be in the same position. It’s put up or shut up time, but there is an option there for Penn State besides shutting up. They’re still in this Big Ten race, and that means they’re in the national title race as well.

Louisville crushed Virginia Tech, and while the Pitt loss was atrocious, a playoff path still does exist for the Cardinals, especially with the committee very willing to consider recent performance when it suits them. It would be a shock to see Louisville pass any other one-loss Power Five teams, but if they win out? They’ll be in the conversation, and that conference championship and that win over Florida State could be loud.

Among the two-loss Power Five teams, we were of course very impressed with and happy for Oklahoma State, though their loss to South Alabama was even worse than Louisville’s to Pitt and is not being treated as such. The committee does have an unfortunate tendency, this year and other years, to pick and choose when recency matters. A lot has changed since Oklahoma State lost to South Alabama, but a lot has changed since Alabama lost to Texas.

At the top of the three-loss teams, some quick appreciation for LSU and Notre Dame’s performance: LSU has lost to three playoff contenders. Notre Dame has lost to two playoff contenders and one of the most talented and athletic teams in the country. I understand the dramatic reaction to Notre Dame losing to what was a .500 team entering the day, but it’s still striking how far Notre Dame has come relative to where they were even seven years ago, let alone during the Charlie Weis era.

Other thoughts and observations:

• The Air Force loss makes the Group of Five New Year’s Six question fascinating. That race seems to now consist of Tulane, SMU, Air Force, Fresno State, Troy, Liberty, and James Madison. One of those teams isn’t currently eligible for a NY6 bowl. One plays in Conference USA. One—Tulane—just beat East Carolina by a field goal and is currently an underdog to win their conference. SMU is favored to win that conference, but SMU has two losses and still has to go play at Memphis. Fresno State is at even money this week against a sub-.500 San Jose State. I kind of like Troy’s chances? It seems that they and Liberty are the likeliest to land the opportunity.
• Nebraska became the team who lost to Michigan State, which was very Nebraska of them. The Huskers have to beat one of Maryland, Wisconsin, and Iowa to make a bowl game.
• Jason Bean shocked me with how well he played for Kansas. I wasn’t all that happy with Iowa State’s secondary, but Bean made the throws.
• Arkansas has a compelling path to rally from 2–6 to bowl eligibility, facing Auburn, FIU, and Mizzou to close the season, all in Fayetteville. That could be a huge win in Gainesville for the Hogs.
• South Dakota State has now done enough to be in Movelor’s top 25 across all of Division I football. The Jacks are crushing teams. The Jacks would be roughly even money right now against Clemson.

And, for the archives… (These bowl projections also account for last night’s games, and we have seven projected sub-.500 teams now making bowls, which is rough!)