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If you’ve been living under a rock this week, the newest release of the College Football Playoff Committee Rankings have generated a lot…A LOT of controversy.

Fans are frustrated, teams are frustrated, conferences are frustrated. And even the committee doesn’t seem to know what the actual criteria and basis for their decision-making actually is.

READ: What Is The True Criteria For The CFP Rankings This Season? Who Knows, The Committee Is Just Winging It

Team rankings seem inconsistent week to week, and the explanations are even more ridiculous. The Alabama Crimson Tide, for example, moved up three spots with a dominant win over Mercer, while the Georgia Bulldogs moved up only one spot with an impressive win over Tennessee. 

The backlash to just that one decision alone has carried throughout the week, and comments by Selection Committee Chair Warde Manuel didn’t help. Manuel after the rankings came out gave an unsatisfactory answer to why the rankings had Georgia and say, Texas, where they do.

“Well, obviously Georgia has a very good win at Texas, but as the committee analyzed the body of work of Texas versus where Georgia is at the present time with two losses, even to top-25 teams, we came out that Texas was still a very strong team deserving of a 3 seed. They have a top-5 defense. Quinn Ewers is leading one of the top passing offenses in the country,” Manuel said. 

“We just looked at them and thought — and came out, I should say, with them at 3. It’s nothing against Georgia. Georgia is a great team, but they did struggle against Ole Miss at Ole Miss but had a great win this past week against Tennessee. We will continue to monitor both teams and see how it goes in the next few weeks.”

There has to be a better way, right? And maybe there is.

CFP Chair Warde Manuel seems lost when trying to explain playoff rankings

CFP Chair Warde Manuel seems lost when trying to explain playoff rankings (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)

College Football Playoff Committee Could Look At Strength Of Record

Analytics-based ranking systems are effectively a dirty word in the minds of many college football fans, but they offer immense value at looking under the surface of team quality. Wins and losses matter, of course, but results can sometimes be misleading and not predictive. What analytics does is measure efficiency, drive quality, and adjust for the opponent. Effectively a forward-looking model akin to the methodology sports books use to set lines.

That’s great for understanding how misleading scorelines can be, but isn’t the best methodology for determining playoff rankings. A great example is the 2024 USC Trojans. USC is 5-5, but lost four games in which it had 92%+ win expectancy. Clearly, they don’t deserve to be in the playoff discussion, but their efficiency ratings on offense and defense against a tough schedule put them at #17 in FEI this week. FEI is an opponent-adjusted possession efficiency metric used to compare teams looking forward.

USC doesn’t deserve to be ranked 17th. But Brian Fremeau, who runs the BCFtoys website where FEI is posted, has another methodology for ranking teams that would be more useful: strength of record.

Strength of record effectively measures the expected “number of losses a team two standard deviations above average would expect to have against the schedule of opponents,” per the website. Meaning, how many losses would you expect a very good team to have against the schedule that team has played? 

USC ranks 17th in efficiency, but 71st in record, because an elite team wouldn’t have 5 losses against its schedule. 

So how do those rankings look this week? A lot, lot closer to the college football playoff committee’s list, with some notable, important changes:

  1. Oregon
  2. Georgia
  3. Ohio State
  4. Indiana
  5. Penn State
  6. Army
  7. Texas
  8. Boise State
  9. BYU
  10. Alabama
  11. Miami
  12. Notre Dame
  13. SMU
  14. Tennessee
  15. Ole Miss
  16. Texas A&M
  17. Clemson
  18. South Carolina
  19. Iowa State
  20. Colorado
  21. Arizona State
  22. UNLV
  23. Illinois
  24. Washington State
  25. Tulane

Georgia has played a brutal schedule, so having two losses doesn’t kill the Bulldogs in these rankings, because that’s what you’d expect even an elite team to have. Oregon is still first, Ohio State is still in the top three. Indiana is fourth, because going undefeated in 2024 is impressive, even if its strength of schedule is abysmal. 

The best example of how this system works is that Georgia has two losses against the second-toughest schedule, while Ole Miss has two losses against the 27th-ranked schedule. Georgia then, is second, Ole Miss is 15th. Notre Dame has the 88th ranked schedule this year, so their one loss, while still impressive, puts them only 12th. 

The committee doesn’t necessarily have to copy these rankings, but if it referenced something similar, it would at least provide some public backing for its decision-making. Instead, we have Georgia sitting at 10th, while Texas is No. 3. Despite the on-field matchup between the two teams. In these rankings, having one loss against the 43rd ranked schedule, as Texas does, is less impressive than Georgia’s record against the second toughest. 

For comparison, an elite team, per FEI, would be expected to have 0.85 losses against Texas’ schedule. An elite team would be expected to have 2.37 losses against Georgia’s schedule. Georgia’s over performed. Texas has essentially played as expected.

All in all, the rankings aren’t that different. But what’s important is how they’re different and who is ranked differently.. Therein lies the upgrade.