Via @CFBPlayof
I mentioned on Monday that I would write a rebuttal to Bayou’s hypothesis that playing Navy close would cost us playoff positioning. Thankfully, the College Football Playoff Committee saved me from loads of writing by making the argument for me by keeping the Fighting Irish ranked at #10.
As I said during the ND Fan Radio Navy post game show, I felt that the narrow win against Navy would mean about as much to the committee as the blowout win against Rice did: nothing.
Last week, I put forward my own hypothesis that the two biggest factors the committee used in ranking teams were the number of losses and the amount of quality wins against the top 25. The committee didn’t appear to care about margin of victory, the quality of opponent faced, or how “good” a loss was unless they were trying to break a tie between two teams.
And that logic once again held this week. With that in mind, I’ve managed to pull out a few more nuggets of knowledge from this week’s rankings. I have updated the spreadsheet from last week and added a new tab for this weeks rankings and a breakdown of the top 25, their opponents, and all their wins and losses (and included the two teams dropped out this week as a bonus!).
No Team That Won Dropped in the Rankings
If you take one thing away from this post, it should be this point. If a team in the top 25 won they either rose in the rankings or they didn’t move. The six teams that dropped in the rankings all lost.
Often times, pollsters seem to consider some wins as “bad” and thus punish a team for winning a football game. That has never really made much sense to me and I’m glad to see the committee bucking that trend. Doubly so because the committee clearly used a similar logic for a “good” loss, a judgment call that certainly affected Notre Dame’s initial ranking.
The message from the committee is quite clear: win your games (unless you have a laughable schedule like Marshall, in which case, sorry, please try again).
Margin of Victory Doesn’t Matter Except When It Does
Notre Dame, nor any other team like Auburn or TCU, were punished for winning a close game. Likewise, we have also seen that huge blowout wins (Alabama over Texas A&M) or blowout loses (Arizona State losing to UCLA) don’t really seem to make a difference in the rankings. Despite that, committee chair, Jeff Long, had this to say about Notre Dame and Arizona State:
Hmm. Long: ASU, ND have common opponent in Stanford. ASU moved ahead because of more convincing win.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) November 5, 2014
So perhaps, more accurately, we should say that MOV only matters in a tie-breaker type discussion.
This logic though is somewhat head-scratching if you apply the same logic to a Notre Dame/Michigan State comparison and their common opponent, Michigan. I suppose the only logic there though is that Michigan State had the quality win so they initially put Sparty over ND. Since Michigan State didn’t lose this week, the committee didn’t want to then drop them down a spot.
So really, it appears the question the committee was trying to answer here was just how far should they allow Arizona State to rise and a debate arose between either #9 or #10, leading to the MOV comparison with Notre Dame. But hey, this works great for the Irish as not only do they have a chance for a quality win, but a win against a team ranked above them, meaning that a potential Arizona State loss will hopefully keep them well within the top 25.
Is the SEC Still Awesome?
I’ll be interested to see this week’s update to the theory. Signs may still point to yes. In each loss grouping, an SEC team sits a top of each pack–save for one. There is one lone three loss team in the top 25, West Virginia, hailing from the Big XII.
Currently, each top SEC team is benefiting from the circular logic that committee uses in terms of quality wins, but, as a said last week, at least the committee is consistent in their logic. Further, both SEC teams in the top 25 took significant drops, including Ole Miss whose heartbreaking loss to #3 Auburn, due to a freak injury no less, received no mercy from the committee.
In my mind, the bias is still there, but is much more tolerable. These rankings paint the SEC as the top conference in college football, which is hard to argue. However, that doesn’t give an SEC team any luxury to not be punished quite heavily for a loss.
In fact, I dare say this could lead to a possible nightmare scenario. There does exist a potential doomsday possibility that the SEC emerges with zero one-loss teams. Will the committee change their logic then or will they remain consistent and, I can’t believe I’m saying this, actually shut the SEC out of the playoff picture?
Notre Dame Can Join the Playoff Debate in Earnest After This Saturday
That is, if the Irish win.
Without any quality wins on their resume, any debate about how strong the ND schedule should have been or how it is still stronger than other teams that play FCS teams, is pointless. All other teams above us still have at least one quality win and five of the teams in the top ten have two quality wins.
A win against Arizona State changes all of that. With a top 25 win, the Irish and Brian Kelly can start making debates and politicking in earnest. With two games within the top ten (#6 TCU/#7 Kansas State & #9 Arizona State/#10 Notre Dame), another top ten team, #5 Alabama, playing #16 LSU, and #8 Michigan State taking on #14 Ohio State, the Irish have a huge opportunity to rise up the rankings.
The path to the playoff is still narrow, but it’s there.
Ryan Ritter
Texan by birth, Irish by choice.
Born and raised in the great state of Texas, Tex is a first-generation Domer and a former student manager. After graduation, he left the cold winters of South Bend behind and returned back to his home state with a computer engineering degree in tow. Missing the daily grind of working football practices and talking football with fellow Irish fans every day, he took to blogging, a path which eventually led him to Her Loyal Sons. Continuously diving into stats and game film, Tex strives to break down every aspect of Fighting Irish football--even though it's determined to kill him.
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Great analysis! Like most ND fans, I was upset when the first rankings came out last week, but after trying to look at things objectively, I can’t argue too much. Even Michigan State being ranked ahead of us isn’t unreasonable given that Nebraska is now 8-1. ND is actually getting some respect from the committee when you consider we are ranked ahead of several one loss teams, despite not having any quality wins.
I also agree that no team (ND included) should get any credit for how tough their schedule looked at the beginning of the season.
I would love to be in the room as the committee goes through their discussions. It would be fascinating.
I’m more or less in the same place. As of now, the committee is being consistent, which is all I can ask for. The Coaches’ and AP polls are always ridiculously volatile and full of all kinds of bias.
I’m sure there’s bias in the room here as well, but it doesn’t seem to be taking everything over.
Of course, I’m saying this now while fully aware that they could yank the rug out from under everyone at the end of the season!
What I can’t wrap my head around is TCU being behind Bama. Bama’s quality win is WVU at the GA Dome. TCU beat Oklahoma and WVU in Morgantown. Long said that they used the eyeball test…
Also it surprised me a lillte that the rankings seem to still be dependent on what the rankings were last week. I was expecting Ole Miss to drop behind LSU. Ole miss lost to 3. Auburn and 16 LSU whereas LSU beat Ole miss and lost to 1 Miss State and 3 Auburn. Maybe I’m missing something here…
I was wondering the same thing about TCU and bama but one of the criteria the committee looks at (and did in the case of ND and ASU) is common opponents. Bama’s win, albeit on a neutral field, was more convincing than TCU’s. Had a facemask been called early in that game, TCU probably would have needed 7 to tie at the end instead of 3 to win.
Your question about Ole Miss is one I still can’t figure out. I had a discussion with NDTex last week about Ole Miss being sort of an anomaly then as well. LSU has 2 top 25 wins to Ole Miss’ 1 top 25 win and it beat Ole Miss head to head (another stated important criteria for the committee). I would say the committee did show Ole Miss mercy due to the fluke nature of its loss to Auburn by ONLY dropping it to 11 when its logic would normally put it around 16.
I love this column series and the chart really helps to analyze the rankings objectively.
Re common opponents: Interesting point. With that said I put ASU ahead of the Irish because they have a top 25 win now (Utah) not because they beat Stanford more convincingly. ND was the highest ranked team without a quality win last week and I figured they would be again this week.
I’m of this line of thought as well. I have a feeling this was another big debate in the room along with ND/ASU.
I am right there with you wondering what the committee will do with a 2 loss SEC champion if there are 1 loss champs from the other 4 conferences and potentially ND as well. Its best hope is obviously Mississippi State.
I have to think that the SEC champ gets in. I would find it so hard to believe they get left out.
Perhaps the reasoning there would be valuing a conference title, especially from the toughest conference in the Power 5, which, as I said above, the SEC is clearly in that driver’s seat.
I agree. I told a friend a week ago that they’ll put the SEC champ in even if it’s South Carolnia and I still believe that.
A couple of games you left out that will give ND a chance to make a move: Oregon @ Utah (this is the kind of game to which Oregon loves to miss the bus) and Baylor (another 1 loss team just needing a top25 win to jump us) @ Oklahoma. You should start a new column just breaking down the weekend’s slate and who ND should be rooting for. E.g., probably Kansas St. over TCU this weekend just because Kst has a tougher schedule ahead and more chances to take that second loss.
I posted a long thing and then Disqus ate it. So here’s the short version. We want:
Wisconsin < Purdue (12:00, ESPNU)
Baylor Auburn (3:30, CBS) (ha)
Kansas State > TCU* (7:30, FOX)
Ohio State > Michigan State (8:00, ABC)
Alabama < LSU** (8:00, CBS)
Oregon < Utah (10:00, ESPN)
* I'm somewhat ambivalent about this because while I think jdthom is right and that K-State has more chances to lose, their one-loss résumé is solid, whereas TCU's last three games are awful, so they might get jumped by ND if the Committee isn't impressed by the Horned Frogs scoring style points 82 at a time.
** Personally, I'd rather Alabama win this, lose to Mississippi State next week, then win the Iron Bowl so everyone in the SEC West has two losses except MSU. But it won't hurt my feelings if Saban munches it in Death Valley.
I agree about TCU looking bad but I’m still not convinced that matters to the committee. They are ranked ahead of K.St. after all. They have a few common opponents on the schedule and nothing really jumps out but TCU’s 82 points against Texas Tech.
I’m guessing your point about the SEC is based onof concern they get 2 teams in. I really don’t see that happening. I think the bigger concern for ND is getting jumped by teams during the conference championship weekend.
The SEC absolutely will get two in unless Auburn and Alabama BOTH lose (and assuming Georgia doesn’t win the SEC Championship Game — don’t laugh, they’re flying under everyone’s radar). If the SEC Champion and Florida State are in, then there’s only two spots left for some combination of a second SEC school, the other three Power 5 champions and Notre Dame. A one-loss SEC team will have a better CV than anyone else in that group except maybe Oregon if they win out. Who’s gonna jump Alabama? TCU (with no championship game)? Michigan State (whose best win will be this weekend if it happens)? Us? Hell no.