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College Football Playoff Committee Gets Latest Rankings Right

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By @TimLetcher

Marvin Gentry, USA TODAY SPORTS

Marvin Gentry, USA TODAY SPORTS

The committee for the first College Football Playoff has made some questionable decisions so far this season. There has seemed to be some inconsistency in the selections, as well as how teams are ranked.

But give the committee credit for Tuesday night’s rankings. For at least the top four, they got it right.

The committee moved the Alabama Crimson Tide from fifth in last week’s rankings to first after Nick Saban and his squad beat the previous number one team, the Mississippi State Bulldogs, on Saturday. Clearly, this win showed that Alabama is the most complete team in the country at this point in the season.

The Oregon Ducks were ranked second by the committee once again this week. Oregon has a couple of strong Top 25 victories as well as a Heisman Trophy candidate in quarterback Marcus Mariota. The Ducks are the best team west of the Mississippi River.

Coming in at number three in the committee’s rankings are the Florida State Seminoles, who remained unbeaten after a comeback win against the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday night. The defending national champion Seminoles held their spot at third in the rankings.

The real story of the evening was to find out which team would end up in the fourth spot. Among the contenders were Mississippi State, along with the Baylor Bears, the Ohio State Buckeyes and the TCU Horned Frogs.

This is where the committee nailed it. The 12-member panel recognized that Mississippi State’s loss to the now-top-ranked team (Alabama), on the road, was the best loss of any of the one-loss teams. The committee also recognized that the Bulldogs have faced one of the nation’s tougher schedules, playing in the brutal SEC West, which makes them more favorable.

It’s going to be tough for the committee to pick between Baylor and TCU. The Horned Frogs have the better resume, but Baylor won the head-to-head matchup between the two. The easiest thing for the committee to do would be to leave both of them out.

And that leaves Ohio State. The ugly loss to the Virginia Tech Hokies in September still weighs heavily against them. However, Urban Meyer has his team playing as well as anyone right now, so the Buckeyes are a team to keep an eye on.

While there is probably positioning still to come with the rankings before the playoff, at least for this week, the committee got it right.

Tim Letcher is a contributing writer for www.RantSports.com and a member of the Football Writers Association of America. Follow him on Twitter @TimLetcher , on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.

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