A weekly exercise in futility

We’re hitting the stretch run of the college football regular season. Teams are vying for berths in conference championship games and eventually the College Football Playoff. Every Tuesday, we get a glimpse of what things might look like come playoff time as the new rankings are released from the committee. The first set of rankings came out last week and the latest set will be made public tonight.

Last year, I blogged about how I felt eight teams was the answer for college football. I still believe that to be true. This year, I find myself getting so annoyed by these weekly discussions of who’s in and who’s out when there are still huge games left to be played. Last week, LSU and Alabama were both in the top four with a showdown in Tuscaloosa looming later in the week.  So it was pointless to discuss if both teams were going to be in the playoff, because one was inevitably going to be knocked out. Now, Alabama is in the driver’s seat in the SEC West and it will be almost impossible for LSU to make the College Football Playoff given the Tigers likely won’t even be playing in their conference championship game.

While these rankings strike up conversations each week, it’s ultimately a bunch of nonsense. The real conversation didn’t come until the first weekend of December. It was a forgone conclusion that Alabama, Oregon and Florida State were going to be in the first ever playoff. But the fourth spot was very much up for grabs. TCU entered the final week third in the playoff rankings, ahead of Baylor and Ohio State despite losing to Baylor in the regular season.  Baylor had an unconvincing 38-27 win against Kansas State. TCU and Ohio State both had blowout victories over Iowa State and Wisconsin respectively. Iowa State went 2-10 last year and Wisconsin was 11-3. The committee gave the final spot to Ohio State for beating a better team than the team TCU beat. I disagreed with this. TCU took care of its business and left no doubt in the process but was left out. Being third in playoff ranks before the season’s final weekend was essentially pointless. You know how things ended by know. Ohio State stayed hot, beating Alabama and Oregon en route to a championship.

In last week’s first release of the playoff rankings for 2015, there was an emphasis placed on strength of schedule. Undefeated teams Baylor, Michigan State, TCU and Iowa were behind one-loss Alabama and Notre Dame. With Michigan State and TCU losing over the weekend, there’s no longer a case for those teams to be higher in the rankings. LSU will likely drop out of the top four and Notre Dame will slide in. That will leave the top four at Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State and Notre Dame. It’s not rocket science to say those are the best four teams in the nation right now. But what does that mean? Alabama will still have to beat Florida in the SEC Championship game. Ohio State still has to go through Michigan State and potentially Iowa in the Big 10 Championship game. Notre Dame has to travel to Stanford, another team on the outside looking in of the playoff picture. There is plenty of football left. This is where it really gets interesting. So who cares about the top four teams are in the playoff rankings right now? I certainly don’t.