Five Thoughts on the First College Football Playoff Rankings

The first of six College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday evening, and Oklahoma State checked in at No. 11, just behind Miami and Wisconsin and just ahead of Washington and Virginia Tech.

The top four of Georgia, Bama, Notre Dame and Clemson was not really a surprise, although the OU over Ohio State ranking might have been. I have a few thoughts on the first CFP rankings of 2017. Let’s jump.

1. Zero Good Wins

I said this to Carson on our podcast on Tuesday, but what is Oklahoma State’s most impressive win to date? West Virginia? Texas Tech? Pitt? I honestly don’t know, which means I feel like OSU is kind of lucky to even be ranked No. 11. You could argue that most halfway decent top 25 teams would be 7-1 with their schedule. That will change, obviously, but it warrants mentioning after Week 1 of the CFP rankings.

2. A team in double digits will finish top 5

In each of the first three years of this exercise a team ranked 10 or worse has finished in the top five of the final rankings. Ohio State in 2014, OU in 2015 and Penn State in 2016. OU and tOSU both made the playoff and Penn State finished 5th. There will be a path to the top four (or heaven help us, five) over the next six weeks for a team ranked No. 9-15, hopefully OSU will be the team that takes it.

3. What Does Winning Out Mean?

This is the big question. Obviously Oklahoma State has to take care of business, but think about this note that my buddy Ryan brought up the other day. Oklahoma State will be favored in every single game it plays in 2017. All of them! How many teams can say that?

Anyway, if Oklahoma State wins all the games it should (i.e. all of them), then it will be a 12-1 Big 12 champ. That’s enough to get in, right?

Well, probably. I thought this post on pools of title contenders rather than singular teams was pretty interesting. One of OU, Oklahoma State and TCU could get in, but only one. Same with Clemson, VT and The U and tOSU and Wisconsin.

These are your nine real title contenders:

• Alabama
• Georgia
• Ohio State or Wisconsin
• Clemson, Virginia Tech, or Miami
• Penn State
• Washington
• Oklahoma State, TCU, or Oklahoma
• Notre Dame
• UCF

The nightmare for a Big 12 team is Georgia beating Alabama 31-30 in the SEC title game and both teams finishing 12-1 or Georgia at 13-0, and Notre Dame, Clemson and tOSU winning out. Actually that’s also a nightmare for the committee, too.

So Oklahoma State will need help in a way Oklahoma will not (because of the Ohio State win), but those specific five teams winning out is not likely going to happen. November is always insane, and there will be unexpected losses to teams we don’t think are capable of losing. There always are.

In terms of the teams directly in front of Oklahoma State, here’s how each one can be eliminated.

• 10. Miami — Loses to ND or Clemson in ACC title game.
• 9. Wisconsin — Loses to Ohio State in Big 10 title game
• 8. TCU — Loses to OU next week or Oklahoma State in B12 title game.
• 7. Penn State — Can’t play for its conference crown if Ohio State wins out.
• 6. Ohio State — ?
• 5. Oklahoma — This weekend.

All of a sudden you’ve cleared a path all the way to No. 6 for Oklahoma State as long as it keeps winning through the first week in December. Will chaos take care of a potential Georgia-Bama-Notre Dame-Clemson-Ohio State top five?  Probably, with ND and Georgia as the most likely candidates to slide. ND still plays Stanford and Miami. Georgia still has Auburn and the SEC title game.

Just win, baby. It’s been this team’s motto for three years and should be when it comes to the CFP, too.

4. I kind of disagree with OU > Ohio State

As was pointed out elsewhere, the committee values big wins and doesn’t kill you for “bad” losses (see: Clemson). Again, this is all weighted towards teams that are considered better programs to begin with, but I think I disagree with OU being ranked ahead of Ohio State. That sounds crazy, right? OU thumped Ohio State in Columbus.

However, this is the TCU-Baylor 2014 argument all over again to me. If we were comparing head-to-head matchups, then the committee wouldn’t even exist. We’d just take the conference champs. We’re already operating under the premise that head-to-head means nothing, though, because … there’s a committee … and Ohio State’s resume is better. They beat as good of a team as OU beat and lost to a much better one.

That doesn’t make sense on paper, I know, but if any of this made sense on paper, ESPN wouldn’t be hosting a six-week show with a bunch of people in a conference room debating the merits of a variety of college football teams’ resumes.

That’s part of what makes all of this fun as hell, though, and part of why this industry continues to thrive even as others do not.

5. The Checklist

SB Nation has been killing with its coverage of the CFP, and this checklist is a good one to keep in mind over the next six weeks. Every CFP team (all 12 of them) has hit all of these milestones except for 2016 Ohio State winning its conference. Let’s see where Oklahoma State stands currently.

• Reach the end with one or fewer losses: ✅
• Beat at least three teams ranked in the committee’s final top 25: 0
• Win at least six games against FBS teams that have .500-plus records: 3
• Win a Power 5 conference: ?

So there’s a lot of work to be done, but Oklahoma State has a chance to fill out this portion of the resume over the next six weeks. It will play OU, Iowa State and a Big 12 title foe (if it makes it that far) over the next five weekends, and if the Cowboys win them all, they will likely satiate all of these demands. It should be enough. We’ll see.