College Football Playoff Ranking Reaction: Tennessee Deserved No. 1 Spot

While the Volunteers got what they earned, a couple undefeated teams on the outside of the playoff looking in marked the year’s first rankings.

You know that feeling you got on Christmas morning as a child? You’re excited to leap from your bed, race down the hall, dive into a pile of presents and rip them apart.

The CFP selection committee released its first top 25 ranking on Tuesday, and no, it does not feel like Christmas morning. Don’t believe anyone who tells you so. But it isn’t completely meaningless either. Do not shove it aside as if it is a preseason AP poll.

Take for instance the three points made by data-crunching colleague Pat Forde this week: (1) there has never been a year in which all of the committee’s first top-four teams missed the CFP; (2) the national champion in seven of eight years was one of the top four teams in the first rankings; and (3) more than half of the 32 CFP participants—19—were in the top four of the first rankings.

Let’s dumb this down. If your team is inside this week’s top four—No. 1 Tennessee, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Clemson—there’s a better than 50% chance that it will eventually be ranked in the top four of the final poll and, based on the eight-year history of the Playoff, there’s around a 20% it will win the national championship.

So, congrats!

And now, with no further ado, let’s get to our weekly thoughts on the rankings, brought to you by Clint Eastwood (if you’re too young to understand, click here):

The Vols face another big test against Georgia this weekend :: Wade Payne/AP

The Good

Tennessee is No. 1, as it should be.

The Vols possess the nation’s best résumé top to bottom (19th-ranked strength of schedule), have the country’s best win (Alabama) and are electric on offense (first in the country averaging 553 yards a game). The CFP selection committee, a group of 13 college football stakeholders, had a “lively” debate over the No. 1 team, says committee chair Boo Corrigan, the AD at NC State. In the end, the committee made the Vols the top-ranked team over Ohio State and Georgia mostly because of their two wins over top-10 teams—No. 6 Alabama, the highest ranked one-loss team, and No. 10 LSU, the highest-ranked two-loss team.

Those two victories separated them from the Buckeyes (52nd-ranked strength of schedule) and the Bulldogs (75-ranked strength of schedule). Of course, things will get further situated this weekend when Georgia hosts Tennessee in Athens, where the on-field results will determine their separation.

The Bad

TCU should get more respect.

You’re not young enough to have forgotten comedian Rodney Dangerfield, right? He got no respect, just like the Horned Frogs, who despite their undefeated record and two victories over current top-25 teams find themselves trailing the one-loss Crimson Tide.

Why? Corrigan served up this number when asked: “We are looking for a balanced team—offense and defense. They’ve [TCU] gotten behind in some games. They’ve been able to come back.”

Corrigan is basically saying that TCU has shown its weakness by falling behind several times. It’s a positive that Sonny Dykes’s team has rallied, sure, but it’s a pretty big negative that it had to rally.

Of course, there is one problem: Alabama had to also rally in a game at Texas, and then Alabama didn’t have enough juice to rally and beat Tennessee.

While these CFP chairman gigs are really no-win situations, this comment was a bit head scratching.

The Ugly

Michigan’s nonconference schedule.

There is some outrage in the No. 5 Wolverines being behind Clemson on the outside of the top four. Look no further than a strength of schedule that is 69th nationally. That SOS is weighed down by a nonconference slate that featured Colorado State, Hawai’i and UConn.

In 2019, Michigan canceled a nonconference game it was scheduled to play this year with UCLA, paid a handsome buyout and thus organized its schedule as if it was an NFL team playing a preseason. Its first three opponents combine for a record of 8–18.