The executive director of the new 12-team College Football Playoff announced what many have suspected, and that is, Wins, and the old-fashion “eye test” will be part of considerations when making choices for the playoffs, but so could the strength of schedule.
Rich Clark also explained to reporters during the league meeting on Wednesday on how the bracket of 12 teams will look like. Tuesday is the initial list of the committee’s weekly top 25 rankings and the brackets that will be used in the list released December 8.
“Record matters, but that does not mean we are picking the best teams to deserve to go to the playoffs,” Clark said, a quote that will be analysed for weeks. They need to look at everything that this committee has comprised of.” Well of course they are going to take record into consideration The only thing they have definite today is record and accountability. But they’re going to look at strength of schedule, they’re going to look at, how certain teams stunk it up against certain other teams, head to head competition, you name it.
It raged when the bracket was mini, with eight teams only, people raised eyebrow wondering how and why the committee set Alabama, which had only one lost, ahead of the undefeated Florida State. From years to years, it is still challenging to see that even when there is a broader bracket that enshrine the five winners of conferences, the committee decision will not be criticized one way the other.
A new wrinkle this year is all the major conferences — the SEC, the Big Ten and the Big 12 — have gotten rid of divisions — a result of realignment that has teams scheduled to play all their league opponents within a few years.
We also cannot be certain that market favorites will face off in 16- and 18-team conferences this year. For instance, shocking No. 13 Indiana which is 8-0 has not played other two other Big Ten teams with perfect regular season records — No. 1 Oregon and No. 3 Penn State. And No. 9 BYU (8-0) is not going to face two other conference rivals No. 11 Iowa State and No. 23 Colorado, in the Big 12.
Speaking of strength of schedule, details of which will be provided by an analytics firm SportSource Analytics, Clark described it as arguably the best way for the 13-person panel of selectors to understand which of the teams is better than the other especially when trying to differentiate between two closely calibratable entities.
“I think it assists in helping us look at teams in a fairer way,” Clark said. “If a team goes through the roster and has a very successful season, traveling through a rather easy schedule, it’s quite difficult to compare them to a team that lost two games with a rather tight schedule.”
A quick look of the complete bracket featuring 12 teams
—The selection committee will have ranked the 25 top teams every week from Tuesday and the final set, to be released on the day after the Dec 7 conference title games, will set the face of the bracket.
—All four top ranked conference winners will get to bypass the first round regardless of their rank. The next-best team in each conference, no matter what place it occupies in the final rankings, will be awarded an average seed.
—First week playoff games of teams ranked 5-12 are at campuses Dec. 20-21. The title game is Jan. 20 Atlanta.
Who would be in the bracket that the committee uses to fill out the 68 teams for each year based on this week’s AP top 25
When it comes out with the rankings the selection committee will not look at the AP or other polls. But just for fun, here’s what the bracket would look like if it were based on the AP Top 25 that came out Sunday, and if the higher ranked teams all won their conference titles:
—5 vs. 12: Games: Boise State at Penn State (The Boise State of the Mountain West would be ranked fifth-best if it were a conference champ despite being ranked only 15).
—6 vs. 11: How about the Clemson against Ohio State (the Buckeyes defeated the Tigers 49-28 in the semifinals in 2021)?
—7 vs. 10: Texas A&M at Texas (These two teams play in the regular season on the 30th of November but bracketing rules do not exclude a rematch).
—8 vs. 9: Notre Dame at Tennessee (Irish are starting to move up after that bad loss to Northern Illinois in the AP poll; is the same true in the eyes of the committee?)
Byes:
1 — Oregon (Would be playing a quarter final in Rose Bowl)
2 — Georgia (Would play quarterfinal in Sugar Bowl)
3 — Miami (Peach Bowl)
4 — BYU (Fiesta Bowl)
