What the Committee got right and wrong

Now it's time for that same article everyone makes, complaining about what the Committee got wrong, not that it really matters since all those mistakes will correct themselves over the coming weeks. But it's good to see how bad they rank teams sometimes, because that means they'll get the final rankings wrong sometimes, too.

The top 12 were exactly as I picked them, which doesn't mean I necessarily agree with the top 12 but they fit some semblance of fair criteria that the Committee seems to have used in the past.

You can argue the top 5 but they followed the AP's lead, which is expected. The first real choice they made was to slide Oregon down to #9, which I foresaw and see as the Committee doing its job. Some have said BYU got a raw deal but if so, why does the AP rank them even lower?  Notre Dame held at #10 and Texas was rightfully moved ahead of Oklahoma.

The bottom half is where things get weird. Utah at #13 is 4 spots higher than the AP, and what is the rationale? Utah's SOS is solid at #43 and their losses (BYU, Texas Tech) aren't bad, but where are their wins? None over the rest of the field. It looks like their blowout wins make them pass the "eye test" and their Strength is up to #3 now. It just doesn't figure heavily into my formula, and the Utes were in a "cluster" of teams from #13 to #17. With some teams, one item or another catches the Committee's eye for Utah it seems to have been margin of victory over many of their foes.

I knew the Committee wouldn't like Virginia and Louisville due to their SOS (and Virginia winning every other game in overtime), and given the Utah bump they ended up where I thought they would I suppose. But Miami and Georgia Tech are the real puzzlers.

Rnk  Team                  Rec   vs.Me  vs.AP   
  1. Ohio State            8-0     =      =       
  2. Indiana               9-0     =      =       
  3. Texas A&M             8-0     =      =       
  4. Alabama               7-1     =      =       
  5. Georgia               7-1     =      =       
  6. Mississippi           8-1     =     up1      
  7. Brigham Young         8-0     =     up1      
  8. Texas Tech            8-1     =     up1      
  9. Oregon                7-1     =     dn3      
 10. Notre Dame            6-2     =      =       
 11. Texas                 7-2     =     up3      
 12. Oklahoma              7-2     =     up1      
 13. Utah                  7-2    up4    up4      
 14. Virginia              8-1    dn1    dn2      
 15. Louisville            7-1    dn1    dn1      
 16. Vanderbilt            7-2     =     dn1      
 17. Georgia Tech          8-1    up3    dn1      
 18. Miami FL              6-2    dn3     =       
 19. Southern Cal          6-2    dn1    up1      
 20. Iowa                  6-2    up6    up6
 21. Michigan              7-2    dn2     =       
 22. Missouri              6-2    dn1    dn3      
 23. Washington            6-2    dn1    up1      
 24. Pittsburgh            7-2    up2    up2      
 25. Tennessee             6-3    dn2    dn2

Not ranked: My #24 Cincinnati (#25 AP), #25 Memphis (#22 AP)

The Committee did their job with Oregon: place them where their résumé calls for. With Miami, they dropped the ball. The AP has Miami underranked by résumé, adding an "expectation" factor for their further decline. The Committee previously ignored this kind of thing, but apparently no longer. The most ridiculous ranking here is Georgia Tech ahead of Miami. Tell me one good team Georgia Tech has defeated all year. Their SOS is abysmal (Georgia State has a much better SOS), and narrow wins over Colorado and Clemson went stale long ago. They needed overtime to beat Wake Forest, beat 3-6 Virginia Tech at home 35-20, where are the good wins? Temple 45-24 and Duke 27-18, those are ok. Syracuse doesn't count for much. And they lost to middling NC State. Here's a team you could legitimately rank about #40 in the nation.

After that, it's mostly a jumble of Big Ten and SEC teams that could be in any order. They omitted putting a Group of Five team in the mix which is probably the fairest way to do it, so no one thinks a team in the American has a clear "lead" right now over the others. 

The big surprise for me was seeing Iowa all the way up at #20. Can we explain that one? SOS #46, not too bad. Losses to Iowa State (hmm...) 16-13, not bad but getting questionable. And to Indiana 20-15, that's actually a "good" loss. They played Indiana better than anyone else so far. On the downside they have one win over a winning team. But look at their scores against Wisconsin (37-0) and Minnesota (41-3) and compare those to Ohio State's efforts (34-0, 42-3). Iowa is a team where the stats don't tell the story, but when you look into things, you can see ranking the Hawkeyes pretty high. When I use the Coaches poll as the staring metric Iowa came in around #23.

Just as I understand the omission of Memphis (or any other G5 team), I see why Cincinnati didn't make it. In fact I was surprised that the Bearkats went up a spot from their AP rank in my projection. They were just shelled by Utah and lost to Nebraska early, with no important wins in-between.

Now let's look at Pittsburgh, the only team not in either the AP or Coaches poll that made it. They were 30th or so in my simulation, 28th in the AP and 30th in the Coaches poll. Pitt has a mediocre SOS (#76) and losses to Louisville (ok) and West Virginia (what?). Since then they beat Boston College 48-7 (BC is 1-8), upset FSU (who is now 4-4), and beat 3-6 Syracuse and 3-6 Stanford. 5-4 NC State is the only winning team they beat. Frankly, Cincinnati would have made a better pick, as their SOS is much better.