CFB Chaos

Gonna keep writing about CFB because it’s more fun than lame competition theory.

Going into Week 11 of College Football, everyone was expecting a pretty calm weak without too many casualties or change in rankings due to the only top 25 matchups being #4 Washington vs #20 USC and #24 LSU vs #25 Arkansas. This expectation was proved horribly wrong in the most exciting manner though. 5 of the top 10 teams lost with 4 of those losses being to unranked opponents. #2 Clemson lost to Pitt, #3 Michigan lost to Iowa, #4 Washington lost to #20 USC, #8 Texas A&M lost to Ole Miss, and #9 Auburn lost to Georgia. #1 Alabama, #5 Ohio State, #6 Louisville, and #7 Wisconsin all crushed their relatively weak opponents not too surprisingly, but #10 Penn State went relatively close with the not-too-great .500 team, Indiana (personally I think Penn State is overrated atm). This created great confusion to the CFP committee as how they should approach this chaos. Obviously Alabama should be #1, but past that what goes where? Due to the rest of teams ahead of Ohio State losing, they should be #2, but then if that logic followed, Louisville should jump up to #3, which they did not! Michigan and Clemson stayed ahead at #3 and #4 respectively (funny SIDE NOTE: After the CFP ranking reveal on Tuesday, Louisville players complained on social media about only being ranked #5, only to lose to unranked Houston two days later lmaooo). Washington stayed in top 6, which is understandable considering they had the most solid loss of Week 11, if they just had a stronger schedule going into it they’d be great. USC I just found out actually is tied for most top 10 defeats which is incredible considering their ranking.

BIGGEST OUTCOME OF THE WEEK:

With Michigan’s loss, if Penn State wins out (which they should, p cupake games) Ohio State WILL NOT go to the B1G Championship game, even if they beat Michigan in week 13. This could leave the CFP committee with likely #2 tOSU (or #1 if somehow Bama loses) AND the B1G champion to choose from for the top 4. The committee values conference championships a shit-ton so this might be the way to get two B1G teams in the playoff which would be brazy.

Thursday update: Further chaos with L’ville’s loss and I really have no clue as to what’s to come for the rest of the season.

My playoff predictions:

0. Bama

2. Clemson

3. UW

4. tOSU

Update of CFB

Week 9 has passed and that means the official College Football Playoff rankings have been released. Very exciting. For the preseason and the first 8 weeks, the only official rankings have been AP and Coaches’ poll and while those polls are quite significant, but with the introduction of the College Football Playoff ranking those polls have no value and are put in the backseat and now the true rankings us the CFP. The opening CFP ranking this season had quite a bit of controversies that I will cover as I go over the whole rankings.

1. Alabama: No surprises here. In the AP and Coaches Poll, Alabama has consistently had over 95% of the #1 votes. Unbelievably strong team led by Dark Lord Nick Saban. Probably going to win their fifth championship in the last eight years.
2. Clemson: Both AP and Coaches’ Poll had Michigan at #2 and Clemson at #3 so this was quite a surprise to many but not too concerning. Known for close games but always somehow coming out with the win
3. Michigan: See above, and Michigan has unbelievably high points forced per game and low points allowed but that is due to relatively weak schedule and the relentless of their coach, Harbaugh.
4. Texas A&M: Big controversy here, in the other polls they’re ranked at #7, due to their 19 point loss to Alabama. Many people think #4 is a huge overestimation of the team and blames it on “SEC Bias”, pollers inflating SEC teams’ ranks due to name-recognition.
5. Washington. Most people think this team should be ranked top 4 due to their undefeated record and solid performance in almost all of their games.
6. Ohio State. Ohio State was ranked top 2 for the whole season until their recent loss to at the time unranked Penn State. Most people think this loss should have dropped Ohio State to lower but due to the Big Ten’s recent domination, “Big Ten Bias” has been a term thrown around by many.
7. Louisville. Louisville and Clemson are rivalling this season for domination of the ACC, Louisville has been dominating their schedule besides the loss to Clemson which in most people’s minds means Clemson should be above Louisville but I don’t know how strong that is. Louisville absolutely dominated both Florida St. and NC St. who both went very close with Clemson. I suppose the rest of the season should even everything out. Hopefully.
8. Wisconsin. Definitely the best 2-loss team in the country, to at the time #2 and #3 Michigan and Ohio State. They don’t control their own destiny at this point in the time but they have a chance of winning their relatively easy half of the Big Ten so that could help their case later.
9. Auburn. Seen as a bad team early in the season, even being the reason for the firing of LSU's coach, Les Miles. Now after some crazy blowouts of solid SEC teams they are very respected (*cough* SEC Bias *cough*).
10. Nebraska. Overrated in my opinion, seen as shaky throughout the whole season, went surprisingly close with Wisconsin though so that helps their case.
11. Going to stop here, because rankings get much more shaky after this point and are much less significant. Two weeks later this will be much more hype due to closeness to the CFP. Thanks for reading, hope you understand a bit and are excited for more.