Former Alabama QB Greg McElroy noticed an issue with the College Football Playoff rankings and it's impacting the Tennessee Vols
The Tennessee Vols are ranked No. 7 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings. Tennessee is ranked below Penn State and Texas despite neither of those teams having a win against a ranked opponent. The Vols, meanwhile, have a win against Alabama on their résumé (Alabama is No. 11 in the playoff rankings). Former Alabama […]
The Tennessee Vols are ranked No. 7 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings.
Tennessee is ranked below Penn State and Texas despite neither of those teams having a win against a ranked opponent.
The Vols, meanwhile, have a win against Alabama on their résumé (Alabama is No. 11 in the playoff rankings).
Former Alabama quarterback turned ESPN analyst Greg McElroy delivered his take on the rankings and he thinks Tennessee should be ranked above Texas and Penn State.
McElroy pointed out that it appears that the playoff committee is putting a lot of value on losses this year, which is a departure from how the committee has operated in the past.
"Penn State has no business being No. 6," said McElroy. "And honestly, Texas, I don't know if they have a ton of business being No. 5 based on the résumé. Then we get to Tennessee. And while Tennessee has had multiple moments this year in which they look a little lethargic, right? Not great, right? Not great whatsoever. They do have a win against Alabama, it's a really good win. Alabama currently sits in the top 11 of the College Football Playoff rankings.
"So they (Tennessee) have the best win of the bunch, do they have the worst loss? Yeah, technically. [Tennessee] lost to Arkansas where Texas lost to Georgia and Penn State lost to Ohio State. So are we valuing who you lost to now? Because that would be new from the committee. We have not had that from previous versions of the College Football Playoff committee. They don't factor in as much who you lost to, but more how many times you lost. Or what the margin of defeat might have been. So in my opinion, those three teams — Texas, Tennessee, Penn State — all have solid résumés, but far from elite résumés. Penn State and Texas don't have a top 25 win. Tennessee has one, and that would be against Alabama, which is why I think Tennessee should be ahead of both Texas and Penn State."
McElroy makes a good point. It definitely seems like the committee, at least in this first round of rankings, is putting more importance on who you lost to than who you beat. It seems pretty obvious that Tennessee should be ranked above those two teams, but the committee is paying more attention to the Vols' loss to Arkansas than their win against Alabama.
By the way, if you use McElroy's logic that Texas and Penn State don't have a good win between them, then shouldn't that devalue Georgia's win against Texas and Ohio State's win against Penn State (which would also devalue Oregon's win against Ohio State)? There's a lot of obvious brand bias at play with these first rankings, but the good news is that there are still four weeks of on-field results that could potentially take those brand biases out of play for the committee.
