Playoff Committee Shakes Up Rankings and Three-Loss Debate

But the committee stepped up after their opening week, I thought, received maybe the most backlash it ever has. For the most part, everyone agrees with this, and it'll work itself out. Which again, roughly translates to, none of this matters, even if it's awful. And yet it was so rough that opening week. It seemed like for the first time, maybe ever, the committee went to the drawing board. Because the thing I was most interested in, Is where the Indiana Hoosiers were going to rank. The Indiana Hoosiers did not deserve the slot that they were in. And despite being on a bye, saw their resume take a hit. And the committee actually agreed and dropped them five spots. As they absolutely should have. All this committee did, Kevin, was prove to us that it really doesn't matter what you have your initial rankings or even this week's rankings or next week's rankings. The only rankings that matter are the one at the end of the year. And if there's anybody who's obsessing about a week-to-week-to-week move and what the committee's doing, just throw it out the window. They're starting over every single week, which they should, by all means. That's what I wish the AP voters and I wish the coaches poll used to do is start over every single week and not just move a guy up or a guy down because they won or lost. It doesn't really matter if that's what you're doing. Indiana did not deserve to be fourth. And we all barked and yelled at that last week. And they corrected it by moving it ninth. But it just shows you that, hey, does it really matter? Because we're going to post a ranking. We're going to let everybody yell at us for a week. And then we're going to course correct. Why have it at all? There's no reason for it. And they just proved that. Same thing with UCLA, who we saw win last night. UCLA should not have been eighth. And then they move all the way up to the top four because, well, we screwed up week one. They do course correct, and they're going to course correct next week and the week after, which is why those that got mad last year with Notre Dame-Miami, you got to just throw it out the window. This is what it is as of today, period. Yeah, I do think that the committee is in a very interesting spot moving forward because of the likelihood that they will have at least one, if not multiple, three loss teams that crash this party You know, you and I have joked in the past about Oregon. You know, can they get in in a 2014 field? Three loss Oregon may get in a 12. Team field, quite frankly. Going to be decent favorites in their remaining games. Knocked off Ohio State last week, which completely turned their season around. The loss to UCLA ages well. The loss to Oklahoma State has even aged well. The Illinois one is difficult, but there are some good wins on the resume here for the Oregon Ducks. And if it's not Oregon, it's going to be... Maybe a few SEC teams, obviously Alabama and Texas come to mind already sitting on two losses yet still ranked inside the top six from the committee. Yeah, and you have Tennessee as well, who plays a big game today, already has two losses because the ability of winning out afterwards and getting in with three, not thinking that Kentucky or BYU would survive another loss, but there is going to be this case study where you're going to have a three-loss team, whether it be the SEC or an Oregon team who just got it out of the way early, lost two teams, like you just said, their losses aged very, very Well, when we lost. To an Oklahoma State team that hadn't won in two years, you're thinking, all right, this is the end of the end. And then they lost again, and you're like, this is the end of the end. You go ahead and you crush Ohio State, who was everyone's darling to begin the year. This team still has a shot at a Big Ten title. They could get the automatic bid as a three-loss team, which we've seen happen before. So it's going to be interesting, and of course, everyone's going to say, well, that's what the 2014 playoff is for. I digress. I don't think that should happen. Because we were talking about an Oregon team that we thought would have four losses in talking about whether they should make a 2014 playoff, which is ridiculous as well. I don't mind the conversation about can Oregon get in at 9-3 because they played well at the end of the year, because they beat good teams at the end of the year, because they finished high in their conference. I would want that team in because they are capable of winning a national title. I don't want to have that conversation about an 8-4 Minnesota team. Listen, here's the thing. We're going to put multiple three-loss SEC teams in a 12-team playoff. We can deal with four-loss teams in a 24-team playoff. It just is what it is, and that's just where we're headed.