Another week, another enormity sharted out by the insufficient, hopeless-conflicted, ill-informed, inconsistent often-bumbling midwits in Dallas. But, they really would rather you call them the College
Football Playoff Committee.
What happened this week? Let’s take a look at the “Top 25” — and those inverted commas are doing a lot of lifting.
They’re doing it again.
So much about this makes no sense. Let’s poke holes in this like Mormon sheets.
- Ole Miss, whose only loss was on the road to No. 5 Georgia, dropped in favor of Notre Dame, a team with a 1-2 record against the Sagarin Top 30. Ole Miss is 3-1 against the same.
- Speaking of, the Irish have the same record (7-2) as the Longhorns, but against a gentler schedule (22 vs. 16), and they’ve done worse against quality teams.
- Alabama is the only team in the country to go 5-0 vs. the Top 30, and their next two P4 games are against two more. Even their “bad” opponents have been No. 31 (USCe) and No. 34 (FSU). The easiest major conference opponent Bama faces all season is, ironically enough, a B1G team (Wisconsin, 65).
- BYU, already grossly overranked last week inside the Top 10, dropped merely to 12th, despite getting worked over in Lubbock and having the 42nd SOS.
- While we do love some Texas Tech, and sure, you can even call them a Top 10 team, they have the 44th SOS, and took an L to a team outside of the Sagarin Top 30 — to go with just two quality wins. Is that a better body of work than Texas? Oklahoma? Ole Miss? Assuredly not.
- But that has been part and parcel of highly over-ranking very mediocre squads — often by 15-20 spots. In terms of the data, Louisville is barely inside the Top 30 (29th). Cincinnati is not even there (38th). And Virginia is waaaay down there, at 44th. BYU? Laughably 12th in the rankings, but 26th per Sagarin. No. 16 Georgia Tech? Actually 30th. In fact everyone of these CFP-ranked ACC and B1G 12 teams is closer to South Carolina (31st) in analytics, than their generously anointed, and wholly unearned positions. In fact, 4-6 Auburn at 28th ranks more highly than all of them.
They don’t even get the Top 5 right. I just spent two hours cranking the data by hand — Texas A&M would be analytically favored over 23 of the remaining 24 teams in these rankings. Only Indiana is a favorite (-.44)…and it’s inside the margin of error.
Better yet, ask Vegas. Currently FanDuel has six of eight SEC teams favored to advance to the second round. That means if the SEC gets its way based on quality, and there are actually a half dozen of them, every last one is expected to be favored, have a bye, win — or some combination thereof.
Surely, they can’t be this stupid, right? Well, yes and no.
Yes, because they can’t find their ass with two hands and a compass. No, in the sense that the fix is in. The fix is so clearly in. The Committee is trying to avoid its apocalypse of actually putting half a dozen quality SEC teams in, and is angling for five — perhaps even fewer — by rigging the deck in favor of a second team from the ACC or Big 12…and perhaps both conferences. There is a NSFW phrase used by lawyers to describe poisoning proceedings before they even get started: “fucking the deck.”
It’s playing with a marked hand. You work backwards from a conclusion and then assemble your cards accordingly.
After all, when you have no oversight, and everyone involved can act in secrecy and select larger and larger slices of the pie, who cares how much you rig the outcome as long as you are getting paid.
And it’s called a cartel.
Thanks to FanDuel for subsidizing tonight’s (deserved) rant.
It’s your turn. Sound off:
