The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - CFP Rankings Reaction: How to Fix the Committee and 4 Potential Playoff Scenarios

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to the latest College Football Playoff Rankings as Ohio State falls to #6 following their loss to Michigan. Klatt discusses why he believes the current makeup of the Playoff Committee doesn’t yield the best results and how he would change it in the future. He then goes through potential scenarios the Committee could be looking at after this weekend’s Conference Championships. For each scenario, Klatt gives his picks for the Top 4 and predicts what the Committee would do in each case as well. Included in the scenarios are pathways for Ohio State to get back into the Playoff and a situation that would lead to Georgia and Alabama both making the Top 4. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today in the Joel Clatt show, we've got playoff rankings. Are they good? Probably not. Plus the scenarios that will blow your mind for the playoff. College football has never been better. Interest has never been higher. Believe that we are at the dawn of the golden age of college football. It was an epic day of college football.

It was just one of those days where you fall in love with the sport all over again. What's up, everybody? I'm Joel Clatt. This is the Joel Clatt show. This show is presented by Hampton by Hilton. I'm feeling a lot better. So we're on the road to recovery. Man, I got hit hard with that sickness.

Kind of made it through Sunday's taping of the Joel Clatch Show. We got through the whole reaction to the game on Saturday. And now here we are. And we just got some playoff rankings. And here we go again. So before we get into the playoff rankings, just remember, subscribe wherever you're at. If you're listening, wherever you get your podcast,

subscribe to the YouTube channel, please. And just remember that we've always got some content there that's a little bit different than just what we have on audio. So you're going to want to be a subscriber on YouTube, even if you just listen to the show via audio on your commute, on a run, whatever you do. And then follow us on social media. Adjole Clat Show, wherever you like to social media. We've got a lot of stuff out there that you can consume during the course of the week.

Okay, let's get into it. The rankings came out and, you know, there wasn't a ton different. And to be quite honest with you, kind of what we expect. So the top six looked like they have for the better part of the last few weeks outside of obviously Ohio State, who falls down after the loss of Michigan. So Georgia, Michigan, 1 and 2, Washington 3, Florida State 4, Oregon 5, and then Ohio State slides down under the sixth spot just ahead of Texas and Alabama. Am I surprised at any of this? No, I'm not really surprised at any of this. A couple of things that I would just note.

There was a chance, I thought, with that quality win Michigan had over Ohio State. They could if the committee wanted to jump to number one. Didn't think that they had to. They could have, though, just from a resume standpoint. But they didn't, which is totally fine. Doesn't matter at all. Washington stays at three, even though they had, let's face it, like a really rough time. in the Apple Cup needed that fourth down on their side of the 50, way backed up in their own territory in order to convert and then go down to get a field goal and win the game. Florida State wins in ugly fashion against Florida. Their fans are hell-bent on talking about the fact that they covered. I get it. They technically covered that at no point felt like a game that they were covering

in, which is fine. Oregon was dominant over Oregon State. Ohio State lost, and so that's where we kind of fall. I thought Oregon could have moved up to four. I thought Ohio State could have even slid no worse than five. Now, they didn't, so it is what it is. I think what's more interesting here is when we start to look at everything in totality, and then we start to play out scenarios moving forward, which we're going to do on this podcast. So this is not just going to be my reaction to the rankings, right? You've already heard the way that I feel about the rankings. I'm going to give you a couple of feelings about just the way the committee is made up. But let's do take a look quickly at the entirety of the top 25 as the committee gave them to us. So as you take a look

at the entirety of the top 25, here's what you'll see is that Texas is at 7. So they did not put Texas above Ohio State. Alabama is still at 8. Missouri remains at 9 is the top ranked 10 and 2 team in the country. Penn State is 10th at 10 and 2. Ole Miss, OU, LSU, Louisville, Arizona at 15, Iowa at 16, Notre Dame 17, Oklahoma State, North Carolina State is 19. Oregon State's 20. Tennessee remains fairly high, in particular as it relates to where they would be in other polls, whether they're AP poll or a simulated BCS poll. So Tennessee is at 21.

Tulane 22, Clemson 23, also much higher than they would be in other polls. And Liberty 24, Kansas State 25. All right. So let's take those outliers that I was just talking. about. Okay. I think that the goal of this ranking should be to have some semblance of data accuracy is the way that I would put it. Okay? Data accuracy. And when you're trying to get data accuracy, if any of you have taken a statistics class, which if any of you have been to college, then you have, or even through high school, then you have, you'll know that, you know, you throw out the low and the high a lot of times when dealing with a set of numbers

so that you throw out, you scrub the anomalies, and then you work with the data set that falls more in line with where the bell curve would have it, right? So where more of the data would sit. I just so happen to think that this particular committee is giving us a couple of anomalies that if we had more data entries for the college football playoff rankings, then some of those would get scrubbed out. I think Tennessee is one of those, and I think Clemson is one of those. And by the way, it is absolutely accurate when you look at the teams that are most heavily rewarded by the committee

as opposed to the, like, let's say a simulated BCS, guess what the top two are, Tennessee and Clemson? Clemson by about six spots, Tennessee by I believe four spots. Those are the biggest anomalies that this committee is giving us. So in any normal data set, or if you're working with any data set, then those would be kind of scrubbed out. And what you would try to do if working with a set of data is minimize those anomalies so that the anomalies don't affect the answer. And yet, here we are with these committee rankings, and the anomaly is absolutely. affecting what we've got in college football. So that leads me to kind of my first point, which is, I just don't love the current committee

makeup. And it's not this year or last year or the year before. It's just the way that we do it as a whole. The BCS had a much better ranking system, but we all hated that there was only two teams included in the national championship. So they didn't have the number of participants right. But they did a much better job in terms of the data, the actual ranking. So we threw that out when we also decided that like we need more participants.

So we raised it by two participants and then we took the number of data variables that we enter into the equation. We took it way down to 13, which just doesn't seem like a good idea. But lo and behold, that's where we're at. So when that happens and when you lower the number of variables that you enter into the equation, guess what happens? You can have these anomalies get through like Tennessee and Clemson. So then what does that do? Well, it affects everything going on up top because now, boy, Georgia sure is going to get a backstop,

even if they were to lose to Alabama. And Florida State all of a sudden gets like this Clemson nod with a top 25 win. when, let's face it, in a BCS system, they would not get credit for that top 25 win. Which, let's just hold on to that point for a moment because what I told you was that Clemson was a plus six, okay, in terms of where the committee ranked them versus where the BCS would have had them. They're 23 here. They would have been about 29 in the BCS system. Now, should that be the end all?

because a lot of these resumes, we just look at them and say three top 25 wins versus two top 25 wins. Well, what if this team that I was just talking about has a third win that's like the 27th best team? Well, guess what? There's not much difference between 24 and 27. Let's be really honest. There's not much difference between 23 and 29. And yet, we have this overinflated view of like top 25 win. Now, if you're telling me you beat a top 15 team versus a top 50 team, okay, now we've got a huge difference in that opponent and the strength of that opponent in terms of the win that you created for yourself. So you get what I'm talking about here. Lots of math, lots of data. Okay. And yet we have this system where we don't have what I would consider enough variables to weed out the anomalies. And by the way, this is completely rational. Totally rational.

Any mathematician would tell you the exact same thing. So now what we have is a committee that's made up of mainly administrators. You've got a couple of retired coaches, eight athletics administrators, two business leaders that were former football players, and a professor. So in the committee of 13, think about this. We've got 13 people deciding the fate of college football teams. Not one of those people is currently full-time in college football. Not one.

Now, you can say that there's a few college football experts, right? You've got a couple of former coaches on there. Absolutely. I love it. I love it. A couple of former players. Good. I love that.

Eight athletic administrators that have other jobs, the two former football players also have other jobs. How in the world can they really be an expert at something if they're not in it? Right? I think that that's fair to ask. I think that that's fair to ask. So we want them to parachute in, given a set of data, trust me, I've done this. I've gone down there to Texas and taken part in like that.

mock committee. And like, they give you data. They give you specific instructions. They tell you this is not about the most deserving. This is about the four best. And yet, here we are. Got the undefeated's at the top. Then you've got some one lost teams. And you've got some two lost teams, path of least resistance. It's what they always do. And you're going to tell me with, with, so this committee, no full-time experts in college football. And you're going to tell me like, you have to rank the four best teams and you put Florida State above Oregon, Ohio, state, Texas, and Alabama. Now, if you want to say Florida State is more deserving of those teams because they're undefeated,

okay, then you can make that argument. But if you tell me that most deserving is not in the vernacular of the committee at all, not supposed to be to their own accord, and that it's just supposed to be about the four best teams, you cannot tell me that Florida State with Tate Rottamaker is better than Oregon, Ohio, State, Texas, or Alabama. You just can't. Like, it's sorry. Now, could you say, like, well, no, Florida State, the team is deserving of that spot? Okay. Okay. Well, that's fine. Now, is that what they're trying to do? I don't know. They tell me that that's not what they're trying to do. And yet, that's clearly what they are doing.

So, again, the inconsistencies reign. So what would I do? Well, I'm not just going to sit here and whine about it. I would tell you that I would fix it with more variables. I think that the committee has made up with administrators and business leaders, that's fine. We can keep that one. I think we should also have a panel of experts that are covering the sport and that they should be a committee and that the two polls would be equaled out together along with a panel.

a computer pole, again, just more variables because the more variables you have, the more that you can tie in or rain in, the outliers. That's all we're trying to do, because right now the outliers are going to affect everything. If you're telling me Florida State is getting credit for a whole other top 25 win, just because this committee of administrators put Clemson at 23 versus where the computers would actually put them and a much more, let's just say, nuanced and mathematically correct ranking like the BCS? Well, now we've got a bit of a problem. So you see where I'm going with that.

More variables. I think that we should have more variables. All right. Now I want to get into some scenarios, okay? So based on what we know with this committee ranking, based on what we know that they could do, the matchups that we have this weekend, let's start to look ahead at some plausible scenarios for, the next week for the actual playoff. But before we do that, really quickly, as you know,

it is my favorite time of year. It's playoff time. And as you know, I take it seriously. This is why I complain and talk about the committees make up all the time. So when I'm traveling on the road to watch my favorite teams, I cannot risk calling the wrong play with where I stay. Wherever I go, I know that I can count on Hampton by Hilton. I can depend on their comfortable rooms in their warm and friendly service. They're, by the way, hot breakfast, total game changer for me to go down, get a waffle, get a cup of coffee every time I'm traveling.

So whether you're cheering on, your team from the stands or never leaving the tailgate, Hampton by Hilton, will always give you that win. Okay, this is going to be fun. This is going to be a really good, fun thought experiment. So rather than just lament the actual rankings, Let's actually paint some scenarios.

All right. Let's start to look at what we could have come Sunday night. Here we go. Here we go. We are days away from having the college football playoff. Let's get after it. Let's run through some scenarios. Scenario number one.

All the favorites win on Saturday or Friday night. Friday night and Saturday. All the favorites win. So that means that you've got. Let's see. Here's the favorites. Oregon's favorite, nine and a half. Texas is favorite, Georgia's favorite, Georgia's favorite, Florida State is favored. Scenario one is all the favorites win. Oregon, Texas, Georgia, Michigan, Florida State. In that case, we know Michigan and Georgia absolutely in. No questions asked. Then you've got three spots for, or excuse me, two spots for three teams, is what I was trying to say.

Georgia, Michigan, and two more spots to go. You've got three teams. You've got Texas. You've got Florida State. You've got Oregon. All of them champs. All of them champs. In that case, I'm going to tell you what I would do if I was in the committee room,

and I'm going to tell you what I think the committee will do on Sunday night. So the first one is what my top four would be. All the favorites win, my top four would be number one, Georgia. Number two, Michigan. number three, Texas, and number four, Oregon. That's the way I would rank them. Now, you could mix and match. You could say, hey, maybe Michigan 1, maybe Texas 4, maybe Oregon 3.

It doesn't matter to me. Those would be your 4. You could say Oregon at 3 and you would have a Michigan-Oregon matchup and you have a Georgia, Texas matchup. If all the favorites won, this is the top 4 that I would give you. And I would argue that in that scenario, this is, without a doubt, the four best teams in the country in that scenario, without a doubt. There's no question.

And again, you can change them. If you want to say, like, hey, Clat, that's crazy. Like, Texas would be number four, that's fine. That's fine. I don't really care the slotting. Those would be the four best teams in the country. Now, what do I think the committee would do? The committee would go Georgia, Michigan,

and then I think that they would go Oregon and FSU. I think they would leave Texas out. And I do not think that that would be the four best teams. Texas being left out with a road win over Alabama, I believe would be a bit of a travesty in particular when one of the teams in the playoff is missing their starting quarterback. That's a thing. And it's supposed to be taken into consideration.

And this is why I find it interesting that it clearly hasn't been yet and that they remain in the top four, Florida State I'm speaking of. But without Jordan Travis, there's just no argument that you can give that says that they are one of the four best teams. And yet, I do think that they will get the benefit of the doubt via the committee on Sunday night. Seminole fans hate the fact that I think that, but you know what? I think that they'll get the benefit of the doubt. And they would go. Now, I do think in that case, and this is why I slaughtered them.

where I did. I do think that they would give Georgia the easier semifinal game, and so they would move Oregon above Florida State for seating purposes and give Michigan the tougher semifinal matchup as the second ranked team, and that that would be your Rose Bowl, and then Georgia, Florida State would be your Sugar Bowl. So that's why I slotted them as I did. Okay, so that is, again, if all the favorites win. I would have Georgia, Michigan, Texas, Oregon. I think the committee would give us Georgia, Michigan, Oregon, and Florida State. Now let's take a look at

scenario number two. And this one is, this is where I think it gets like, well, it's not quite chaos, but this is wild. And this one has gotten a lot of attention from a lot of people in particular down south. Favorites plus Bama win this weekend. Okay, so that means you've got Oregon beating Washington, Texas beating Oklahoma State, Alabama beating Georgia, Michigan over Iowa, Florida State over Louisville. Okay. In that case, Michigan's number one. They're in. Now you've got three spots.

Five teams. This is incredible. Bama, 12 and 1, Georgia 12 and 1, Florida State. 13 and no, Texas 12 and 1, Oregon 12 and 1. Three spots. Five teams. Who goes? So here's what's so fascinating.

I firmly believe that there is no way that the SEC champ doesn't go. So the next team I'm going to put in, not in a rank, but like Alabama is in that scenario. Like there's a one loss. SEC champ, come on. Right? They would be, in that case, undefeated through an SEC season and an SEC championship game

in the nation's longest winning streak, beat the two-time defending national champions. Alabama's going to the playoff. Which means, guess what's the next team is that goes to the playoff? Texas. You can't put Alabama in the playoff without Texas because Texas beat

Alabama. They would also be 12 and 1. They would also be a championship. champ. So there's two of your spots. So Michigan, Bama, and Texas would be in. Now we've got one spot for the following trio, Georgia, Florida State, and Oregon. 12 and 1, 13 and 0, 12 and 1. I mean, you'd be my guest. I have no idea. I have no idea what they would do. Everyone's telling me like, oh, that's the two SEC team scenario. You know what? if you wanted to leave Florida State out, if you're the committee, the easiest way to leave Florida State out is to put Georgia in the playoff. Now, you would also be leaving a Pac-12 champion Oregon out, which avenged their only loss.

I mean, if you were to look at the Oregon resume over the Georgia resume in that projected scenario, Oregon's resume would basically be as good or better. in that projected scenario. The best wins would be Ole Miss, Tennessee, and LSU. Look at that Tennessee crawl back in there. Look at that and you wondered why I kept talking about Tennessee so much. Meanwhile, the best wins for Oregon

would be Oregon State and Washington. Guess which team you don't see? Utah. Ha! Now you know why it's so important what happens at the back end of the rankings. This is wild. So one would be a conference champ, Oregon.

The other Georgia would not be. And then you get the wins and losses versus the CFP top 25. Georgia would be three in one, Oregon, two and one. Why? Because Utah didn't make it in. It's so wild. Guys, it's wild. Here's what I would do in that scenario.

What I would do in that scenario, my picks would be Michigan, Texas, Oregon, and Alabama. I think that the committee would give us Michigan, Texas, Alabama, and Georgia. So there's my top four, Michigan, Texas, Alabama, Oregon. Michigan, Alabama, that would be incredible. Texas, Oregon, that would be really good. And then the committee's top four in the favorites plus Bama, I think they would go Michigan, Texas, Georgia, Bama. It's so good. It's so good.

I think that the committee would go to SEC teams. Not saying it's right, but I think that they would. And the way that they would do that is that they would argue that Georgia's resume is better than Oregon's. This would be the most convenient excuse to leave out Florida State. Because again, like, you're putting Alabama in the playoff. You can't go undefeated in the SEC season, beat the two-time defending national champ, and not go. And then Texas has to go. You can't leave Texas out with a head-to-head win in Tuscaloosa by double digits.

and then there's Georgia sitting there as the two-time defending national champion. You would have that nice little Tennessee kicker to have a better resume than Oregon and you can just leave Florida State in the dust. That's a fascinating scenario. Let's go to the next scenario. Scenario number three,

Michigan and Georgia win. Okay, so let's just say like the two best teams, most consistent, most dominant teams that we've seen so far win. And then chaos. And then we just have a bunch of dogs, right? A bunch of dogs win. So in that scenario, Michigan and Georgia would be in. So there's the top two.

And then you would have the following. You would have Florida State at 12 and 1 because Louisville would have beaten them. They're not a champ. Then you would have a two-loss Oregon. You would have an undefeated Washington. You would have a two-loss Texas, two-loss Alabama, two-lost Louisville. and an 11-1 Ohio State. See where we're going with that one?

Do you see where we're going with that one? Michigan, Georgia, and Washington would be in. Washington would be undefeated. They'd be the Pac-12 champion. We got three spots. They're set. Georgia, Michigan, Washington. Who gets the fourth spot?

Florida State is not a champ. Oregon, not a champ. Texas, not a champ. Alabama, not a champ. Louisville, champ, but two loss. And Ohio State, 11 and 1. I think Ohio State goes in that scenario. And I think they would go in my scenario,

and that's what I think the committee would do in that regard. So before last week, I told you that I didn't think that there was a great chance for Ohio State. I think this is the chaos that they would need. And it's not all that far-fetched. Ohio State at 11-1, not a champ, would go over Florida State 12-1, not a champ. Like Ohio State's resume would be better than Florida State. that would be the debate. Because everybody else would be two-loss teams.

They're not going to take a two-loss team over a one-loss Florida State or a one-loss Ohio State. In particular, none of those are champs except for Louisville. We're not taking Louisville as a two-loss. Louisville is not going to be the first two-loss team in the college football playoff. Not when you could have an Ohio State team that beat Notre Dame on the road, that beat Penn State, that lost to Michigan by a score on the road. Right? like Ohio State would go in that scenario.

And I think they would go in mine and the committee's scenario. So again, let me just rephrase what that was. That was Michigan and Georgia win and then all the underdogs win. So Washington would win in that scenario. You would have Oklahoma State winning. You would have Bama winning. No, I'm sorry. Georgia already won.

You would have Louisville winning. And at that point, I think Ohio State has a chance to go. All right. Scenario number four. This is a bit of a Texas doomsday if the four undefeateds win and Texas wins. Okay, so that would be a Florida state win, Michigan win, Georgia win, Washington win, Texas win. If that were the case, here's what I would do. I think that the four best teams in the country in that case would be Georgia, Michigan, Washington, and Texas. I think that the committee would probably take Georgia, Michigan, Washington, and Florida State.

So you get through all these scenarios here, you see where it's coming down to. I believe that most scenarios, not everyone, but most scenarios is going to pit a Texas Florida State resume against one another. And here's what those would look like. If you threw up Florida State's projected resume and Texas's projected resume, what you would have is a Texas team with the best overall win in the country, hands down. They would be a conference champ. They won on the road at Alabama. They get the kicker of Kansas State, which entered into that top 25. They would have the Oklahoma State win in the conference championship game.

but what they wouldn't have is the ability to avenge the Oklahoma loss. I think it's going to hurt them a great deal that they're not playing Oklahoma in the conference championship game, and they're playing Oklahoma State. I think that the committee is going to lean Florida State. I would lean Texas. If you're asking me, who would be favored next week on a neutral site? That's not even close. Texas would probably be a 9-point, maybe even 10-point favorite over Florida State.

Because who's the better team right now? Texas, it's not even that close. but we're going to have to wait and see what the committee actually wants to give us. Does it matter how Florida State plays Louisville? I'm not sure. I'm not sure because they didn't play well against Florida, and it sure didn't matter this week when they still put them in the top four. But those are the resumes that I think it's coming down to.

I've told you for the last couple of weeks. I've been most nervous for Texas, and you can see through all of these scenarios, that's the one. That's the team that starts to get pinched. That's the team that starts to get pinched, and then you're starting to see that. They're sitting behind Ohio State.

They're sitting behind Oregon. They're sitting behind Florida State. Their only benefit of the doubt is that they beat Alabama. I think Texas's best shot, to be quite honest with you, is if Alabama wins. Because at that point, Alabama going drags Texas into the college football playoff because they've got to go. They beat them.

What they don't want is Georgia to just win going away, and then all of a sudden, Bama's a two-loss team. It negates that quality win to a certain, to a certain degree. So if I'm Texas, I'm rooting for Alabama in those deals. Quick bonus scenario. Committee's dream for undefeated's win and Texas loses. The committee is just hoping and praying for the easiest path,

the path of least resistance. They just want the undefeateds to win and Texas to lose. And then they can just wipe their hands of this and be like, see, it's all going to work out. And we all knew it was going to work out. And then that's what we would have. and we would have the Georgia, Michigan, Washington, Florida State scenario of the undefeated. That'll do it for today.

Listen, I do have some news. We've got a preview episode coming up tomorrow of the Conference Championship games. So we'll get to that on the Joel Clatcho. We also have a brand new live Friday morning edition of the show. Now, here's the deal. You can watch this live. You can listen to it live on Facebook. YouTube, TikTok, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, we are going to be live from Lucas Oil Stadium

with a live studio audience from our friends at Hampton by Hilton. And we're going to be talking all things conference championship games. We're going to be talking about playoff scenarios. Chris Bear Felica is going to join the program. We'll talk through a lot of these scenarios, including some of the coaching carousel that's going on in college football. So we've got a live show on Friday. check back with us tomorrow on the preview pod. I'll give you more timing details. Check with us on social media at Joel Clat Show, wherever you like to social media, and you'll find out more details during the course of the week. Thank you for listening. As always, I am very thankful that I'm starting to feel better after battling a little bit of a sickness here during the course of the week. And also, by the way, thank you for all of your reactions to the Zach Zenter video. That was a great job. by our staff here at the Joel Clatch Show, everybody putting that together.

That was really well edited and gave you a good sense of kind of the emotion of the moment. That was very cool. So really special day last Saturday in what was an incredible game. And hopefully it'll be another incredible week this week in Conference Championship Game Week. That'll do it for us today. Tomorrow, we've got Conference Championship Game previews right here on the Joel Clashio.