Final CFP raises more questions than answers, says Ken Schreiber

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The final CFP rankings are out and they are an advertisement for immediately terminating the entire system. More on that later.

First, based on the prior five CFP rankings and the results on Saturday, Indiana (13-0), by virtue of its 14-10 win over Ohio State, was the No. 1 overall seed for the first time in its history, followed by No. 2 Ohio State (12-1), No. 3 Georgia (12-1) and Texas Tech (12-1) – all of whom received first-round byes. Oregon (11-1) was at No. 5, followed by No. 6 Mississippi (11-1) No. 7 Texas A&M (11-1) and No. 8 Oklahoma (11-1). Then the fireworks started.

With an average 8-5 Duke team defeating No. 14 Virginia for the ACC championship, it meant that Duke would not qualify as a top five conference champion and the league was in danger of being shut out because AAC champion Tulane and Sun Belt champion James Madison would automatically qualify, even though they have no business being ranked in the Top 12 but received two spots by default.

That left three teams – Notre Dame, Alabama, and Miami being considered for two positions. The Committee chose Bama and Miami, and the Irish were left out. While we agree with the ultimate decision here, how we got to this point deserves a look.

Alabama last week moved ahead of Notre Dame to No. 9 and played poorly in the SEC championship, losing 28-7 to Georgia. So where do they finish? No. 9 of course. That would mean there would be no reason to consider any result, good, bad or indifferent on a championship final and I’m OK with that. After all, that’s been our criticism of Notre Dame, who avoids a conference championship game every year as an independent. The problem with that is teams in the past have played their way into the smaller CFP by winning a conference championship (see Ohio State in 2014), so how can you have it both ways? It smells to me like SEC bias and the strength of schedule element SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey pushes on the Committee. He’s right about that but how did Bama move ahead of Notre Dame last week when they survived against a 5-7 Auburn team? Where was strength of schedule then?

That brings us to Miami jumping Notre Dame from last week to gain the final. CFP berth. We’ve always thought the Canes belonged ahead of the Irish, defeating them 27-24. But for some reason, the Committee ranked the Irish ahead of Miami every week, including last week, until now. So what changed? Did the Committee look back and realize that never in the 13 times previously had any team which lost to another and had the same record as here (10-2) been ranked ahead of that same team? Head-to-head competition is huge. But here neither team even played so with no change in circumstances why change the rankings?

That makes absolutely no sense no matter how the cards are shuffled. Sure, it says here Miami should always have been ranked ahead of the Irish but the Committee had all the same elements to consider and disagreed. Then why? Did they not want the ACC to be shut out? Were they sending Notre Dame a message?

Either way, it illustrates the inconsistency of this system and if you’re going to have integrity, you must have consistency. The Committee may have gotten it right but they receive an “F” in transparency. As has been advocated here before, eliminate the human element because it only causes controversy, hardship and a perception of outside influence.

The playoffs kick off Friday, Dec. 19, with the national championship set for Monday, Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Final CFP raises more questions than answers, says Ken Schreiber

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