They wasted no time in unveiling the new College Football Playoff rankings Tuesday night. There wasn’t even a commercial break for suspense to see the top 4. It was as business like as one could ask for, and it was refreshing to see it put out that way when the moment could have really been milked for all it was worth. Maybe that will happen in December, but for now, the machine was well oiled.
That was surprising. Another thing that was surprising, but as the same time was completely expected, was the lack of respect for Notre Dame by placing the Irish at #10.
Surprisingly, I don’t have much of an issue with the top 4 despite 3 of the schools belonging to the same division of the same conference. What I do take issue with, is the schools (some of them) ranked in between Notre Dame and that 4th spot. If the “logic” is that Notre Dame still hasn’t beaten anyone, then I ask who has Oregon or Michigan State beat?
Oregon’s best win is against Michigan State whose best win is against Nebraska whose best win is against a toss up of either Miami or Northwestern. TCU’s and Kansas State’s best win is against Oklahoma (who might be vastly overrated).
The pattern here is that any discussion of these teams and their schedules compared to Notre Dame’s from top to bottom only strengthens the case of Notre Dam being disrespected. (BTW, Bama gets that Bama Pass because Bama is Bama).
I understand that there is a lot of football left to play and the top 1o will be turned upside down in one way or another soon enough. The problem is the logic and the manner in which Notre Dame is looked at by the committee in this first set of rankings as it sets the pattern and the standard moving forward.
That’s the real surprise here. The committee did exactly what we hoped it would do and looked past the media’s group narrative. It just did it right after the Irish got the media to change its narrative. Go figure.
