Column: Hallelujah, the inane babblewhining about the playoff committee's weekly rankings is winding down

By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com

          Thank God it’s almost over, the mind-numbing – and mind-numbingly repetitive and short-sighted - babbling about the college football playoff rankings, and what they’ll be, and what’s wrong, and what’s in the committee’s heads.

          And all sorts of other “really, can’t find anything else to talk about or come up with anything fresh or relevant on the topic” meanderings.

          There’s over-analysis of what CFP chairman Gary Barta says, and he’d be wise to read only prepared remarks, prepared by somebody else. ESPN could quit whining and knee-jerking and missing the point, but then, that wouldn’t be ESPN.

          No, the past performance in the playoffs doesn’t matter.

          No, the farce of recruiting rankings doesn’t matter (and to infer as much is absurd).

          No, head to head isn’t a top factor.

          No, record isn’t the most important thing.    

          Head to head is only a part of the equation. Yes, strength of schedule matters, as does strength of conference. Yes, strength of wins matters. Yes, the eye test matters. Yes, stats matter.

          The name subconsciously matters.

          How people can continue year after year to not get it is exhausting yet unsurprising. There’s an epidemic of notgettingititus going around, on the simplest of things.

          For one, whining every week is fairly nincomtwittish, because it’ll all play out. The games will be played. Teams will play their way into and out of contention. It’s the idiotic what-if debate that goes along with the similarly vague NCAA tournament guessing game that should never start – and doesn’t, with lucid, sane people – until the start of conference tournament play.

          A pox on all the talking head and writing hacks with addressing any ology, ala bracketology or bowlatology.

          Georgia is in, but the canonization must consider the strength of schedule, just like it should consider the strength of schedule for a team that has no conference, Notre Dame.

          Both play nice names that aren’t having great years. Georgia played a nice schedule, but Florida imploded – note that the SEC East of the last head coach’s first six years was a whole lot better than that of the current head coach’s first six years, not even close – and Notre Dame has five ACC opponents on a down ACC year, three 6-6 foes, a couple 8-4s from the Big Ten.

          Everybody but Georgia has pros and cons. Period.

          Sure, the whole process is a little more complicated that five people sitting at bar or a couple folks in front of a camera or mic saying stuff just to say stuff, with the qualifier of “Well, I really don’t know, but …” on a regular basis.

          But when it comes down to it, a simple question can give you an answer:

          Who would I like my team to play the least? Who don’t I want to play the most?

          Try, as hard as it is, to slip in some objectivity and knowledge and research, and delete any petty rivalries or general fandom mentalities. Period.

          And remember that all the rankings in the world change after teams play. So the intellectually vacant yammering of a month ago is kind of moot here in the last week, not that people didn’t seem to enjoy vacant yammering.

          Very simple: the poll will change on Tuesday based on what happened on, well, Wednesday through Saturday. Same goes this week. The current rankings are as concrete as nanner pudding.

          Michigan can fall to 11-2 with a loss to No. 13 Iowa. Wouldn’t be a shock.

          Cincinnati can fall to 12-1 with a loss to No. 21 Houston. Wouldn’t be a shock.

          Oklahoma State falling to 11-2 with the loss to Baylor is no shock.

          And we have No. 1 playing No. 3 in Atlanta. So when No. 3 loses by 21 or more points …

          Know what? Save your breath and others’ brain cells. Throw the names into a hat and pull them out 20 times, and those are our possible combinations. And those combinations were fairly irrelevant a month ago because, well, GAMES HAD TO BE PLAYED.

          It’s not that complex.

          Right now, to be honest, other than Georgia, I think Ohio State is the team most capable of beating the other contenders more often than not. Yes, OSU lost to Michigan, which lost by four to Michigan State, which lost by a full Saturday to Ohio State.

          That matters.

          I’m not completely sold on Cincinnati, because yes, very good teams shouldn’t struggle with mediocre or less-than-mediocre teams. That means it’s not a great team, but a good and fortunate team. And I’m so tired of the greed and power-mongering among the Power 5s – led far and away by the SEC, where they just want more – that I want very much for Cincinnati to make.

          But just getting by Indiana and Navy and Tulsa, and not throwing but a few knockout punches, and having only one quality win – half a quality win more than Georgia, incidentally – doesn’t inspire me to believe they’re among the top four teams. A romp over Houston would push me over the hump, although what else happens Saturday matters, too.

          As per the Sagarin Ratings, Cincinnati’s strength of schedule is 87th, the worst of the playoff contenders by far. Five of the I-A opponents won’t go to bowls, two are 6-6, and the I-AA opponent went 6-5.

          “But they’re undefeated.” Yeah, your argument is different if your team is in the running. And are they better than – straight up, if they played 10 times … - contending teams that have played more than one team in the CFP rankings?

          This is the first year that the field of legit contenders has parity, and is more than four or five. There’s not much difference between No. 2 through about No. 10 or 11.

          Thus, Saturdays have been fairly wild with upsets and near upsets, and surprising routs, which leads to unpredictability on Tuesday.

          All could be thrown into chaos again on Saturday, but odds are the panel will get it as right as it can get, which is the point.

          Who cares how they get there? Jeez, we want unpredictability, and then people whine about what unpredictability brings.

          The bottom line is getting it as right as possible. As possible. In a country where people complain loudly about the right thing. And complain loudly – with no substantive alternatives or options or context – upon rolling out of bed.