Maybe this will work out in the end.
For now, though, the College Football Playoff selection committee has the unenviable task of ranking unbeaten, one- and two-loss teams in the Power Four at a time when conference expansion and realignment has removed the friendly head-to-head tiebreaker that helped steer these rankings during the four-team playoff era.
There is no messier situation that what’s continuing to unfold in the SEC, where there are still seven teams with two or fewer losses overall and eight teams with two or fewer losses in conference play.
The SEC even had nine teams in this week’s CFP rankings released Tuesday: No. 3 Texas, No. 7 Tennessee, No. 10 Alabama, No. 11 Mississippi, No. 12 Georgia, No. 15 Texas A&M, No. 21 South Carolina, No. 22 LSU and No. 23 Missouri.
The newcomer was South Carolina, which has three SEC losses but has wins against in the past two weeks against Texas A&M and Vanderbilt.
But the big story was Georgia, which came in behind the two teams it has lost to – Alabama and Mississippi. The Bulldogs and Army lead Tuesday night’s winners and losers:
Winners
Army
Getting Tulane into the rankings at No. 25 is very good news for No. 24 Army, which moved up one spot from last week. While Louisiana-Lafayette is hanging around in the Sun Belt with one loss, the American Athletic will eventually put forth the Group of Five champion with the résumé to steal the automatic playoff bid should No. 13 Boise State fail to win the Mountain West. Looking down the line, Army takes on No. 8 Notre Dame next Saturday and then closes with Texas-San Antonio and Navy. Even projecting a loss to the Fighting Irish, having Tulane climb the rankings before facing off in early December would give the Black Knights the chance for a résumé-building victory.
Indiana
No. 5 Indiana was able to fend off No. 6 Brigham Young and continues to stand in terrific shape to make the playoff even with a loss next weekend against Ohio State. In the end, the Cougars might’ve been able to leapfrog ahead had they put together a convincing rivalry win at Utah. But BYU needed a late touchdown goosed by a controversial penalty to escape, allowing Indiana to stay in front despite struggling offensively in a 20-15 win against Michigan.
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Mississippi
Give the committee credit for valuing key head-to-head results in the SEC and placing Mississippi and Alabama ahead of Georgia. Heading into Tuesday, the thought was Georgia’s strength of schedule and wins against Texas and Clemson would be the difference in the comparison with the Rebels. But that 28-10 win against the Bulldogs on Saturday night was a wire-to-wire, borderline dominant win against a team that went into the weekend as the favorite in the SEC. At a minimum, the Rebels have moved themselves into good position to earn an at-large spot by winning out.
Losers
Georgia
This was a terrible but not fatal ranking for the Bulldogs. Looking down the line, that the committee has use these head-to-head results will impact seeding and could result in Georgia being the odd team out from the SEC should the league only send four teams to the playoff, as things stand based on Tuesday’s rankings. But it’s not all bad news in the big picture: It’s highly likely the committee reverses track and puts Georgia back ahead of the Mississippi with a win on Saturday against Tennessee. But the committee is saying that Georgia has work to do to get back into the field and likely is out with a loss Saturday.
Miami
No. 4 Penn State and No. 9 Miami have similar résumés, with multiple victories against second-tier conference opponents but no marquee wins – the closest would be Miami’s win against No. 19 Louisville. The difference looks like the one loss: to Ohio State for the Nittany Lions, to Georgia Tech for the Hurricanes. Another factor is Miami’s lack of game control in multiple ACC games, including Virginia Tech and California. Overall, the drop definitely puts a dent in the Hurricanes’ at-large playoff chances but wasn’t quite the stumble predicted heading into Tuesday. You can safely say at this point that Miami has to beat No. 13 SMU in the ACC championship game to make the field.