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Election Night 2024 is finally over! Yes, the long-awaited outcome…for the 12-team College Football Playoff (CFP) field has been determined.
This week, 13 highly credentialed people have come together and chosen a dozen teams to participate in this fall’s college football playoffs. Unfortunately, this week’s first grouping of proposed playoff teams must still play several more games. The potential playoff teams must now be re-ranked every week through the end of conference championships in early December.
A final list of the 12 college football playoff teams will be announced by the College Football Playoff selection committee on Sunday, December 8.
The top four teams will receive a first round “bye”. The next eight teams will play four games (#5 hosting #12, #6 hosting #11, etc.) at the home stadium of the higher rated team in late December. The winners advance to play the top four seeds.
I was surprised to learn that the CFP selectors also provided their own list of Top 25 teams yesterday. They will be compared to my SwampSwamiSports.com Top 25 for this week.
Who makes up this all-powerful College Football Playoff selection group of 13?
According to their webpage, the 13 selection committee members are “a dedicated group of high-integrity football experts, with experience as coaches, student-athletes, college administrators and journalists, along with sitting athletics directors, comprise the selection committee.”
This group of eleven men and two women (one is a national sportswriter and the other is the Athletics Director at the University of Virginia) seems very qualified and should render a fine set of playoff teams.
In this age of supercomputers and artificial intelligence, I question why it takes 13 people to do this.
(Note to self – If the pay is decent, volunteer for this gig if they ever have an opening!)
How does the College Football Playoff group determine their top teams?
Get ready. This is a quite confusing process (perhaps, that’s on purpose).
CFP Top 25 – Step #1:
Each committee member will create a list of the 30 teams he or she believes to be the best in the country, in no particular order. Teams listed by three or more members will remain under consideration. At the conclusion of any round, other teams can be added to the group of teams under consideration by a vote of three or more members.
Comment – Each of the 13 CFP selection committee members is allowed to make their own judgments as to the top 30 teams in the country. No strings attached. There are no requirements about the number of teams from any particular conference.
For example, if one of the committee members wanted to name 30 teams solely from the SEC and Big Ten Conferences, they are free to do that.
From a fairness standpoint, it seems that at least one team per conference should appear on each voter’s 30-team ballot.
The current process seems a bit fishy (unless the overall objective of their voting is to assure the biggest TV draws for ESPN).
I will concede that the so-called Group of Five conferences (American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sunbelt) are generally not as strong as the “Big Four”. Why shouldn’t at least one team from each conference be under consideration each week if only the top 12 teams will eventually make the playoffs?
This week, the initial CFP Top 25 was comprised of eight teams from the SEC, five from the ACC, four from the Big Ten, and four from the Big 12 Conference. That’s 21 (84%) of the 25 teams.
There was one independent (Notre Dame), one team from the Pac-2 (Washington State), one from the American (Army), and one team (Boise State) of the Mountain West.
There wasn’t a single team from Conference USA, the MAC, and Sunbelt Conferences in the initial CFP Top 25 rankings.
Never mind that CFP #22 Louisville (6-3) of the ACC already has two more losses than 7-1 UL-Lafayette of the Sunbelt Conference and one more loss than 7-2 Sam Houston of Conference USA.
Those Cajuns in Lafayette should be ragin’ right about now!
Let’s now continue with the CFP process for determining their top 25 teams each week.
CFP Top 25 – Step 2:
Each member will list the best six teams, in no particular order. The six teams receiving the most votes will comprise the pool for the first ranking step. This is known as the “listing step.”
CFP Top 25 – Step 3:
In the first ranking step, each member will rank those six teams, one through six, with one being the best. The best team in each member’s ranking will receive one point; second-best, two points, etc. The members’ rankings will be added together and the three teams receiving the fewest points will become the top three ranked teams. The three teams that were not ranked will be held over for the next ranking step.
CFP Top 25 – Step 4:
Each member will list the six best remaining teams, in no particular order. The three teams receiving the most votes will be added to the three teams held over to comprise the next ranking step.
Steps No. 3 and 4 will be repeated until 25 teams have been ranked. There will be seven rounds of voting; each round will consist of a “listing step” and a “ranking step.”
Each of the 13 voting members utilizes a secret ballot, so no one (including football fans like us) will ever learn who was voting for which playoff teams.
The term “plausible deniability” comes to mind. Remember Florida State? The Seminoles were left out of the playoffs last year after going 13-0.
How did SwampSwami’s Top 25 teams compare to the CFP Top 25 this week?
I have 20 of the same Top 25 teams – albeit many are ranked differently (see above)
Missing from my Top 25 were CFP #15 6-2 LSU (my #27 team), #20 6-2 Colorado (my #30), #22 6-3 Louisville (my #42 team), #23 6-2 Clemson (my #33), and #24 6-2 Missouri (my #29 team).
Each of the above CFP teams has two losses except Louisville (which already has three losses).
SwampSwamiSports.com gives more weight to the unbeaten and one-loss teams than those with two and three losses.
Let’s take a look at the potential 12-team playoffs
First, here are the 12 playoff teams according to the College Football Playoffs rankings as of Tuesday, November 5.
Now, let’s compare the SwampSwamiSports.com group of 12 playoff teams through last weekend’s play.
