The College Football Playoff selection committee released its second weekly ranking on Tuesday night, and the results have reignited complaints that the panel applies no consistent standard when ranking teams.
Miami entered the week undefeated and ranked No. 1. The Hurricanes played on the road against Notre Dame, ranked No. 4 in the AP Poll and No. 11 in the CFP poll, without their best player, Malachi Toney. Miami had the ball at 4th-and-6 with 3:36 remaining at the Notre Dame 18-yard line on a play that appeared to be a completed touchdown pass in real time and on replay, but officials ruled it incomplete and the call was upheld on review. Miami lost 31-24.
Despite the close road loss to a highly ranked opponent while missing a key player, Miami fell six spots to No. 7.
Indiana, ranked No. 4 entering the week, did not play due to a bye. The Hoosiers dropped five spots to No. 9 anyway. Asked to explain the drop, committee chairman Hunter Yurachek offered this reasoning:
“Indiana was probably a victim of having a bye week at the wrong time with seven games between Top 25 teams. The committee is really impressed with what UCLA, Texas, and Notre Dame did as well as Alabama and LSU.”
Yurachek continued:
“Every team that Indiana had played to date in the Big Ten all lost and that effected their strength of schedule rank and the committee’s review of Indiana. The quarterback play in general and the offensive play in general is kind of a discussion point of Indiana…They’ve won games because of their defense and not their offense.”
Critics note that the team the committee praised, UCLA, beat Minnesota — the same team Indiana beat the week before its bye. According to ESPN’s FPI metric, Indiana’s best non-conference opponent, North Texas, would be favored by 8.5 points over Georgia Tech, which is 2-7 and often cited as a measuring stick for strength of schedule.
Other rankings drew similar scrutiny. Kentucky, which lost by 28 points in a blowout to Tennessee, also fell only five spots. USC moved up two spots to No. 18 despite sitting behind multiple three-loss teams, including South Carolina and Missouri. Missouri remains ranked despite an unimpressive non-conference slate against Arkansas Pine Bluff, Kansas and Troy, and losses to Mississippi State and Texas.
LSU remains ranked as well, despite losing every game this season against a ranked opponent — Ole Miss, Kentucky and Alabama — while beating McNeese State 63-14.
Tennessee sits five spots behind Alabama in the rankings despite having beaten Alabama head-to-head. Yurachek has said head-to-head results do not factor into comparisons when the two teams are not grouped in the same committee-defined “pod.”
Arizona, at 6-2 with two close losses on the road at BYU and Texas Tech, dropped a spot after a one-possession home win over 4-5 TCU, while South Carolina moved up four spots after a one-possession home win over 4-5 Texas A&M.
Fans and analysts have pointed to the inconsistencies — scoring margin, strength of schedule, injuries and head-to-head results each appear to count in some cases and not others — as evidence that the committee’s process lacks a fixed, transparent standard it applies evenly across conferences.
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