Initial college playoff rankings released … The college football playoff committee released their initial set of rankings for this year’s 4-team national championship playoffs. And for the first time ever, a team from a non-Power 5 conference made the top 4 with Cincinnati, ranked 2nd in both the AP and Coaches polls, making the grade. Yeah sure! In fact, the top teams are Georgia, Alabama, Michigan State and Oregon, with Ohio State 5th. Cincinnati IS the highest rated NP5 team ever in the CFP poll at #6, but 6th will only get you to the Fiesta Bowl or some such essentially exhibition post-season game. In explaining their ranking, the committee babbled through the usual list of made up stuff. Non-conference schedule isn’t strong enough (Cincinnati won at both 10th ranked Notre Dame and Indiana); or the conference isn’t strong enough etc. etc. Meanwhile, Oregon, which is currently in the top 4, lost at unranked Stanford, while second-ranked Alabama also has a loss already (to Texas A&M). The sense we get is that the committee pretty much decides who it wants in, and then adjusts the goalposts accordingly. We are small potatoes here, but if Cincinnati ultimately runs the table and is excluded from the CFP I will not watch and I will tell my staff that we will not be covering the playoff games.
