Week 14 - It All Comes Down To This

Well, it all comes down to this.  The season isn't over yet, and this isn't the last summary of The Interent's college football power rankings, but this might be the most important one. Because true college football fans know, that while bowls are cool and very important, the ranking at the end of the regular season (for all intent's and purposes, although Army and Navy will play next week in a game that's technically considered part of the regular season) is what everyone remembers next season.  So I pressured the Internet to take some firm stands, and to not allow any ties.  The Internet complained quite a bit, because this year it was so close between so many teams, including the teams up top, that it was really hard to draw a firm distinction.  In fact, Oklahoma and Clemson finished the season in a virtual tie in multiple metrics that The Interent used.  In the end, Clemson gets the nod because it had slightly more "direct rank points" which I don't really understand, but the Internet says they are a reflection of "what people commonly refer to as a big win or a big loss."  It's really close there, though, 9 to 9.5.

What the Internet does find easy to do, is to be very confused about Alabama making the playoffs.  Their one loss was a big one, because it's even more confusing to The Internet that Auburn is going to a New Year's Day bowl, because they are not top 10 in any metric that The Interent uses.  The fact that Albama los to this good, but not elite, team reflects poorly enough on them to have the finishing the season at 7.  And Wisconsin should NOT be penalized as heavily as they were for losing in the title game.  Wisconsin ran the table in P5 conference.  Further, UCF is unbeaten.  They should be ranked hire.  Losing the title game to me shouldn't mean a drop to 6, especially with Alabama in there.  Beyond that, though, the rankings really aren't THAT different.  Really only the complete head scratching inclusion of Missippi State is the only proble The Internet has with the rankings after the top 10. 

An area where I disagree with both The Internet and the College Football Playoff Comittee is the ranking of UCF.  To me they should be in the top 4.  What ultimately hurts them is the belief that their conference wins don't matter, but personally I'm not so sure that's the way it should be.  I know next year I'm going to push the Interent hard to reconsider how it judges G5 conferences.  

Normally, I only include the top 25 for posterity, but I'm going to go ahead and include all 31 ranked teams the Internet marked as ranked to celebrate them making it this far.  It is technically possible for all of these teams to finish in the top 25 at the end of the year, any team without that possibility has been considered unranked.

I don't think there is going to be weekly updates during bowl season, but there will definitely be one last summary of the ranks when the playoffs are through.  It should be interesting to see if the playoffs end up producind the same top four as The Interentet's formulas do.