Revisionist playoffs
Using a new college football ranking system to look at past seasons
Yesterday, I proposed a new way of ranking college football teams:
Sum up the total number of wins of the opponents that a team defeats, then subtract the total number of losses of the opponents the team loses to.
For example, beating an 11-win team will help, but losing to an 11-loss team would be disastrous.
Rank the teams by their totals.
Because the 2020 football season was exceptional due to Covid-19, I checked 2019, the last "normal" season, to see how my rankings would have played out in the 4-team college football playoffs.
Three teams that year were virtually automatic due to their undefeated records and membership in Power 5 conferences: Ohio State, LSU, and Clemson. They were, indeed, the teams with with the highest totals. Under my system, Ohio State would have been seeded #1 and LSU #2; the Playoff Committee had them reversed.
Two main reasons Ohio State was ahead of LSU are that the Buckeyes faced unusually strong "Group of 5" opponents in their non-conference schedule, whereas LSU played a non-FBS school, which I don't count. The Committee and I both had Clemson #3.
But who should have taken the fourth spot?
The Committee chose Big 12 champ Oklahoma. I had Mountain West champ Boise State and American Athletic champ Memphis ahead of the Sooners. Boise State, however, got shellacked in the Las Vegas Bowl, and Memphis lost the Cotton Bowl. Oklahoma itself got crushed by LSU in the Playoff semi-final.
I could see why the Sooners were chosen, however. Because the Big 12 plays a round-robin schedule, the conference as a whole can only be .500 within conference, meaning they'd have to be very good out of conference to improve a team’s overall “strength of schedule.” Boise State and Memphis don't play every member of their conference, and chance would have it that they played a stronger conference schedule. Thus, they beat more teams that had more wins overall than the teams Oklahoma beat, even if, judged by non-conference record, the Big 12 was superior.
In any case, no team was really "deserving" of the fourth playoff spot, as they each had one loss.
Central Florida (UCF) in both 2017 and 2018 was different. The Knights were undefeated American Athletic champions both years.
Did UCF deserve to be in the playoffs?
In 2017, they did. I rate them significantly higher than Alabama, who took the fourth seed and eventually won the national championship. They were virtually tied with Clemson, Georgia, and Oklahoma, the other playoff teams. The Knights further proved they were a quality team by defeating #7 Auburn in the Peach Bowl, the same Auburn team that beat Alabama.
2018 was a different story. Clemson, who became National Champion, Alabama, and Notre Dame were the other undefeated teams. UCF's schedule, however, was significantly below theirs, and Oklahoma claimed the fourth spot.
Hurricane Florence canceled UCF's game against North Carolina, but that wouldn't have helped their schedule much; the Tar Heels won just 2 games that year. The Knights were crushed by 11th-ranked LSU in the Fiesta Bowl 40-12.
But one advantage of the proposed expanded playoff is to allow teams like UCF to at least have a chance to prove themselves against the top competition when it matters most.
We won't be left wondering what might have been.
James Leroy Wilson writes from Nebraska. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. If you find value in his articles, subscribe and exchange value for value. Your support through Paypal helps keep him going. You may contact him for your writing, editing, and research needs: jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.