Lawyer's Perspective: Georgia is Objectively a Top Four Team

Posters on tRant are no doubt luxuriating in Georgia's exclusion as the end of a brief "dynasty," and haranguing against Alabama's inclusion as evidence of "Bama bias." Let's assess the playoffs as they actually should have been formatted from an objective and evidence based perspective.

The four playoff births are not (supposed to be) determined by some erratic or pell-mell method of cherry picking four teams. Rather, the playoff rankings follow logically from the end-of-season rankings.

Georgia, the back-to-back national champion and victor of 29 straight games, lost by a clunked field goal to the greatest dynasty in NCAAFB history, the 12-1 Alabama Crimson Tide. Naturally, this #1 team cannot remain #1 as it lost to (now) another 12-1 team that enjoys the head-to-head victory. So, how far does Georgia fall?

Certainly, Georgia cannot fall behind Michigan. A team moves up in the rankings due to superior wins. Here, Michigan beat an Iowa team that almost lost to Nebraska, Illinois, and Northwestern (and indeed did lose to Minnesota) in the past month. The B10 is so weak that the only opponent it can produce to face Michigan is Iowa in its own championship game.

But does the B10 not enjoy some deference as a conference? Well, lets analyze its playoff record. Michigan was bludgeoned by Georgia by more than four touchdowns in 2021. It then lost to a TCU team that was bludgeoned by more than four touchdowns by – alas – Georgia in 2022. Why should Michigan enjoy a third straight playoff birth when their defeat by several touchdowns at the hands of another Georgia team would be virtually inevitable? The only other competitor in the B10 is Ohio State who, since 2007, has provided itself utterly incapable of defeating SEC teams in the BCS / playoffs – from Florida (twice), to LSU, to Alabama, to Georgia.

Georgia likewise cannot fall behind Washington. The PAC 12 is such a weak conference that it has voluntarily committed self-extinction. No conference that will cease to exist in a matter of weeks should be shown any deference when its undefeated “champion” (besting a team lead by a quarterback that decamped from the SEC to the P12 precisely due to the latter’s utter lack of defense) is compared to an 12-1 back-to-back national champion playing in, incontrovertibly, the best conference in the country. Should Liberty be in the playoffs, as they are likewise 13-0? Why not? The answer is not they should be excluded because they do not play in a “Power Five” conference – the title, “Power 5,” is simply a buzz phrase used to distinguish generally superior versus generally inferior groups of conferences. In this case, those groupings are irrelevant. We can compare the SEC to the P12 in the same way that we can compare the P12 to Conference-USA. If we leave 13-0 Liberty out in favor of Washington due to each conference’s talent imbalance, then it logically follows that a 13-0 P12 team should not move up in the ranks at the expense of an 12-1 SEC team due to each conference's talent imbalance.

In order for Texas to advance in the rankings, it must achieve a quality win. Certainly, for the #1 team to fall behind the #7 team, that #7 team must achieve something other than watching the #1 team lose by a mere field goal to the greatest dynasty in NCAAFB history. What did Texas achieve? It defeated an Oklahoma State team that lost to UCF by a score of 45-3 at home, lost to South Alabama by a score of 33-7 at home, and lost to Iowa State. The fact that this was a “championship” game does not play to Texas’ favor – if Oklahoma State is the best that the B12 can muster, then a win in the championship game is virtually meaningless. In other words, Texas’ victory over a team that was drubbed by both UCF and South Alabama is not deserving of a multi-rank advancement above the #1 team that lost by a field goal to 12-1 Alabama.

Finally, we assess Florida State. Again, the buzz phrase “Power Five” is rendered toothless when considering the objective and considerable talent disparity between the ACC and the rest of the conferences – especially in comparison to the SEC. One could just as easily label the ACC part of a “Group of Six.” Again, to argue that FSU deserves a playoff birth over an 12-1 SEC team simply for being in the ACC then compels the simultaneous belief that a 13-0 Liberty team should be awarded a playoff birth against one-loss teams in superior conferences. FSU cannot logically gain rank above Georgia for beating a Louisville team that, in the prior week, had lost to a middling 7-5 SEC team (Kentucky). The fact that FSU could barely beat a below average SEC team (Florida) the week prior further substantiates the ACC’s status as the weakest of the purported “Power Five” conferences. A win against Louisville (including a riveting 3-0 halftime score against a team that would objectively be 6-6 or worse in the SEC) does not merit a newfound rank advantage over the #1 team that just lost by a field goal against 12-1 Alabama.

So how should the rankings have been determined? How many ranks can we punish the back-to-back national champion who - according to the esteemed intelligentsia - was the #1 team in the country for the entirety of the season? Can one clunked field goal against Alabama result in a FIVE rank drop for a team favored to "three peat"? Emotionally, you may answer "of course!" to spite Georgia. Logically, however, the answer is "no."

Clearly, Alabama moves up ahead of Georgia. The back-to-back national champion with 29 straight victories (who has been ranked #1 all season) cannot fall behind teams that – as previously evidenced – have won meaningless games rendered “important” because their inferior conferences have classified them as conference “championships.” A now 12-1 Georgia team must be backstopped, at worst, at #4. A field goal loss to 12-1 Alabama cannot logically result in a five rank drop.

Thus, Georgia may be placed somewhere within the top four, ranked behind Alabama. The other two spots could be granted to Texas (with a head-to-head victory over Alabama) and either Michigan (who will lose for a third straight year in the playoffs and is frankly undeserving of a birth) or Washington (whose conference is so weak that its teams have voluntarily chosen to kill it at great expense).

#1 Texas; #2 Alabama #3 Georgia #4 Michigan or Washington

Obviously, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas would provide the only close games.

Edit - this will be downgraded due to the illiteracy epidemic currently plaguing tRant.