CFP Playoff Hopefuls Resume Comparison (using 11/12 CFP rankings)

The table compares the resumes of the 11 teams who have 0 or 1 loss and have a chance to make the playoff.

Hopefully most of it is obvious, but I’ll say a few things to help read it.

The best value in a column has a dark green background; the worst value has a dark red background.
The more dark green you see in a team’s data, the better they do overall. Likewise the more dark red you see in a team’s data, the worse they do overall.

I know it's busy, but I think the colors help digest the info better.

In the two columns where it uses rank (Opponent Record and Scoring Margin,) that is the rank out of all 130 FBS teams. In the two columns where it shows teams left to play (Ranked and Unranked,) the team bolded is this weekend’s game.

The data used are things mentioned over the years by the committee that they look at. That includes wins over ranked teams, the win-loss vs. ranked teams, the opponents’ record, the win-loss vs. bowl eligible teams, and the win-loss vs FBS teams with a winning record.

As one can easily see, LSU has the most green in their data, and easily deserve the best ranking. Likewise Baylor is deserves its low ranking. Baylor’s opponents have a .500 record, worst of the bunch, although Bama and Oklahoma at .513 and .516 aren’t much better, and Bama just played 9-0 LSU; imagine how bad it was before that.

And Clemson should thank its lucky stars that they pass the victory margin eye test, because they’ve played the fewest winning teams, the fewest bowl eligible teams, and no ranked teams. Of course, in the no ranked teams, they are joined by Bama, Oregon, and Utah. Georgia and Utah have the only unranked losses.

The scoring margin eye test also helps Bama as well, and in fact, with just a few exceptions, like LSU’s slam dunk of 4 ranked wins, and Georgia’s 2 highly ranked wins, the CFP ranking order follows the scoring margin almost better than anything else.

Right now, there are 53 bowl eligible teams, which is about 40% of 130 FBS teams, so it’s not all that exclusive, yet Clemson has only played 1 bowl eligible team, and 5 others have only played 2, one would have expected about 4 at this point in the year. I know an undefeated Clemson probably makes it, but they will likely have the worst resume of any CFP team in any year.

Most of these teams still have a chance to play one more ranked team in their championship game that’s not shown in the table, although Bama’s chance is very, very improbable.

Oregon, surprisingly, has more green in its row than I expected, so if they win out, would be well primed to jump into the top 4. The problem both Baylor and Oklahoma have is that even if one wins out and gets 2 Top 15 victories, their other ranked wins are so lowly ranked that they could fall below #25 and not be counted any more.

Bama needs chaos to get in.