Annual history of playoff committee decisions- 2023 update

We finally got a curve ball after all these years. The committee has operated the EXACT SAME way for 9 straight years, then for some reason decided to throw all precedent out the window in year 10. I suppose it doesn't really matter since this is the last year of a legitimate playoff (actually, after today I don't know how legitimate it is. I do know that 12 is fricking dumb. But that's another topic entirely) but this can at least be a historical snapshot I guess to look back on.

2014
1) Alabama 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to ole miss.
2) Oregon 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Arizona.
3) FSU 13-0. Conf champion.
4) Ohio State 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to VT
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5) Baylor 11-1. Co-champ. Loss to WVU
ND: Nonfactor at 8-5

2015
1) Clemson 13-0. Conf champion.
2) Alabama 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to ole miss
3) Michigan State 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Nebraska.
4) Oklahoma 11-1. Conf champion. Los to Texas.
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5) Iowa 12-1. Non-champ. Loss to MSU in title game
ND: 10-2, losses to Clemson and Stanford. 8th in playoff rankings

2016
1) Alabama 13-0. Conf champion.
2)Clemson 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Pitt
3) Ohio State 11-1. Non-champ. Loss to Penn State.
4) Washington 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to USC.
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5) Penn State 11-2. Conf champion. Loss to Pitt and Michigan
ND: Non factor

2017
1) Clemson 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Syracuse.
2) Oklahoma 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Iowa State.
3) UGA 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Auburn.
4) Alabama 11-1. Non-champ. Loss to Auburn.
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5) Ohio State 11-2. Conf champion. Loss to Oklahoma and Iowa
ND: 10-3, losses to UGA, Miami, Stanford. 14th in playoff rankings

2018
1) Alabama 13-0. Conf champion.
2) Clemson 13-0. Conf champion.
3) Notre Dame 12-0.
4) Oklahoma 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Texas.
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5) UGA 11-2. Non-champ. Loss to LSU and Alabama in title game


2019
1) LSU 13-0. Conf champion.
2) Ohio State 13-0. Conf champion.
3) Clemson 13-0. Conf champion.
4) Oklahoma 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Kansas St.
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5) UGA 11-2. Non-champ. Loss to South Carolina and LSU in title game
ND: 10-2, losses to UGA and Michigan. 15th in playoff rankings


2020
1) Alabama 11-0. Conf champion.
2) Clemson 10-1. Conf champion. Loss to ND
3) Ohio State 6-0. Conf champion.
4) Notre Dame 10-1. Non-conf champion. Loss to clemson in title game
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5) Texas A&M 8-1. Non-champ. Loss to alabama


2021
1) Alabama 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to aTm
2) Michigan 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Michigan St.
3) UGA 12-1. Loss to Alabama in CCG.
4) Cincinnati 13-0. Conf champion (G5).
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5) Notre Dame 11-1. Loss to Cincinnati.


2022
1) Georgia 13-0. Conf champion.
2) Michigan 13-0. Conf champion.
3) TCU 12-1. Loss to Kansas St. in CCG.
4) Ohio State 11-1. Loss to Michigan.
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5) Alabama 10-2. Losses to Tennessee and LSU.
Notre Dame 8-4. Finished 21st in rankings

2023
1) Michigan 13-0. Conf champion.
2) Washington 13-0. Conf champion.
3) Texas 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Oklahoma
4) Alabama 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Texas
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5) FSU 13-0. Conf champion.
Notre Dame 9-3. Non factor.



With 5 Power Conferences and 4 playoff spots, obviously a conference is going to get left out each year. Here are those cases:

2014: Big 12 where Baylor and TCU were co-champions with 11-1 records. No title game.
2015: Pac 12 champ Stanford. 11-2 with losses to Northwestern and Oregon
2016: Big 12 champ Oklahoma. 10-2 with losses to Houston and Ohio State. No title game.
2017: Big 10 champ Ohio State. 11-2 with losses to Oklahoma and Iowa. Also the Pac12 champ USC. 11-2 with losses to Washington State and Notre Dame
2018: Big 10 champ Ohio State. 12-1 with loss to Purdue. Also Pac12 champ Washington. 10-3 with losses to Auburn, Oregon, and Cal.
2019: Pac 12 champ Oregon. 11-2 with losses to Auburn and Ariz. State.
2020: Big 12 champ Oklahoma. 8-2 with losses to Kansas state and Iowa state. Also the Pac 12 champ Oregon finishing at 25th in the rankings. 4-2 with losses to Oregon state and cal.
2021: Big 12 Champ Baylor. 11-2 with losses to Ok.St. and TCU. Also Pac 12 Champ Utah, 10-3 with losses to BYU, San Diego st, and Oregon State. Also ACC champ Pittsburgh, 11-2 with losses to Western Michigan and Miami.
2022: ACC Champ Clemson. 10-2 with losses to ND and South Carolina. Pac 12 Champ Utah, 10-3 with losses to Florida, UCLA, and Oregon. Big 12 Champ Kansas State, 10-3 with losses to Tulane, TCU, and Texas.
2023: ACC champ FSU, for some reason. 13-0.


Some takeaways from 10 years of the committee:

-First, you almost surely need to win your conference. Of 40 playoff teams, only 6 of them (15%) made it without winning their conference (2016 Ohio State, 2017 alabama, 2020 notre dame, 2021 UGA, 2022 TCU and OSU). Let’s look at WHY those 6 non-champs made it:
---’16 OSU made it over #5 Penn State because they only had 1 loss compared to 2 for PSU.
---Ditto for ’17 bama who made it over #5 OSU because OSU had 2 losses compared to just 1 for bama.
---2020 covid year was a weird one but Notre Dame had the same number of losses as team #5, but they also had 2 more wins, had a win over a top 4 team (splitting the season series with them), played for their conference title while #5 didn't win their division, and the #5 team had already lost to who they'd be paired with in the first round.
---2021 UGA and 2021 ND had somewhat similar resumes in that both were non-champions that lost to a team in the playoffs, but UGA had one more victory and played in a CCG unlike ND. They also had a stronger resume as evidenced by them being the consensus #1 team for well over half the season.
---In 2022 TCU and OSU made it because the next 2 teams competing for a playoff spot, Alabama and Tennessee, had 2 losses and didn't win their division.
-No team thus far has made the playoffs with more than 1 loss.
-Notre Dame, despite being a media darling or is said to have special privileges, has only made the playoffs twice and they went undefeated or 1-loss (in CCG) to do so. In '21 they finished with only 1 loss and still were left out.
-Never in the history of the playoffs has a team that did not win their conference made the playoffs over a team that did win their conference with an equal or better record.


Again, all of this is essentially just like a time capsule because it doesn't mean shite for 2024 and onward. And it's really annoying that 90% of the years things existed in this format things were done one way, now the remaining 10% of the time in the final year the script has been flipped entirely. Oh well.