By Steve Greenberg, The Sports Xchange
Everybody, please: Breathe. Relax. Put your feet up. Have a cream soda. Serenity now.
The initial College Football Playoff top 25 rankings were revealed Tuesday evening, and — talk about predictable — more than a few fan bases already are all bent out of shape. Which begs the question: What the heck is wrong with those people?
For the most part, if you are rooting for a legitimate playoff contender — and I count 18 of them — then there is nothing to worry about. Your team still has a seat at the table. There will be new playoff rankings each of the next four Tuesdays before the final four is named on Sunday, Dec. 6, the day after the last conference championship games.
So much will change along the way. Remember the journey Ohio State took way back in 2014, the first playoff year? The Buckeyes were 16th in the first CFP rankings and went on to win the national title.
With all due respect, fans of non-Power Five teams not named Memphis and of two-loss teams not named Michigan or Ole Miss are excused from the discussion.
Everyone else, let’s take a nice, chill look at five things the selection committee got right in its first crack at this — and five things it got wrong.
Right: Putting Clemson in the No. 1 spot was an inspired decision. The Tigers (8-0) have faced several losable games and — unlike Ohio State, to name one — improved with every performance. A victory over Florida State on Saturday would pretty much lock Clemson into the final four, barring a loss, of course.
Wrong: Notre Dame (7-1) doesn’t belong all the way up at No. 5. Sure, the one loss — 24-22 at Clemson — was “good,” as losses go, but how impressed are we supposed to be by last weekend’s narrow escape at Temple?
Right: No beef here with one-loss Alabama being at No. 4, even if comes off as more of the same old Crimson Tide idolatry. If more than three unbeaten teams had truly distinguished themselves by now, it would be different story.
Wrong: One-loss Florida hasn’t been any less impressive than Alabama, but the Gators are at No. 10. It is a bit of a head-scratcher, not that the Gators don’t have the opportunity to play their way into the final four. They surely do.
Right: Making the unbeaten teams from the Big 12 — especially No. 6 Baylor and No. 14 Oklahoma State — wait awhile is right on the money. This is what happens when, as in the case of the Bears, you schedule SMU, Lamar and Rice as your non-conference opponents. What, DeVry wasn’t available?
Wrong: On the other hand, No. 8 TCU (8-0) has a right to feel slighted, especially after the way the committee treated the Big 12 co-champ a year ago. The Horned Frogs opened this season at Minnesota. Ask Michigan how tough it is to win there.
Right: The media and coaches polls have unbeaten Iowa ranked behind one-loss Stanford, but the committee ranked the Hawkeyes ninth and the Cardinal 11th. Nice move. It has to count for something that these teams had drastically different results at Northwestern — Stanford losing by 10 and Iowa winning by 30.
Wrong: It appears committee chair Jeff Long, the kindly athletic director at Arkansas, will continue to be the only voice the public gets to hear from among those who are deciding these teams’ fates. Can’t we get someone with more gravitas like Tom Osborne, Barry Alvarez or a potted plant?
Right: It is absolutely terrific that No. 13 Memphis was given a fighting chance to scrap its way into the playoff. The Tigers probably aren’t one of the four best teams out there, but they deserve our admiration after the way they pounded Ole Miss. By comparison, the highest-ranked “little guy” a year ago at this time was Boise State at No. 20.
Wrong: With everyone now talking about the College Football Playoff, these rankings updates are real public-relations coups. They also are the committee’s first push down a slide that can only end in a heap of controversy. You think folks are bent out of shape now? Just wait for December.