Ohio State tops first College Football Playoff rankings but nothing is settled

By Dana O’Neil, CNN

(CNN) — First the disclaimer: it’s early November. There is no need to overreact.

Well, let’s be serious. The entire purpose of releasing the College Football Playoff rankings 33 days before it counts is to encourage fomenting, handwringing and angst.

What else are we supposed to do? Let it play out, for heaven’s sake? How rational. How dull.

There would be neither armchairs from which to quarterback nor watercoolers from which to debate if we simply opted to wait and see. Besides, this is college football, where governors insert themselves into the decision making. Melodrama reigns.

Were the season to end tomorrow, the rankings released on Tuesday night combined with the rules – the five highest-ranked conference champions make the 12-team field via a straight seed model – would mean Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A&M and Alabama would receive first-round byes. The first-round games would feature Memphis at Georgia, Virginia at Ole Miss, Notre Dame at BYU and Oregon at Texas Tech.

So have at it. Screech your outrage, ACC schools disrespected by just one bid and pound your shoes on a desk somewhere, Notre Dame haters, especially those in the commonwealth of Kentucky and in the sunny setting of Miami.

The Irish have two losses, Louisville has one and one of the two Notre Dame Ls came at the hands of Miami, which the Cardinals beat. (There has to be a transitive theory argument in there somewhere.) The Hurricanes, in the meantime, also have two losses and beat Notre Dame and they are a very distant 18th in the standings.

Then exhale because there are, to paraphrase Robert Frost, still miles to go before we sleep on this college football season.

The actual bracket will be created on December 7 and if this sport has taught us anything this season, things escalate quickly.

It was, in fact, just one month ago to the day that Penn State made Jerry Neuheisel look like the second coming of Bear Bryant, losing to UCLA and beginning a downward spiral that cost a coach his job, the school millions and has no signs of finding rock bottom just yet.

Because, to borrow from another great poet – one Theodor Geisel – these first rankings ought to come with a dramatic reading of ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’ It is not entirely about where you start, as where you might end up.

From the next great QB to the next big bust, Arch Manning has found something of a sweet spot of normalcy, having steered Texas to wins against Oklahoma and Vanderbilt in the last month. With Georgia, Arkansas and Texas A&M left on the docket, the Longhorns can make their own case.

Georgia Tech is similarly on the outside looking in, currently sitting at No. 17. But if the Yellow Jackets were to win out, that would include a season-ending win over Georgia and just one loss, which could overcome the ranking clunker of a loss to N.C. State.

The inherent problem with rankings is whether you have four teams, 12 or 16, someone always has an argument that they’ve been overlooked. Just ask the folks who’ve made the college basketball committee which is currently pondering expanding its beautiful bracket to 76 teams. Whoever is 77th will be sure to be offended.

The CFP selection committee this year has made a big deal about its adherence to new metrics to better evaluate strength of schedule which will, according to a release issued in August, “reward teams defeating high-quality opponents while minimizing the penalty for losing to such a team.’’

They have not, however, come out and said exactly what those metrics look at, nor have they said how they’ll be weighted versus the eye test. In reality, they can’t.

Analytics and metrics have offered all sorts of advances in sports. Kick the point after touchdown or go for two in football? Foul a player up three points or let it play out in basketball? Better to bunt or swing away in baseball? There’s a statistical answer for all of it.

Yet, asked specifically about the fine hairs separating the top three undefeated teams in this first ranking, Mack Rhoades, the committee chair and athletic director at Baylor, sounded like a man torn between numbers and gut feelings.

He explained that the committee had “robust” conversations about the trio but that ultimately they split the hair based on the fact that Ohio State “when we looked at the tape, and we looked at the metrics, we felt that Ohio State was a little better up front on the offensive line and we thought they were better defensively.’’

Because no matter what the numbers say, eventually very real humans have to make the very hard decisions. And well, going back to the poets, to err is human.

Of course, Alexander Pope also suggested the follow up – to forgive divine.

But then again, the Englishman’s football team probably wasn’t sitting 13th in a 12-team playoff.

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