By LLOYD PASEMAN/For The Herald — The College Football Playoff selection committee unveiled its initial 2021 rankings on Tuesday and 7-1 Oregon was a surprise No. 4 choice for the first week, edging out undefeated Oklahoma, Cincinnati and Wake Forest, bumping highly touted Ohio State into fifth place and finishing ahead of Michigan and Notre Dame, each also 7-1, in the Top 10.
The top three teams, in order, were Georgia (8-0), Alabama (7-1) and Michigan State (8-0).
As Oregon’s fourth-place ranking was revealed, the four analysts reporting the results on ESPN sat silent for a beat, then expressed a consensus that Oregon’s 35-28 defeat of the Buckeyes, in Columbus, on Sept. 11 probably swung the committee’s vote on the No. 4 team in the Ducks’ favor.
One analyst called it “a very solid ranking, an appropriate ranking.” Prior to the announcements, Kirk Herbstreit said Oregon had to be ranked ahead of Ohio State because of its “head-to-head” loss to the Ducks, even though the Buckeyes have clearly improved since then.
In its latest poll, The Associated Press ranked Georgia first, followed by Cincinnati and Alabama. Oregon was ranked seventh, one notch below Ohio State. The USA Today coaches’ poll had the same lineup but with Ohio State in fifth place.
The CFP committee will announce new rankings on each of the next four Tuesdays. After the final report on Nov. 30, it will meet to decide which four teams will participate in this season’s three-game playoff: semifinal games Dec. 31 at the Cotton Bowl in Arlington, Texas, and at the Orange Bowl in Miami Gardens, Fla., followed by the championship game on Jan. 10 in Indianapolis, Ind.
USA Today’s Paul Myerberg cautioned that the CFP still has a month to go before settling on its four playoff teams, noting, “the history of the playoff format tells us that what’s important one week may carry less weight one week later with the selection committee.”
He said Oregon is “sitting in terrific position heading into the home stretch of the regular season. And while not able to completely exhale, the Ducks can be confident in the idea that 12-1 gets them into the playoff for the first time since 2014.”
Oregon was in the first CFP following the 2014 season. It beat Florida State 59-20 in the Rose Bowl before losing to Ohio State 42-20 in the national championship game. The only other time a Pac-12 team made the playoff was in 2016 when Washington lost to Alabama in the semifinals.
Tuesday’s No. 4 ranking was surprising not just because the Ducks ended up ahead of a bunch of undefeated teams, but also because anyone who has watched their first eight games knows that except for the Ohio State win, and a 52-29 drubbing of Colorado last Saturday, the Ducks haven’t managed to put together any other complete games.
They slipped by Fresno State in the season opener 31-24, they edged past California by seven points on Oct. 15, they almost lost to UCLA the following week, eking out a three-point win in the final three minutes and—most importantly—Stanford, which is now 3-5 on the season, beat the Ducks 31-24 in overtime on Oct. 2.
Their only truly decisive wins this season, other than the Ohio State victory, were the 48-7 non-conference win over second-tier Stony Brook on Sept. 18, a 41-19 win over winless Arizona on Sept. 25, and last week’s defeat of Colorado, all teams the Ducks should have beaten handily.
That’s hardly an impressive “strength of schedule,” which is one of the things the CFP uses to produce its rankings.
The CFP was created in 2013 to replace the much-maligned Bowl Championship Series, which was launched in 1998 and used polls and statistical analyses to choose 10 teams at the end of each season to participate in the top five bowl games. Two of those bowl winners then met in a final national championship game (Oregon lost the 2010 game to Auburn, 22-19).
The 13 members of the CFP selection committee serve three-year terms. The committee meets in person beginning late in the football season and produces a ranking of the top 25 teams each Tuesday, leading up to its final selections on Sunday, Dec. 5.
The current selection committee members are Athletic Directors Gary Barta (Iowa, committee chairman), Mitch Barnhart (Kentucky), Tom Burman (Wyoming), Charlie Cobb (Georgia State), Boo Corrigan (North Carolina State), Rick George (Colorado) and Gene Taylor (Kansas State).
The other members are Arizona State professor Paola Boivin; Will Shields, former All-American offensive lineman at Nebraska; Joe Taylor, Virginia Union vice president for athletics and community wellness; John Urschel, former Penn State All-American offensive lineman; Rod West, group president of Entergy Corporation, and Tyrone Willingham, former head coach at Stanford, Notre Dame and Washington.
Committee policy requires that members excuse themselves from participation in any deliberations on where to rank a team if they or any member of their immediate family is (1) compensated by the team being discussed, (2) provides any professional services to the school, (3) is on the school’s coaching or administrative staff, or (4) is a football student-athlete at a school.
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