The College Football Playoff rankings have become a contentious talking point each week leading up to the games, and this week will be no different. With just one week to go in the regular season, the rankings mean more than ever as the CFP picture starts to take shape.
There wasn't a lot of shakeup at the top of the Week 14 rankings, as the top 11 remained the same with the exception of Oregon and Ole Miss flipping spots at Nos. 6 and 7. However, fans immediately noticed something that stuck out like a sore thumb. Head to head results didn't seem to take precedent in these rankings, even with teams with similar records or teams that were ranked near each other.
There were three instances of this in particular. The first, and most notable, is Miami sitting at No. 12 while Notre Dame is securely at No. 9 despite the Hurricanes' Week 1 win. Both teams are sitting at 9-2, but the Irish's advantage in the advanced metrics and their flawless eye test results lately are taking precedent.
Further down in the rankings, Vanderbilt is still ranked ahead of Texas despite a head-to-head loss less than a month ago, and Michigan is ahead of USC despite a conference loss of their own.
After the rankings were revealed, fans and pundits alike took to social media to question the committee.
“MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!” one fan pleaded.
“Texas and Vanderbilt are in the same tier, but Texas has the head to head and is behind them in the rankings,” another added. “Head to head doesn't matter.”
Even Chris Vannini of The Athletic was puzzled by the order of some of the teams in the middle of the rankings.
“Why did Michigan jump Texas for beating Maryland? Just to keep space between Vanderbilt and Texas and avoid that head-to-head conversation? Weird,” Vannini wrote.
With just one week to go before the conference championships get underway, Notre Dame is looking safe so long as it beats Stanford on Saturday night. On the other hand, Miami will need a lot of help in the ACC and elsewhere to secure its spot in the 12-team field.
