CFP chair breaks down which team was hurt most by new strength of schedule metric
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College football fans got their first College Football Playoff rankings of the season on Tuesday, a list that featured a historic number of SEC and Big Ten teams at the top. If the CFP hadn’t revamped its evaluation process ahead of the 2025 campaign, it’s possible the 2 conferences could have had another member join them at or near the peak of the charts.
During the CFP rankings reveal, Rece Davis asked committee chair Mack Rhoades which team was “impacted most” by the sport’s overhauled strength of schedule and strength of record metrics. Rhoades told Davis that the Oregon Ducks suffered more than any other squad in that regard.
“[The metrics] came up when we talked about Oregon. When you look at them in the top 10, our lowest ranked in terms of record strength,” Rhoades said. “The committee had a lot of conversation, rigorous debate, about Oregon… their 1 loss is to our No. 2 ranked team… when we looked and evaluated Oregon, we really looked, in terms of just quality of team and how they looked on film.”
Dan Lanning’s team (7-1, 4-1 Big Ten) has faced just 1 team that’s in the initial CFP rankings (Indiana). Is that necessarily their fault? No. But teams that have faced stiffer competition to this point are being rewarded for doing so. And that, generally speaking, hasn’t always happened in the past.
Oregon has a chance to enhance its résumé with games against 3 CFP-ranked schools to end the year. The first of those opportunities comes on Saturday, at No. 20 Iowa. Kickoff between the Ducks and Hawkeyes is set for 3:30 p.m. E.T. (CBS).
