Takeaways from the first College Football Playoff rankings of 2021

Outside of No. 1, we really didn’t have a clue what the first Playoff rankings of 2021 would look like. At least we shouldn’t have.

And buddy, we got some fireworks on Tuesday night. Was it Oklahoma at No. 2? Nah because the Sooners were only at No. 8! Was it Cincinnati? Nah because the Bearcats were only at No. 6!

Ok, I’ll stop with the exclamation points.

If you missed the top 25, here you go:

🚨 THE CFB PLAYOFF TOP 25 🚨 pic.twitter.com/w7CyOIOQR8

— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) November 2, 2021

Let’s dig into my takeaways.

1. Michigan State is more worthy of being No. 2 than Alabama

And hey, I can prove it!

Michigan State is the undefeated team with the better win. We’re talking about a 1-score difference between their respective margins of victory and while Alabama does have that advantage with 1 extra win vs. a Power 5 team with a winning record, I’d argue beating a top-10 team should carry more weight.

I applauded the committee for not digging into preseason confirmation bias with its ranking of Oklahoma (more on that in a bit), but here, it feels like Michigan State got knocked for that.

One would think that even a 1-loss Michigan State team who wins the Big Ten is in and that ranking really won’t matter. But based on that, one would think that 11-1 Michigan State who loses to Ohio State and gets left out of the conference title game is now likely on the outside looking in.

Alabama, meanwhile, is suddenly going to make everyone wonder if it can make the field with 2 losses if the second one is a nail-biter to Georgia in the SEC Championship. My gut says “no” based on the fact that a 2-loss team has never made the field, and I’m not sure the first would be a team who loses in its conference championship. Then again, my gut said that Michigan State would be ranked ahead of the Tide, so who knows.

This stuff will all sort itself out, but it’s absolutely noteworthy how their résumés are being valued now.

2. Oklahoma at 8?!? Bravo, selection committee!

I laughed when I heard someone say that a 1-loss Oklahoma team who wins the Big 12 will make the field. Um, how are we feeling about that now? The selection committee saw what I hoped it would see. Never mind the fact that the Sooners don’t have a win against the current AP Top 25. They only have 2 wins against a winning Power 5 team, and it’s a Kansas State team that’s 2-3 in the Big 12 and a Texas Tech team who just fired its head coach.

I feared that Oklahoma would be at No. 2 because of that preseason confirmation bias. I pictured Gary Barta spewing some rhetoric about how improved the Sooners were since making the switch to Caleb Williams at quarterback, despite the fact that he barely beat Kansas.

Oklahoma got ranked behind 4 teams with 1 loss because if you take the name away, “9-0” is really the only positive. I did the side-by-side between Oklahoma and Wake Forest assuming that they’d be several spots apart. Instead, they were at No. 8 and No. 9.

This is why:

When you break it down like that, you could argue that Wake Forest got robbed. Crazy, right?

3. Cincinnati at 6? Boo, selection committee!

Ugh. I hated this. Like, I hated it so much that my wife asked me why I groaned so loudly when the No. 4 spot went to Oregon.

It’s simple, I said. Cincinnati deserves to start at No. 4.

Why? The undefeated Bearcats did everything the selection committee asks Group of 5 teams to do. It put together not 1, but 2 years of data to show it wasn’t a flash in the pan. It went on the road and beat a disappointing Indiana team by double digits. But most importantly, Luke Fickell’s team controlled the game in South Bend and beat the 1-loss Irish by double digits.

Oregon’s win at Ohio State and Texas A&M’s win against Alabama are the only 2 victories that were more impressive than that. Cincinnati is unbeaten and is the only team in America with a double-digit road win against a current top-10 team. Yet still, some act like the Bearcats have UTSA’s schedule. That’s absurd.

The Bearcats deserve better than being ranked behind an Ohio State team who has a loss and 1 win against the current Top 25 … which was against 3-loss Penn State … and it was by single digits at home.

Speaking of the Buckeyes …

4. Thankfully, head-to-head actually matters

Good because if it didn’t, let’s just stop playing games. One of the things the selection committee did right was actually value when teams met on the field. Almost to a fault. There’s no way on earth that Oregon could’ve come in behind Ohio State when the Ducks, who also have 1 loss, went into Columbus and won that game without their 2 best defensive players.

If you’re a Buckeye fan who wants to talk about Oregon’s lack of blowout victories and the strength of the Stanford loss — that’s the single most overrated thing that fans obsess about — kick rocks and tell your team to actually show up when a contender comes to town.

As for the rest of those head-to-head arguments, here’s where we saw some noteworthy developments for teams within 1 loss of each other:

• No. 3 Michigan State beat No. 7 Michigan
• No. 4 Oregon beat No. 5 Ohio State
• No. 6 Cincinnati beat No. 10 Notre Dame
• No. 11 Oklahoma State beat No. 12 Baylor
• No. 12 Baylor beat No. 15 BYU
• No. 13 Auburn beat No. 16 Ole Miss
• No. 17 Mississippi State beat No. 18 Kentucky and No. 19 NC State
• No. 21 Wisconsin beat No. 22 Iowa
• No. 23 Fresno State beat No. 24 San Diego State

That’s refreshing. I can’t stand when one team has the head-to-head advantage, yet it gets ranked behind the other team with the same record, Sometimes, we shouldn’t overthink these things.

5. The SEC got a whole lot of love

Much to the chagrin of many, yes, the conference with 12 of the last 16 national titles got the benefit of the doubt in a lot of different areas.

Here was the conference-by-conference breakdown:

• SEC — 7
• Big Ten — 6
• ACC — 3
• Big 12 — 3
• Independent — 2
• Mountain West — 2
• AAC — 1
• Pac-12 — 1

Alabama was the big headliner at No. 2, although I thought it was significant to see Mississippi State come in at No. 17 after being unranked in the AP Top 25. It makes sense in a way. The Bulldogs now have wins against 3 teams currently in the Playoff Poll (A&M, Kentucky and NC State). That’s perhaps a bump to Alabama’s ranking moving forward.

Five of the top 17 teams in the country are from the SEC West. That’s also going to benefit the Tide down the stretch here.

Could it also benefit 2-loss Auburn? The Tigers, if they were to win out, would have an unbelievable résumé. They already have wins against the current No. 16 team in the country with 3 of 4 games to end the year against current Top 25 teams, including No. 2 Alabama. And while that’s not likely, theoretically, Auburn could reach the SEC Championship with a date against No. 1 Georgia.

I’m just saying … don’t dismiss it just yet. The SEC could give the 2-loss Tigers a shot like it did in 2017.

Fire up the “SEC bias” takes once again. The more things change, the more they stay the same.