We got a look at the fourth release of the College Football Playoff Rankings of the 2023 season on Tuesday night, and this time Ohio State remained at No. 2 behind the Georgia Bulldogs.
Behind the Buckeyes in the second slot was Michigan (3), followed by Washington (4), Florida State (5), Oregon (6), Texas (7), Alabama (8), Missouri (9), and Louisville (10) rounding out the top ten.
One of the great things (we think) about these rankings is that the committee is held accountable with a press teleconference afterwards to discuss all the conversations and logic that went into ranking teams where we saw. In other words, they do ask how the sausage was made, and we get to see the ugly insides.
We’re a part of those conversations and like to bring you everything Executive Director Bill Hancock and Committee Chair Boo Corrigan say about Ohio State when questioned.
Here’s how the conversation about the Buckeyes went after Week 12 of the 2023 college football season from the committee.
Introduction
What the CFP committee said
BRETT DANIELS: I’d like to welcome everyone to the fourth College Football Playoff Selection Committee teleconference for the 2023 season. Joining us tonight is Bill Hancock, the executive director of the College Football Playoff, along with Boo Corrigan, College Football Playoff Selection Committee chair.
On why Ohio State and Michigan remain ahead of Washington in the rankings
What the CFP committee said
BOO CORRIGAN: Again, I think they’re both really good teams offensively and defensively. To your point, I think the committee in looking at Washington, there were a couple of weeks with Arizona State in the Stanford game where we wanted to see a little bit more from Washington, and as I alluded to earlier, they’ve had six consecutive quarters and given up a total of 20 points, including against Oregon State that averages 36 points.
I think it all plays in together, and from watching games to statistics to schedule to everything, and we’ve got one more week of datapoints.
On what the committee sees and likes between Ohio State and Michigan
What the CFP committee said
BOO CORRIGAN: You know, two really good teams, two teams that are good on both sides of the ball. Michigan to get the blocked punt for a safety last week, to scoop and score; Ohio State to put up in excess of 430 yards against Minnesota, I think both teams continue to get better as they go through this. Michigan has been dominant, and Ohio State has got the win over Notre Dame as well as Penn State. Like every college football fan, we’re excited to watch the game and watch two really good teams play in the big house and see what happens from there.
On how much more decisive Georgia is compared to teams below it
BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, we’re sitting on six total undefeated teams, five in the top five. I think it’s a pretty unique time for us.
But as we talked about it in the room, Tennessee scores on their first offensive play, whatever it is, 105, 110,000 people going crazy, and to see Georgia score on six of their first eight possessions was incredibly impressive. It was incredibly impressive.
But I think there’s a lot of really good football teams in the country right now, and they’re certainly one of them but not only one of them, they’re the team that we believe is the best team in the country right now.
On the debate between resume and eye test and separating Michigan vs. Washington, and others
BOO CORRIGAN: Well, it’s all of those factors. That’s kind of the beauty of what it is, and it’s 13 people’s opinions on where we are. Obviously Ward is not in the room when we talk about Michigan as we go through this, but it’s all of those factors. To me that’s the beauty of it is we have the statistical analysis of what it is, we’ve got people watching games, we have 13 different opinions, as I said, about it, and where the games are being played.
You can completely dominate a game and win by 14 points, right, and there’s other times where there’s a game that’s a whole lot closer where it’s kind of up for grabs in the fourth quarter in the last couple of minutes.
Again, all those things are taken into effect as opposed to, well, we only like how this team looks. Well, where are they in comparison to, how do they look on a national scale and making sure that we’re taking everything into account and not relying on one single metric.
The other side is each week we have more and more information. It’s a blinding statement of the obvious, but we have more information in week 12 than we do at week 8 or week 9, and we make sure we’re taking all that into account and come in with a clean sheet every week and make sure we’re really paying attention to everything that happened.
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