For its first rankings of 2020 appearing this evening, the committee has met in Texas in recent days staring at an inscrutable puzzle with 17 unbeaten teams ranging from BYU at 9-0 to Washington and Colorado at 2-0, with Alabama and Notre Dame tucked in there at 7-0 and Ohio State at 4-0. That’s even though it’s three weeks later in the year.
The year has, of course, gone bent out of recognizable shape. Some conferences began in early September. Some began in late October. Some teams barely have begun at all. The usual appetizer buffet of nonconference games used for keener measurements hasn’t happened as conferences have played almost entirely themselves. The second-tier, so-called “Group of Five” brims with eight unbeaten teams partly because the nonconference games weren’t around to leave some of them beaten.
In a pandemic year of varying medical opinions, the usual unsolvable rankings questions of an eccentric sport have multiplied into cascading unsolvable rankings questions.
How should one measure the Pac-12 with its unbeaten Oregon (3-0), Southern California (3-0), Colorado (2-0) and Washington (2-0)? With the Big Ten starting late and upheaved by cancellations, is Northwestern’s 5-0 record better than Ohio State’s 4-0 record in ways beyond the numbers? Shouldn’t No. 1 go to Notre Dame just ahead of Alabama? No? Where to place BYU (9-0), Cincinnati (8-0), Coastal Carolina (8-0), Marshall (7-0), Nevada (5-0), San Jose State (4-0), Buffalo (3-0), Kent State (3-0) and Western Michigan (3-0)?
Last year, Cincinnati had ventured bravely to Ohio State to take a 42-0 reminder of resource levels. The committee placed it No. 20 on that original list.
This year, Cincinnati’s planned visit to Nebraska didn’t happen, even if by now it does appear Cincinnati would have won that. Where might the committee place Cincinnati?
A few certainties do lurk. The Big 12, which has suffered its belittling in the playoff era, figures to undergo a dash of further belittling. Having garnered four playoff berths across the first six years of the playoff concept, but with all four of those from Oklahoma, it stands with zero unbeaten teams and a twice-beaten Oklahoma, assuring its position as slighted.
The SEC, whose schedule the coronavirus keeps rearranging in a calendar of mayhem, figures to benefit from the national ordinance indicating that one loss in the SEC equals zero elsewhere. That makes Texas A&M (5-1) and Florida (6-1) two of the more curious placements for the committee, with those two rating a further curiosity given that Texas A&M beat Florida on a football field.
A recent-years amendment to that ordinance involves Clemson, which is not in the SEC but has beaten some of its teams — and many other teams — across the last six seasons going 76-6. The Tigers stand 7-1 this time, but the right side of that ledger is incomprehensible. They lost 47-40 in double overtime at Notre Dame on Nov. 7, but lacked the pillars of both sides of the ball: quarterback Trevor Lawrence and linebacker James Skalski.
They lacked Skalski because of a factor that’s part of the game: an injury.
They lacked Lawrence because of variable that’s not part of the game: a positive coronavirus test.
How does one measure that loss and position Clemson?
That joins the abounding questions for this frustrating pursuit.