Blind Playoff Resume Lesson: Oklahoma State is Being Overlooked
The above exercise featured the blind1 resumes of three one-loss teams, all from Power Five conferences, vying for the College Football Playoff. Responses were illuminating.
Every reply included Team C as one of the two choices: That team is Ohio State.
The Buckeyes’ marquee wins came against Purdue and Penn State with the loss, of course, against Oregon. The Ducks sitting just one spot ahead of Penn State in the Massey ratings speaks to the gaps that different evaluation processes — and thus reaffirm that ranking football teams is an inexact science.
To wit, I don’t agree that Penn State’s the nation’s 14th-best team. I also believe Oregon is better than No. 13 on the strength of beating Ohio State on the road, which I deem the single best victory any team has scored this season.
But the Ducks have not played up to their No. 3 ranking in the College Football Playoff Top 25 aside from the win over Ohio State.
Speaking of Oregon, that is the above Team B. Responses were pretty well split between the Ducks and Team A, and with good reason. While Oregon has the better overall win, Team A’s two top 25 wins and more favorable loss carry weight.
At least, they should. The Playoff committee seems to think otherwise.
Team A, if you haven’t guessed, is Oklahoma State. The Cowboys checked in the most recent Playoff poll reveal at No. 9, the fourth-worst ranking of any one-loss Power Five team.
Two of the three polling lower than the Cowboys are Big 12 mates Baylor at No. 11 and Oklahoma at No. 13. The Sooners plummeting after last week’s loss to Baylor — the team Oklahoma State knocked off for its best win — does not bode well for the Pokes.
While Bedlam is on course to be a stronger hypothetical win than either of Oregon’s final two opponents — at Massey No. 22/Playoff No. 23 Utah and vs. Massey No. 40 Oregon State — it’s not strong enough to match the Ducks’ defeat of Ohio State.
I’ll admit before getting into this exercise, I overlooked the strength of Oklahoma State’s resume. My assumption, based off my own preconceptions about the Cowboys, is that close wins over lower-tier opponents is weighted more heavily against them than other teams.
Oklahoma State faced a test from Missouri State, a very good FCS team in the conversation for a top-eight seed in the upcoming Playoffs, but still an FCS program. The Cowboys also barely survived against Boise State — a good team, but not comparable to Bronco teams of the past two decades.
The…I guess worst is the word I’ll use…worst win on Oklahoma State’s resume is a one-score decision against Tulsa. So I’m not relying entirely on conjecture, the below is from Gary Barta’s media call Tuesday after the rankings reveal.
“And then as of late offensively, Oklahoma State has been playing much better the last several weeks.”
So the Cowboys’ struggles in the first half of September evidently have bearing on how they’re perceived in mid-November.
Now, playing Tulsa close has been and will continue to be a recurring theme in this postseason race. It’s become the rallying cry for national college football media desperate to discredit Cincinnati.2
And yet, Tulsa is remarkably linked to three Playoff contenders having also faced Ohio State. The Golden Hurricane stayed within a score of the Buckeyes virtually throughout, but giving up a late touchdown then having their desperation final-gasp play returned for a pick-six gives the illusion of a blowout.
I mention that not to slight Ohio State. As evidenced from the unanimous nomination of the Buckeyes as the blind Team C, they’ve built a fine resume that can only improve from matchups with Michigan State (Massey No. 9) and Michigan (Massey No. 4).
Should Ohio State win out, it’s in the final four without much realistic debate, as it probably should be.
However, the same cannot be said for Oklahoma State. Take a look:
Georgia: The most obvious, the Bulldogs win out and they’re in at 13-0. But should Georgia lose — the SEC Championship Game against Alabama is the most likely scenario — the Bulldogs would need a precipitous fall to slide from the top four.
Alabama: Again, very simple: Win and they’re in. While there’s been chatter of a two-loss Crimson Tide getting the nod over an undefeated (Cincy) or one-loss conference champion (Wake Forest and one of the three remaining Big 12 contenders), even I’m not yet anticipating something so egregious from the Playoff committee.
Oregon: The most vulnerable of the top four due to the weak Pac-12, the Ducks don’t have potential top 15 matchups ahead like Oklahoma State has in Bedlam and the Big 12 Championship Game. Still, the Ohio State win remains a turbo-booster for the Ducks, and six games is a lot of ground to make up.
Ohio State: Easy; win and the Buckeyes are in.
Cincinnati: The Bearcats have fought a war of propaganda to sit just outside the top four. They’ll be the biggest Georgia cheerleaders outside of Athens for the SEC Championship Game, but otherwise — with the prospect of a top 25 American Championship against Houston — Cincinnati is in a good spot.
Michigan: Here’s where the path gets a little stickier. Michigan has the best prospective regular season game still remaining in Ohio State, but only if the Buckeyes beat Michigan State this coming week. A Sparty victory not only drops Ohio State’s standing ahead of The Game, it also denies Michigan a berth in the Big Ten Championship Game (so long as Michigan State beats Penn State).
Michigan State: Sparty actually has a much more direct path to the Playoff: If they win out, they’re going.
Notre Dame: This is the only team ranked ahead of Oklahoma State that I can see the committee leap-frogging the Cowboys ahead of if both win out3. The lack of a 13th game hasn’t impacted the Fighting Irish when they’ve been in the Playoff conversation yet, but this would be the year based on traditional rivals USC and Stanford being down. And, closing with the struggling Cardinal after a meeting a bad Georgia Tech bunch does nothing to bolster Notre Dame’s hypothetical 11 wins.
Of course, there’s a lot of consequential football still to be played and the above might all be moot. Still, I’m left with a couple primary takeaways.
The Playoff does not like the Big 12 outside of Oklahoma.
The only two Power Five conference teams to finish with only one loss yet get passed over for a Playoff berth are both from the Big 12 (and neither residing in Norman): Baylor and TCU, both in 2014.
2014 was a unique season in that every power-conference champion finished with one loss or undefeated, and it hasn’t happened since. But this could be the year, with the added wrinkle of an undefeated Group of Five member having a worthy resume.There’s an odd yet fitting symmetry to a potential Oklahoma State snub.
The BCS ran through the 2013 season, but the system was all but killed by the 2011 campaign. It’s been exactly 10 years since the Rematch Nobody Wanted between Alabama and LSU, and Oklahoma State is back in the same spot.
Their loss to Iowa State rendered any debate for their inclusion in the BCS Championship a non-starter, yet the Cowboys arguably offered a better resume than Alabama. To wit, using the same format as the tweet at the top, here are the final resumes of Alabama and Oklahoma State in 2011:
TEAM A
Best wins: Massey No. 6 (neutral field), vs. No. 8, vs. No. 14, vs. No. 17TEAM B
Best wins: Massey No. 1 (neutral field), vs. No. 7, at No. 31
Team A is Oklahoma State.
Much like 2011, I see the nation collectively underestimating the Cowboys’ resume. When viewed without any preconceived biases based on brand name, it holds up well against the best counterparts.
Respondents could have looked up this information easily enough, so “blind” is a bit of a misnomer.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I am planning a commentary on what I described as “propaganda” to campaign against Cincinnati’s inclusion in the Playoff. Look for that in the coming days. A little tease: Seeing so much of the rhetoric all in place is JARRING.
Assuming it puts any stock in its own weekly poll and doesn’t completely deviate from the current trends.