Good summary of CFP history from another forum before the first rankings come out tomorrow.
This is a lot of data to go on but presents us with a pretty clear picture of how the committee operates:
-First, you almost surely need to win your conference. Of 36 playoff teams, only 6 of them (16%) made it without winning their conference (2016 Ohio State, 2017 Alabama, 2020 Notre dame, 2021 UGA, 2022 TCU and OSU). Now let’s look at WHY those 6 non-champs made it:
---’16 OSU made it over #5 Penn State because they only had 1 loss compared to 2 for PSU.
---Ditto for ’17 bama who made it over #5 OSU because OSU had 2 losses compared to just 1 for bama.
---2020 covid year was a weird one but Notre Dame had the same number of losses as team #5, but they also had 2 more wins, had a win over a top 4 team (splitting the season series with them), played for their conference title while #5 didn't win their division, and the #5 team had already lost to who they'd be paired with in the first round.
---2021 UGA and 2021 ND had somewhat similar resumes in that both were non-champions that lost to a team in the playoffs, but UGA had one more victory and played in a CCG unlike ND. They also had a stronger resume as evidenced by them being the consensus #1 team for well over half the season.
---In 2022 TCU and OSU made it because the next 2 teams competing for a playoff spot, Alabama and Tennessee, had 2 losses and didn't win their division.
-No team thus far has made the playoffs with more than 1 loss.
-Notre Dame, despite being a media darling or is said to have special privileges, has only made the playoffs twice and they went undefeated or 1-loss (in CCG) to do so. In '21 they finished with only 1 loss and still were left out.
-Never in the history of the playoffs has a team that did not win their conference made the playoffs over a team that did win their conference with an equal or better record. I emphasize this last point because it is by far the biggest thing people overlook or simply ignore. People always point to 2017 and 2021 as support for why a non-champ may make the playoffs while completely ignoring the fact that other P5 conferences actually exist and will have a champion.
The bottom line on making the playoffs is 1)Win your conference 2) If you don't win your conference, you need other P5 champions to have multiple losses. Simple as that.
Guess maybe he was only in like with football, and not in love.
