2023 Week 9 CFP Resume Rankings!

Welcome to the 2023 Week 9 College Football Playoff Resume Rankings!

We have arrived at that wonderful time again where the committee releases their first set of playoff rankings. It is the last year of a 4-team playoff format, which means the dynamic of the first ranking release will be different next year, but for now, it still holds a ton of weight. This Tuesday marks the start of the playoff push for several contending teams, a setback for teams who thought they had made amends for early season mistakes, and hope for teams who thought they were out of contention for a New Year 6 bowl or even a CFP push. Here’s a refresher on how the committee is chartered to arrive at their rankings.

The committee’s task will be to select the best teams leveraging several key data points to help distinguish amongst comparable teams. In the first rankings the committee will be charged with ranking teams based on an evaluation of performance on the field and will leverage strength of schedule, head-to-head results, comparative outcomes amongst common opponents and other relevant factors that may have impacted the outcome of key games to support their rankings. The committee will discredit polls (like the AP) where initial rankings are established before competition has occurred. The committee will not use one single metric and will instead consider a wide variety of data and information. Teams will be set into pods of 6 where the top 3 teams will be ranked and the bottom 3 will drop into the next 6 team pod for ranking. Once this process is complete, they will have their top 25 for the week.

In the past the committee has explained their rankings by citing top 25 wins, wins over bowl eligible teams, strength of schedule, strength of record, the Eye Test, game control and injuries impacting results. It won’t be a surprise to see the committee share similar justifications in their initial rankings this year. Ultimately the committee trump card for ranking a team higher than most of America might think they should be is that the committee just thinks that team is stronger or not comparable to some of the teams below them.

This year in the first set of rankings expect the conversation to center around having the strongest wins (Ohio State), having a single competitive loss (Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Oregon), evolving throughout the season (Georgia), game control or lack thereof (Washington), strength of schedule or lack thereof (Michigan), demonstrating strength via the eye test or a game control type metric (Oregon, Texas, Michigan), and Top 25 wins (Ohio State). Ohio State is a strong bet for #1 in the committee rankings because of the quality of wins they have collected. Alabama, Texas, and Oregon also have lots of quality wins, and a single loss to show against a good team. Florida State and Washington both have some good wins, and both have looked dominant at times this season. Michigan has also looked dominant, but has not had a chance to build a dominant resume. Georgia has a large collection of reasonable wins, but has had to come from behind in several games or hold on in close results.

The questions of the week will be how deep the committee sees the Pac-12 and whether or not that elevates their top teams, if the trio of Texas, Alabama and Oklahoma (plus Ole Miss maybe?) are held in high regard, and if the lack of raw resume value for Georgia and Michigan is held against them. There have been plenty of teams dumped in the rankings because of a weak schedule, and plenty elevated because of a head-to-head win. We can’t wait to see how the rankings unfold!

Quick Hitters:

• Ohio State / Wisconsin

  • Another ho-hum win for Ohio State where they let an inferior team stick around, but stifled them with great defensive play to secure a win, pulling just out of reach late to keep the game from being in doubt. If the committee loves this defense, they’ll be #1. If not, then the committee is wrong.

• Washington / Stanford

  • Washington has now been exposed by a lesser opponent 2 weeks in a row. Fortunately for the Huskers they secured the win in both cases, but the recency bias in the minds of the committee will devalue Washington’s position in the initial rankings. That could be hard to overcome if they don’t win out.

• Kansas / Oklahoma

  • Oklahoma takes their first loss when a last second pass fell incomplete in the endzone to lose to Kansas. We’ve seen in the past where a head-to-head result saved a team that had just suffered a loss in the committee rankings (Baylor 2021 a great example) so it’ll be very interesting to see if Texas and Alabama are located where their resume belongs or if they both sit 1 and 2 spots behind Oklahoma. My guess is they are both ahead.

• Oregon / Utah

  • Oregon is going to be a very strong contender for the top 1-loss team in the committee rankings, though we have them behind Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma and Ole Miss. If you look at the quality of their wins, they are blowing people out, but the opponents have all been overrated to some extent. Texas Tech? Not good. Colorado? Not good. Washington? Lost. Washington State? Not good. Utah? Good, but not great. Will Pac-12 perception save the Ducks? It shouldn’t.

• Penn State / Indiana

  • Penn State looked bad on offense against Ohio State, and was not better against Indiana. The Nittany Lions are trending in the wrong direction at the wrong time, though they still control their own destiny to some extent. It all boils down to beating Michigan.

• Arizona / Oregon State

  • We continue to beat the Arizona drum. A road OT loss at Mississippi State, a road OT loss at USC, and a 7-point loss to unbeaten Washington. Arizona is extremely close to being 7-1 on the season and in the hunt for the CFP. They are good! Oregon State meanwhile is now relegated to the role of spoiler in the Pac-12, and they’ll be the toughest opponent for contender Oregon prior to the conference title game. Both teams could be ranked on Tuesday.

• Georgia Tech / North Carolina

  • Back-to-back heartbreaking losses to non-elite ACC teams will ruin North Carolina’s season. The ACC Title is technically still alive, but by the smallest of margins. This team navigated a great non-conference slate only to faceplant when the competition was supposed to lighten up. Super bummer for the Tar Heels.

• Louisville / Duke

  • It’s hard to win without a starting quarterback. Planty of teams do it, but Duke could not on Saturday. Louisville is going to regret their poor performance against Pitt for a long time. That will single handedly ruin their CFP chances. They are good!

• USC / California

  • USC remains in a good spot in the Pac-12, but good gosh have they made it hard on themselves. Close wins over Colorado, Arizona and now Cal doesn’t inspire confidence, plus there are the big losses to Notre Dame and Utah. Still, the season is alive for another week.

• Fresno State / UNLV

  • Our G5 game of the week goes to Fresno State after UNLV crumbles late to give up a double-digit lead and can’t capitalize on an opportunity to tie late. The Mountain West is quickly trimming down to Fresno State and unbeaten Air Force with a New Year 6 bowl berth potentially on the line.

Let’s take a look at the Week 9 CFP Resume Rankings (note: these ranking should mirror a fair CFP committee):

Notes on the CFP Resume Rankings:

• Let’s talk about the initial committee rankings for a sec. There are 3 real options for the committee in the #1 spot come Tuesday. The first of which is to select the team with the overwhelmingly best overall resume according to both team strength (how well you play) and raw resume (who you actually beat and how good they were). That team is Ohio State. Yes, the offense has looked less than explosive at times, and yes, they needed until the last play to beat Notre Dame. Did they win? Yes! Ohio State is as far ahead on raw resume to Michigan as Michigan is to Coastal Carolina and Virginia. The gap is that wide! Michigan, the 2nd option for the committee, is only an option if the committee believes they are the better team despite having not had the chance to demonstrate it against a top flight opponent. Michigan has looked great all season. They are really good! They just haven’t had the resume opportunities others have. Michigan is so good that with 75% of the vote coming in they rate 0.56 points (100-point scale) ahead of Ohio State for the top spot. That number, by the way, is super small relative to the 36.83 rating point gap Ohio State has in raw resume. Still, the committee could put the Wolverines at the top of their initial rankings and have an argument for why they chose to do so. The 3rd option for the committee is to go the route of the AP poll and just be wrong because of something that happened in a year not referred to as 2023. Hopefully they don’t do that.

• How much will raw resume matter? In 2014, Baylor was crucified for a light non-conference schedule despite holding the strongest win of the regular season. In 2016 Western Michigan goes unbeaten in the MAC and barely cracks the top 15. In 2017, UCF runs the table and also fails to make the top 10. UCF does it again in 2018 through the regular season and climbs no higher than 8th. In the covid shortened 2020 season Cincinnati goes 9-0 and doesn’t sniff the playoff, but untested 6-0 Ohio State nabs the 3rd spot. There are plenty of times where the raw resume holds a team back, many cases for G5 unbeaten teams. Sometimes the committee choses to ignore raw resume entirely. Their charter after all is the 4 best teams. I think what we’ve come to experience is that if the committee has their own personal priors on who the strong teams are, and those teams play well regardless of opponent, the committee ranks those teams highly. If a team is not expected to be good and overachieves, the committee often undervalues that team until they have demonstrated that strength against top flight opponents. That should work in favor of Michigan this year, as well as Georgia, both of whom are likely to rank well ahead of their resume positions.

Here's a look at the range of expectation we have for each team given a range between using only team strength ratings and using the full overall resume.

What we see here is the potential for 5 teams to catch top 4 spots in the initial rankings without the committee making a mistake. They are going to make a mistake. The 5 teams that should be in contention for playoff spots this week are Ohio State, Michigan, Florida State, Alabama, and Texas. Notice that Georgia and Washington are NOT mentioned. Washington is likely to get put on notice after several weeks of poor play, probably sitting behind 1 or 2 of the 1-loss teams. Georgia however is almost a lock for the top 4. They are a two-time defending national champion, they are unbeaten, and they play in the strongest conference in the country. The data shows them to be only playing in 2023 like the 8th strongest team in the country, and the raw resume is seriously lacking depth. There is a non-zero chance that Georgia will not have a ranked win according to the committee on Tuesday. Florida and Kentucky, both at 5-3, are the most likely candidates. In the next 3 weeks things change, with Missouri, Ole Miss and Tennessee on the schedule. This isn’t late November though, and it’s supposed to be an evaluation of the season to date only. Georgia does not belong in the top 4 (yet).

Our bet for the committee rankings is as follows:

1. Ohio State – Correctly placed in the #1 spot. The committee praises strong wins over Penn State and Notre Dame, plus the defensive dominance.

2. Michigan – Elevated to the #2 spot. When asked why they weren’t #1, the committee praises their dominance in all games, but highlights the raw resume holding them back.

3. Florida State – Dropped to the #3 spot. Praised for big wins (though Clemson and Duke don’t have the luster they once did) and for playing really strong as of late.

4. Georgia – Overranked at #4, maybe even higher. Looked great recently against good SEC East teams. Rounding into form. Playing their best ball now.

5. Texas – The road win at Alabama is highlighted as a huge plus, and the loss to OU being on basically the last play is noted. Texas rates highly by the metrics they use and sits in a great spot amongst the 1-loss teams.

6. Washington – The win over Oregon is highlighted as a big plus, but the poor defensive play at times hurts, and the trend over the past few weeks ensures they sit outside of the top 4.

7. Oregon – The committee thinks really hard about Washington over Oregon, because Washington has struggled as of late and Oregon is looking great, but they are close enough that Head-to-Head results dictate the rankings and Oregon is capped by Washington.

8. Alabama – Undervalued by the committee because of some of the early season poor performances, Alabama is talked about as a team that controls their own destiny in the SEC West.

9. Oklahoma – The loss to Kansas late in the game is too much to preserve the Sooners spot ahead of Texas, considering the blowout UT win over the Jayhawks earlier this year.

10. Penn State – The Nittany Lions would be higher, but the poor offensive performances in the last few weeks leaves a sour taste in the committee’s mouth, and Penn State suffers as a result.

11. Ole Miss – The wins over Tulane and LSU are noted, but the lack of game control and defensive performance holds the Rebels back in the 1-loss pack.

We’ll see if any of that is right come Tuesday!

Unexpected results from Week 9 after adjusting for our updated Composite Team Strength Rating

• Boy, Washington State has tumbled in recent weeks. The early season rise, capped off by a statement win over Oregon State, is long gone. Now the bleak future of the Pac-2 doormat awaits.

• One big thing the committee will talk about when filling out the back half of the top 25 is what to do with Oklahoma State, who has several nice wins, a loss to Iowa State before they hit their stride, and a blowout loss to South Alabama. USA’s loss to Louisiana and poor play as of late will not help that resume discussion for Oklahoma State.

• Good gosh what happened to Clemson this year?! Every year there is a top 10 preseason team that finishes the year unranked. That team this year will be Clemson, who may not even make a bowl game. Currently 4-4, Clemson drops another unexpected result onto their resume and is one of the week’s biggest fallers again in the team strength ratings. Yikes!

Top 5 risers and fallers in Composite Team Strength Rating

Now let’s highlight a few Week 10 games worth watching:

• This week’s biggest game will decide the fate of the SEC West, where Alabama has beaten Ole Miss, Ole Miss has beaten LSU, and LSU travels to Tuscaloosa to play the Crimson Tide this weekend. An Alabama win and the SEC West is all but over. An LSU win and we have tiebreakers coming into effect with no team having a real shot at the CFP from the SEC outside of Georgia. For those wondering if we will get our first SEC free CFP, this game could go a long way towards cementing that reality.

• Almost equally good this weekend will be the Texas Longhorns, without Quin Ewers, hosting the red-hot Kansas State Wildcats. KSU has been rocketing up the strength ratings over the past few weeks and could present a real challenge to a shorthanded Texas team. Texas, Kansas State and Iowa State play a round robin to close out the season. All sit at 4-1 in Big 12 conference play. The team that can navigate that round robin at 2-0 will likely play the Bedlam winner for the conference title, other tiebreakers notwithstanding.

• USC’s season feels like it has been falling apart for over a month now. There was the close call with Colorado, then the OT win over Arizona, then a bad loss to Notre Dame, then another loss to Utah. Last week it took a double-digit comeback just to dispose of Cal. The only comfortable wins for USC have been against San Jose State, Nevada, Stanford and Arizona State. Not exactly a group of world beaters. Still, USC is 5-1 in conference play with a shot at a Washington team this week that hasn’t exactly been playing their best either. The CFP may be out of reach at this point, but the Pac-12 title is still within reach. Time to put up or shut up. Same goes for Washington, who we expect to be ranked poorly by the committee this week. It’s an opportunity to make a statement that the woes from Arizona State and Stanford are behind them. Put up or shut up.

• Georgia’s first (??) real test of the season will come with Missouri traveling to Athens. That’s what we thought would happen when Kentucky came to town, but that game was a blowout. Missouri also comfortably beat the Wildcats, so maybe this test will be a little bit closer than the last one. Georgia is likely to be overrated by the committee until a few of these late season results come in should they win.

• Keep an eye on Ole Miss/Texas A&M, where Ole Miss needs to continue winning to keep the SEC West race alive. Bedlam between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State could decide one of the Big 12 title spots. Kansas traveling to Iowa State could also have Big 12 title implications.

• The best Group of 5 game this week is James Madison traveling to Georgia State as a 9.5-point favorite. Georgia State is 6-2 and still in the hunt in the Sun Belt East, but needs a win here to stay alive. JMU could make a bowl game if there are not enough eligible teams, and in reality, they should be challenging the American and Mountain West teams for the New Year 6 bowl berth. This should be another great game!

That’s all we have for the Week 9. If you have any questions about the CFP Resume Rankings or just want to follow along come find us @CFPResumeRanks on Twitter/X. If you would like to officially reference our rankings or partner with us the DMs are always open. Have a great week everyone!

(Note: For tables instead of pictures of the rankings, see the resume ranking pages)