2024 Week 11 CFP Resume Rankings!

Welcome to the 2024 Week 11 College Football Playoff Resume Rankings!

We have received our first CFP rankings and are as disappointed as everyone else to hear that the same old shenanigans are still at play with how the committee arrives at their rankings.  The ranking and explanation for Miami relative to BYU and Indiana for instance was a puzzler.  The reality is that Miami rated last week as a stronger team than both BYU and Indiana, and the Hurricanes had a much stronger raw resume.  What answer did the committee provide?  Their offense is very explosive.  That explanation struggles to justify the ranking when it’s easy to focus on offensive performances from BYU and Indiana to make a similar argument.  BYU’s average margin of victory is nearly identical to previously 9-0 Miami, and Indiana has scored nearly as many points on the season.  Indiana has been so explosive that they’ve put most games well out of reach before their weaker opponents had any hope at all.  BYU’s explosive offense has saved them twice now, just as Miami’s had, from upset defeats with late rallies to secure victories.  There is a strong justification for ranking Miami where the committee had them last week, but they got the explanation wrong, devaluing confidence in their decision-making process.

This week there figures to be a shake up with Ole Miss beating Georgia handily at home and with Georgia Tech upsetting Miami.  We also had Alabama pummel LSU in what figured to be an elimination game.  At this point there are 20 Power 5 teams with 2-losses or less who figure to still be alive for a CFP At-Large selection, some more so than others.  Is 2-losses the cutoff for contention?  Certainly not, but the instances historically where a team with 10 wins prior to the playoff would have been left out in favor of a team with 9 regular season wins are rare.  In fact, there are only 5 such instances of a 10-win team being behind a 9-win team.  In 2014, the trio of Georgia Tech, Missouri, and Wisconsin would have been bypassed for Ole Miss and Kansas State.  Both Missouri and Wisconsin took blowout losses in their respective conference title games to finish 10-3, leaving Georgia Tech as the only team with a viable complaint, having not lost by more than 1 score all season and having just taken unbeaten Florida State to the wire in a 37-35 loss in the ACC Conference Championship Game.  In 2016, West Virginia at 10-2 would have been bypassed for 9-3 Florida State.  It was a relatively down season for the Big 12 in a year where WVU lost to both of the Oklahoma schools, which happened to be the only ranked opponents the Mountaineers would play all season.  In 2018, Washington State would have gotten the stiff arm from the committee in favor of Florida, LSU, and Penn State.  What happened?  The Cougars lost to rival Washington in the Apple Cup to close out the regular season, and the committee ranked WSU 2 spots behind the Huskies at #13.  Washington would go on to win the Pac-12 and bump past the rest of the 9-3 teams, but without an extra game to play Washington State would finish as the first team out of the hypothetical CFP.

What can we learn from the above history?  It is not impossible for a 3-loss team to make the playoffs ahead of a 2-loss team, but historical precedence tells us it’s unlikely.  This means that a team like LSU, now sitting at 6-3, is unlikely to earn their way back into At Large territory.  This also means that teams like Georgia (playing Tennessee), Missouri (South Carolina), and the pair of Clemson/Pitt and Kansas State/Arizona State are virtually elimination games for the 2-loss teams, regardless of opponent strength.  You’d be right to not count out a 3-loss “Power Team” like Alabama or Georgia, but given recent history, the college football landscape is just deep enough to keep those teams out of the 12-team CFP.  We’ll see this year if that dynamic changes.

Quick Hitters:

• Ole Miss upsetting Georgia is not as surprising for those of us in the strength rating business considering how close these teams were.  The CFP rankings made it seem as if Georgia was a definite favorite coming in, but we had the game as basically a pick ‘em, and Ole Miss outplayed Georgia the whole game with a dominant 28-10 win.  The SEC gets murky quickly, and there are so many head-to-head results in play that it’s going to be hard for the committee to differentiate teams like Ole Miss, LSU, Alabama, Georgia, and Texas A&M this week.  This is still a great result for Ole Miss’s CFP hopes.

• Georgia Tech opened the season with a win over AP Top 10 Florida State.  We may now know that the Seminoles preseason ranking was completely fraudulent, but there is a good chance Georgia Tech still finishes the season with a Top 10 ranked win over an ACC power from the state of Florida.  Miami came in ranked 4th by the committee based on the strength of their explosive offense.  On Saturday, that explosive offense barely made an appearance, and when needed the most the Cam Ward offense turned the ball over leading to the loss.  Miami is still in a good position, but there are tiebreaker scenarios that could leave the Hurricanes out of the ACC title game, meaning a committee that reassesses the season at large could put Miami in dangerous territory entering Selection Sunday. Miami likely has no more margin of error now.

• Alabama may not have the consistency this season as previous teams have had, but the ceiling is definitely still there, and was on display in the route of LSU Saturday night.  The loss for LSU is CFP eliminating, and for Alabama, the top ranked 2-loss team from the previous rankings, this is likely a springboard well up the rankings comfortably positioning the Crimson Tide within the playoff picture.  Alabama should jump ahead of Georgia and remain the top 2-loss team this week.

• BYU and Indiana both survived to remain unbeaten, though the committee may not see the two results in the same light.  Michigan ultimately possessed the ball with a chance to win late in the 4th quarter, but could not produce the drive they needed to upset Indiana.  The Hoosiers controlled most of the game and were able to hold on to the close win.  BYU on the other hand needed another round of late game heroics to secure the victory.  If not for an otherwise meaningless defensive holding penalty, which was the right call, BYU turns the ball over and loses to Utah.  On the play in question Utah would have had the sack and turnover with or without the penalty.  Still, when given new life BYU marched the length of the field and kicked a game winning field goal to remain unbeaten.  How high will Indiana and BYU rise in the rankings this week?  Let’s find out!

Let’s take a look at the Week 11 CFP Resume Rankings (note: these ranking should mirror a fair CFP committee):

Notes on the CFP Resume Rankings:

• The 2-loss SEC teams are surging into the overall resume top 6, with Alabama, Georgia, and Ole Miss rating ahead of the likes of Texas and Tennessee, both of whom are 1-loss SEC teams, as well as unbeaten Indiana and BYU.  It’s a shock to see these teams so highly ranked, yet the resumes continue to support their positioning.  It is one of the oddities that in the new conference alignment era, these type of SEC teams who the computers love and who play a lot of high-quality teams will find themselves highly valued despite losses.  In this era, it’s better to play a lot of great teams and lose a few games than to not play any of those great teams.  Resume opportunity is a meaningful thing that needs to be considered when comparing teams who have taken losses.

• Speaking of Indiana and BYU, the computers have grown cold on the Cougars, allowing the Hoosiers to step ahead on overall resume.  Both teams are well back from the other Power 5 unbeaten team, and that is in large part to Indiana’s lack of raw resume power and BYU’s diminished team strength rating.  BYU remains bolstered by the 2nd best raw resume in the country, and Indiana has made meaningful strides on team strength.  Still, both teams are behind where they want to be at this point.

• One team that can’t like their positioning is SMU, who ranked last week behind Boise State and is likely to remain ranked behind the Broncos despite having a much better overall resume.  The Mustangs rate as the 13th strongest team in the country, whereas Boise State rates as the 19th strongest team.  SMU has the 13th best raw resume, while Boise State only has the 27th best raw resume.  But wait, didn’t Boise State lose by only a few points to an unbeaten Power 4 team?  Guess what, so did SMU!  There’s no reason at this point in the season for Boise State to be ranked ahead of SMU given the available data.

• Tough luck this week to Tennessee, who falls out of the playoffs through no fault of their own.  With virtually zero movement on team strength or raw resume, Tennessee is out simply because other teams advanced the CFP cut-off line beyond the Volunteers’ Resume.

Unexpected results from Week 11 after adjusting for our updated Composite Team Strength Rating

Three major upsets feature prominently this week, with Iowa State, Miami, and Pitt all dropping games they would still project to win, but the biggest upset this week featured Air Force rising from the ashes to down Fresno State to win their second game of the season.

With our resume rankings setting a 12-team CFP, who has the best odds to win the title?

This week’s playoff bracket is interesting in that Texas has the 4th best SEC resume, yet has the best resume amongst teams tied in the loss column in conference play, therefore earning the bye.  Also, SMU jumps in with the ACC auto-bid sitting alone atop the ACC, bumping Tennessee out.  The two strongest teams in the country sit in the 5th and 6th seed positions, and both project to come through the bracket to formulate a final 4 of Oregon vs Alabama and Texas vs Ohio State with all 4 teams carrying roughly even CFP Title odds.

Now let’s highlight a few Week 12 games worth watching

Top Game:

• While College Game Day again featuring the Georgia Bulldogs isn’t the fun choice, it is the right one in terms of highlighting the best game of the weekend.  Georgia vs Tennessee is head and shoulders above the field for game of the week odds, rating in the mid 80’s on game quality while no other games crack 70.

• If looking for other meaningful games for the CFP picture, keep an eye on Kansas State hosting Arizona State in what amounts to a Big 12 elimination game between a pair of 2-loss teams.  Also keep an eye on Clemson vs Pitt in the early window, which similarly functions as an ACC elimination game between 2-loss teams.

• Watch out for the potential of an upset with BYU vs Kansas, where the Jayhawks are showing substantially better form lately than their record indicates.

• This week’s top Group of 5 game features Tulane traveling to play at Navy.  The Green Wave are very much still in the CFP picture, especially if Boise State does not secure a CFP Auto Bid by winning the Mountain West.  Should the Broncos falter Tulane could be well positioned to win their way into the CFP on Championship Weekend.

That’s all we have for the Week 11.  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)