One of the hottest items in sports news this week is the first release of the College Football Playoff (CFP) Top 25 rankings. The day prior we released the ACC Nation Level Field Index (LFI) to provide a compare and contrast based on similar standards just with a different approach. Fans and media always find themselves tied up in knots over the selection committee’s rankings and often with very good reason. There’s no difference this year.
Here’s a look at where the two rankings agree and disagree.
- LFI has 10 SEC teams and so does the CFP. Those teams are Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, Ole Miss, Tennessee, LSU, Missouri, South Carolina and Florida. The two systems order the teams differently but they agree on the count.
- The LFI and CFP both select Miami and Wake Forest from the ACC. No other conference team is close in either ranking. Sorry folks.
- Overall Agreement: 22 of the 25 teams are on both lists. The LFI has Northwestern, Baylor and Nebraska where the CFP has Iowa, USC and Oregon. The rank correlation is 0.68. They split on the bye line. Only Georgia, Alabama, Texas and Utah are top 8 in both. The CFP also gives byes to Miami, Indiana, Kentucky and UCLA. The LFI gives them to LSU, Ole Miss, Notre Dame and Tennessee.
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Sports News – LFI Vs. CFP
Biggest Disagreements: LSU is ranked 14th by the CFP, 1st in the LFI, a 13-spot gap. This is the “prove it” argument in one team. BYU is ranked 9th by the CFP, 21st in the LFI. At 7-1, it’s the classic case of a record running ahead of the schedule. Iowa is ranked 19th by the CFP, 30th in the LFI.
Indiana is in this mix as well being ranked 4th by the CFP and 10 spots behind in the LFI at 14th. This isn’t something that would be the biggest headline in sports news but Indiana’s schedule and ranking are certainly up for discussion. The Hoosiers are far from being akin to last year’s team.
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How about the ACC? The CFP places Miami 1st, and the LFI puts the Canes at 9th. That gap closes or widens on Saturday at No. 11 Notre Dame, a game both systems treat as the test. Now this next team is generating sports news headlines. The LFI also has Wake Forest four spots lower (20th vs 16th), in the field no matter how you look at it. This is the one team that many in the media, fans and even non-fans find themselves agreeing that the Deacs are too low in the CFP and many are crying foul. The LFI is comfortable with where Wake Forest is at the moment and their game with SMU would have been similar to Miami and Notre Dame in generating momentum or even precluding them from the playoffs should they lose. The question now is will the game still have the same impact following the loss to Syracuse.
Let’s talk tiebreaker principles for a moment. The CFP lists strength of schedule, head-to-head, and not rewarding running up the score. The LFI builds all three in the math. So what’s the difference? The CFP committee applies them by judgement and the LFI applies them the same way to every team. This is where the CFP has the potential to step in it every year and the committee chair can end up on a hotseat on national television.
LFI is a computer based model and the CFP has more selections impacted by the human factor.
