CFB · RANKINGS · AP-TOP-25 · QUADS · POLL-REACTION · GEORGIA
The AP Put Georgia Second and USC 18th, and the Résumés Tell a Different Story
By MVPeav · @MVPeav ·
USC beat the No. 2 team in the country by 12 on Saturday night. The AP's response was to slide the Trojans in at 18th, one spot behind a Houston team that spent the weekend on its couch.
Meanwhile Georgia went up to No. 2 off a win over Florida, and Notre Dame climbed to 4 by beating Navy. Both of those teams have a loss on the sheet that should make a voter squint, and neither one has the Q1 win that USC just banked.
So I ran this week's poll through Quads, our résumé ranking, and compared the two boards side by side. The top is fine. Miami is 1 for both of us. It's the middle of the poll where the voters stopped reading schedules and started ranking logos.
How Quads Works Before Anybody Yells at Us
Quads is a résumé ranking. It works like the NET quadrants in college basketball: every game a team has played gets sorted Q1 through Q4 based on the opponent's SP+ rank and where the game was played. Q1 wins count the most. Bad losses cost the most.
It ignores margin. It ignores head-to-head. It ignores the eye test, the uniforms and your uncle's opinion from the deer stand. SP+ tells you how good a team is. Quads tells you what a team has actually done. Those are two different questions, and this week the AP answered the first one when it was asked the second.
The cut lines between quads are fitted to past CFP committee rankings, so the thing is calibrated to how the people in the room actually behave, not to how I wish they would.
Two quick examples so the rest of this makes sense. Georgia's 27-8 win over Florida came at a neutral site against an SP+ #44 team, so it grades as Q2, no matter how pretty it looked. Kentucky beat LSU by one point, and Quads scores that exactly the same as if they'd won by 30. Keep both of those in your pocket.
Miami, UCLA and Utah Are Right Where They Belong
Credit where it's due, because the top of this poll is clean. Miami took 62 of the 69 first-place votes, and we have the Canes No. 1 too. They're 8-0 with a Q1 road win at Wake Forest (SP+ #16), and nothing on the sheet hurts them.
The voters did have to swallow a 38-35 win at North Carolina as a two-touchdown favorite. UNC (SP+ #53) out-first-downed Miami 27 to 25, and the Heels recovered two onside kicks that got wiped out by penalties before Miami finally fell on the third. For Quads that's just a Q2 win. For the AP it was a close call on No. 1, and they got it right.
UCLA went up two to No. 5, and we have the Bruins 4th. That 17-15 win at Oregon (SP+ #12) is a Q1 road win, and the 27-0 shutout of Nevada this weekend did nothing to spoil it.
Utah jumped from 6 to 3 after hanging 49 on Cincinnati (SP+ #52) in their building. We're at 5, which is close enough. The Utes are 8-0 and their best win is over Houston (SP+ #26), so the résumé is good without being loud.
Alabama is a wash. The AP has the Tide 9th on a bye, we have them 8th. The two losses, 20-17 to Georgia and 26-10 at Tennessee, are both Q1 games, so Quads doesn't punish them much. Alabama fan typing this, so take it how you want, but the two boards agree.
Georgia and Notre Dame Are Getting Ranked on Reputation
Now the part that made me open the laptop. Georgia is AP No. 2 with 7 first-place votes. We have them 16th. That's a 14-spot gap, and it comes down to one game.
Georgia lost to Auburn. At home. 27-24. Auburn is SP+ #58, which makes it a Q3 loss, and a Q3 loss is the single most expensive thing on anybody's résumé in the top 10 right now. The 20-17 win at Alabama (SP+ #8) is a legit Q1 road win, and it's the reason Georgia isn't lower.
Saturday's 27-8 win over Florida came in Atlanta, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, because the Jacksonville stadium is under renovation. Georgia forced 4 turnovers and led 24-0 at the half. Great day. Still a Q2 win, and it was Georgia's sixth straight over the Gators, so it's hardly news.
I get why the voters like them. SP+ has Georgia No. 1 in the country. But SP+ is a rating of how good a team looks, and a poll is supposed to rank what a team has earned. Georgia has one Q1 win and a home loss to a team ranked in the 50s.
Notre Dame is the same story with a worse résumé. The Irish are AP 4 and ours 15. Their Q1 record is 0-1, the loss being 28-24 at BYU (SP+ #14). Their best wins are over Wisconsin (SP+ #48) on a neutral field and at North Carolina (SP+ #53).
This weekend they beat Navy 35-13 at a neutral site. Navy is SP+ #88. That's a Q4 win, and Notre Dame moved up a spot for it. Meanwhile BYU, the team that beat Notre Dame straight up, sits at AP 7. Three spots behind the team it beat. SP+ has Notre Dame 3rd and BYU 14th, and the committee is just reading the SP+ number back to us.
So which is the bigger whiff, Georgia at 2 or USC at 18? For me, it's USC, and it isn't close. Georgia at least has the Alabama win to point to. USC feels like they're really getting disrespected at this point, and the next section is why.
USC Beat the No. 2 Team and Still Got 18th
USC beat Ohio State 30-18 at the Coliseum on Halloween night. The Trojans scored in 39 seconds on a 69-yard Maiava pass, and Ohio State's only touchdown came with 2:12 left in the fourth quarter.
Yes, Ohio State was playing its first game without Julian Sayin, who has a potentially season-ending right shoulder injury. Quads doesn't care, and neither should the poll. You beat the No. 2 team in the country by 12, you get the Q1 win.
The AP put USC in at 18, a new entry. We have them 9th. The Trojans have the Ohio State win plus a 31-23 win at Penn State (SP+ #36). The two losses are to Oregon (SP+ #12) and at Wisconsin (SP+ #48). That's a 7-2 team with two quality wins and no loss you'd call ugly.
Here's who the voters put ahead of them. Houston at 17, which didn't play. Houston is 6-2 with a Q1 record of 0-2, and its best wins are over Oklahoma State (SP+ #27) and at Kansas State (SP+ #45). Tennessee at 16, also 6-2, with a 1-2 Q1 record. We have Tennessee 20th and Houston 17th. USC has better wins than either of them and sits behind both.
It gets stranger below that. South Carolina entered the poll at 23 with a 5-3 record. Three losses, one of them to Mississippi State (SP+ #55), plus Alabama and Kentucky. The wins over Tennessee, 27-24, and at Oklahoma, 42-25, are good. The Mississippi State loss is why we have them 33rd.
Missouri climbed four spots to 19 after beating Arkansas 34-10. Arkansas is SP+ #81. Missouri's best win is over Texas A&M (SP+ #37), and it lost 31-3 at Ole Miss. We have the Tigers 25th. Beating Arkansas by 24 is not a résumé event, but the AP treated it like one.
Kentucky Keeps Winning by One and Keeps Getting Doubted
Our No. 2 team in the country sat at AP 8 this week. On a bye. Kentucky didn't play and still can't get into the top 5, and I understand exactly why, I just don't agree with it.
The Wildcats are 7-1. They beat LSU (SP+ #4) 35-34, and they won at South Carolina (SP+ #24) 35-34. Those are two Q1 wins, one of them on the road, and the only loss is 45-17 to Alabama, which is a Q1 game too. Q1 record 2-1, no bad loss anywhere on the sheet. In a year where almost nobody has a clean sheet, that's the second-best résumé in the country by our math.
The doubt comes from SP+, which has Kentucky 34th. Two one-point wins look like a coin that landed on its edge twice. I hear that. And with the way this season has played out, I'm in the camp that any win has to be respected whether it's by 1 or by 100. Quads is built that way on purpose. Margin is not the job.
The part that really bugs me is LSU. The Tigers lost to Kentucky, by one, in Lexington. LSU sits at AP 15, unmoved on a bye, and we have them 22nd. LSU is 6-2 with losses at Ole Miss and at Kentucky, a Q1 record of 0-1, and best wins over Texas A&M (SP+ #37) and Clemson (SP+ #54). SP+ has LSU 4th. So the voters have LSU seven spots above where its résumé says, because it looks like a good team, while the team that beat it gets treated like a fluke.
The Teams We Have That the AP Doesn't, and Where Our Own Math Misses
Three teams in our top 25 aren't in the AP's. Oregon is unranked with 55 votes; we have the Ducks 19th at 5-3, with a 41-27 win at USC and Saturday's 34-26 win over Northwestern. The 21-10 loss at Illinois (SP+ #47) is the drag. SP+ still has Oregon 12th.
UTSA is 7-1 and unranked with 43 votes. We have them 23rd. The only loss is 30-6 at Texas, and the best wins are over South Florida (SP+ #56) and at Texas State (SP+ #61). Thin, but seven wins is seven wins. SP+ has them 59th, so the voters aren't biting.
Northwestern fell out from 20th after the Oregon loss, and we still have them 24th at 6-2 with a 34-13 win over Penn State (SP+ #36). They got 79 votes, the most of any unranked team, so the AP isn't far off here.
We also have Florida higher. The Gators dropped eight spots to 25 after the Georgia loss. We have them 18th, because a 27-24 win at Texas (SP+ #7) and a 52-28 win over Ole Miss are two of the better wins anybody at 5-3 can show.
Now our own mess. Quads has no head-to-head rule, and that produces six results I have to flag myself before somebody on Reddit does it for me.
Georgia sits 16th, below Alabama at 8th, even though Georgia won in Tuscaloosa 20-17. Tennessee sits 20th below that same Alabama team it beat 26-10. Alabama's two losses are both Q1, and it has wins over South Carolina and at Kentucky, so the résumé math holds Bama up. Head-to-head says otherwise, and I'd move both of them if I were allowed a thumb on the scale.
Florida sits 18th above Missouri at 25, and Missouri beat Florida 45-17. Florida also sits above South Carolina at 33, and South Carolina beat the Gators 38-19 in Gainesville. Two teams that beat Florida on the field, both ranked below Florida on our board.
Oregon sits 19th above Illinois at 48, which beat the Ducks 21-10, and above Oklahoma State at 53, which beat them 39-31. The Illinois one is the harder swallow. Those are the gaps where the AP's eye test probably beats our spreadsheet, and I'd rather say it out loud.
Next Week, USC Has to Move
Of every gap on the board, ours 9 against their 18 for USC is the biggest one that runs in a team's favor, and it's the one I'd stake the week on.
A 7-2 team with a Q1 win over Ohio State and a road win at Penn State does not belong behind a Houston team that is 0-2 in Q1 and a Tennessee team that is 1-2. Those are thinner résumés, full stop.
Georgia at 2 is a judgment call about one bad Saturday against Auburn. Notre Dame at 4 is reputation doing a lot of lifting. USC at 18 is just a team the voters didn't look at. They'll get another chance next Sunday.