The latest edition of the College Football Playoff rankings are in, and the committee is not a fan of Georgia football. After the Bulldogs' loss to Ole Miss this past weekend, UGA fell to No. 12 in the latest edition of these rankings. This actually puts Georgia outside of the 12-team bracket because No. 13 Boise State would be ahead of them as one of the five highest ranked conference champions.
How is this ranking for Georgia even possible? Sure Kirby Smart's squad definitely deserved to drop after their loss, but falling completely outside of the playoff field makes no sense.
There are a lot of arguments one could make about why Georgia's ranking does not make any sense, but here are a few of the more obvious reasons.
1. Number of ranked wins compared to other teams
The first reason why Georgia's ranking makes no sense is because of the number of ranked wins they have compared to other teams. Using the committee's top 25 they just released, Georgia has a 15-point win over No. 3 Texas and a 28-point blowout win against No. 20 Clemson. To make these wins look even more impressive, neither occurred at home.
Now if we look higher up the rankings, there are a few teams that have zero ranked wins that are ranked much. higher. This includes No. 3 Texas, No. 4 Penn State and No. 5 Indiana. How is there this large of a gap between these three teams and Georgia when the Bulldogs have two much better wins than all three of these teams? Especially Texas. Sure the Longhorns only have one loss compared to Georgia's two, but their one loss literally came to Georiga.
The committee also loves No. 6 Notre Dame who has a loss at home to 5-4 Northern Illinois. So if Georgia is going to be punished for their losses then this loss should destroy Notre Dame.
2. No. 1 Strength of Schedule
The next reason why Georgia's rankings doesn't make any sense is because of their strength of schedule. At the end of the day, winning is the most important thing, but strength of schedule is a huge factor that needs to be weighed when comparing teams.
The Bulldogs currently have the No. 1 strength of schedule in the country. They have played road games agsint three top 11 teams, have a home game against No. 7 Tennessee up next, and played a neutral site game against No. 20 Clemson. In those four game that Georgia has played so far, they are 2-2, which isn't terrible by any means.
But UGA's strength of schedule is much better than other teams above them. Indiana in No. 56. Penn State is No. 15. Miami and BYU are No. 22 and 35 respectively.
Do all of these teams deserve to be ranked inside the top 12 right now? Yes, of course they do. But it's clear that the committee is not factoring in strength of schedule enough when comparing teams.
And the scary thing is, the committee said they are actually looking at this metric. Someone may want to check and make sure they're looking at the correct data, because it is hard to believe they are actually using it.
3. Georgia’s drop vs. Miami’s drop
Georgia fell nine spots in this weeks rankings for No. 3 to No. 12. That fall, as mentioned, is hard to understand on its own, but it becomes impossible to understand when compared to Miami's fall.
The Hurriances lost their first game of the season this past weekend 28-23 to Georgia Tech. This loss only dropped Miami from No. 4 to No. 9. So how did this loss result in less of a drop for Miami than Georgia's loss?
As everyone knows, Georgia lost to Ole Miss on the road this past weekend, and the Rebels are the No. 11 team in these updated CFP rankings. Georgia Tech on the other hand is unranked in the CFP's rankings, so Miami's loss to the Yellow Jackets came against a much worse team in the committee's eyes.
So how did Georgia, who was ranked above Miami in last week's rankings, fall behind Miami when the Hurricanes loss came against a worse team?
The committee was asked about this, and their response does not help their case.
”Well, the obvious is the first loss for Miami and the second loss for Georgia. That obviously played a factor into it.”
Interesting, just last week the committee ranked Georgia above Miami even thought they had one more loss than the Hurricanes. Why do number of losses all of a sudden matter now?
Regardless of these terrible rankings from the committee, Georgia has to get focused and prove them wrong. They have a great test in front of them against No. 7 Tennessee, and if they win that game this weekend there is a good chance UGA will move up these rankings.