Alabama’s No. 5 spot in the first College Football Playoff rankings has been a lightning rod since Tuesday night, but CBS Sports’ David Cobb sees the Crimson Tide in a much stronger light when it comes to resume value.
In Cobb’s ranking of the top 15 Playoff resumes, Alabama is tied for No. 3 with Ole Miss. Kentucky sits at No.
1, Miami is No. 2, and Texas checks in at No. 5.
Four of the top five resumes belong to SEC teams, with Georgia coming in at No. 9 and Florida at No. 12.
That Florida placement is especially notable because the Gators were slotted No. 24 by the Selection Committee on Tuesday night, which makes calling them a true Playoff contender a stretch.
Cobb built his list using CFB Metrics Consensus, a collection of 10 data sources that includes ESPN’s FPI, Bill Connelly’s SP+, plus rankings from Jeff Sagarin, Brian Fremeau and Kenneth Massey. He described it as “A cleaner way to look at college football resumes. No predictive metrics.
Borrowing from college basketball’s WAB and Quad systems.
Quads determined by where your opponents rank in the CFB Metrics Consensus.”
His resume scores, Cobb said, “assign a value for each win/loss based on the likelihood that the average top-25 team would win or lose the game.” He also argued the Selection Committee should lean on a metric that can be boiled down to “ Wins.
Losses. Locations.”
For Alabama, the biggest boost came from the lopsided road win over Kentucky. Wins against South Carolina and Texas A&M also helped the Tide’s case. And as with basketball’s NET rankings, a close loss can still carry weight - which is why Alabama’s narrow defeat to Georgia adds value in Cobb’s system.
The rankings aren’t meant to be the final word, but they do offer a different lens on the same Playoff debate that’s been raging all week.
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