I'm already tired of the whole "rankings don't matter this early" crap people are saying.
Look at what happened to us last year. Once the CFP rankings came out, Ohio State and Indiana were basically immovable ahead of us. We were undefeated, had a tougher schedule than both of them, and kept winning; however, we never got the benefit of the doubt to move past either one. They had established the perception that they were the top two teams, and we had to keep proving ourselves from behind them.
Same thing happened with the one-loss teams.
Texas Tech was ranked ahead of us among the one-loss teams before we ever lost. Oregon, Ole Miss and Georgia were all established ahead of us, too. When we finally lost to Texas, we didn't get evaluated from scratch against those teams, we dropped behind the entire group.
And that's exactly why early rankings matter.
They don't necessarily determine where you finish. But they establish a baseline of perception. Once that baseline exists, two teams with similar records don't necessarily get treated equally. The team that was already viewed as "better" gets the benefit of the doubt.
And in the CFP, that matters enormously because the ranking isn't just a number. It determines your seeding, your bye, your opponent and your path.
We went from No. 3 to No. 7 after one loss and went from a first-round bye to playing the toughest opponent in the first round, Miami, who ultimately made the national championship game.
So yes, it's early. A lot will change.
But "early rankings don't matter" is simply not true. Last year was a pretty damn good demonstration of why.
Look at what happened to us last year. Once the CFP rankings came out, Ohio State and Indiana were basically immovable ahead of us. We were undefeated, had a tougher schedule than both of them, and kept winning; however, we never got the benefit of the doubt to move past either one. They had established the perception that they were the top two teams, and we had to keep proving ourselves from behind them.
Same thing happened with the one-loss teams.
Texas Tech was ranked ahead of us among the one-loss teams before we ever lost. Oregon, Ole Miss and Georgia were all established ahead of us, too. When we finally lost to Texas, we didn't get evaluated from scratch against those teams, we dropped behind the entire group.
And that's exactly why early rankings matter.
They don't necessarily determine where you finish. But they establish a baseline of perception. Once that baseline exists, two teams with similar records don't necessarily get treated equally. The team that was already viewed as "better" gets the benefit of the doubt.
And in the CFP, that matters enormously because the ranking isn't just a number. It determines your seeding, your bye, your opponent and your path.
We went from No. 3 to No. 7 after one loss and went from a first-round bye to playing the toughest opponent in the first round, Miami, who ultimately made the national championship game.
So yes, it's early. A lot will change.
But "early rankings don't matter" is simply not true. Last year was a pretty damn good demonstration of why.
