Texas A&M over Washington in the Playoff rankings is frustrating, but it’ll work itself out

The College Football Playoff committee released its first set of rankings on Tuesday night, and they come with an obvious, overbearing disclaimer: things will change a lot. Of course they will. Of the top seven teams, all zero- or one-loss programs, at least half will probably lose over the next five Saturdays. Whatever we think we know will be proven wrong. That’s how college football works.

That said, each new set of rankings reveals pieces of the committee’s thinking, and what we saw from Tuesday’s release was disconcerting.

The top three teams in the CFP rankings (Alabama, Clemson, Michigan) weren’t particularly surprising. I’d put Michigan second, but no big deal here.

I had a serious problem with the teams ranked fourth through seventh.

Let’s take a look at some of my favorite computer ratings, beginning with my own rating:

I tend to prefer ratings that have the capability of dialing into variables more complicated than points scored/allowed and “who’ve you played?” Most of the above look at per-play or per-drive variables and dial into what creates success. They aren’t going to punish you for losing to good teams, and they also aren’t going to over-reward you for beating bad ones.

Of those seven systems, six had Texas A&M last among these four teams.

And yet, not only is A&M ahead of the two other one-loss teams in the Playoff rankings (Ohio State, Louisville), the Aggies are also ahead of unbeaten Washington.

Texas A&M shouldn’t be naturally punished for being the only team with Alabama on the schedule. The Aggies were relatively competitive with the dominant Crimson Tide for a while before folding, and there’s a pretty good chance Louisville, Ohio State, and Washington would all lose to Bama, too.

We can talk about strength of record all we want; actual team strength should still matter more.

Washington, Louisville, and Ohio State have experienced glitches in 2016. Washington nearly lost to Arizona in a Pac-12-after-dark road game. Louisville thought about losing to Duke and really thought about losing to Virginia. Ohio State lost to Penn State and nearly lost to Northwestern at home. There are vulnerabilities. But with one-third of the season left to play, we should be looking at upside and raw displays of quality as much as we’re looking at “strength of record.”

Washington was a no-brainer top-four team to me, because of the strength it has shown on the field.

That Texas A&M beat Auburn is a sign that the Aggies are a good team, but it feels like the Aggies are getting too much credit for beating teams like UCLA, Arkansas, and Tennessee that have shown signs of mediocrity despite preseason expectations. Meanwhile, Washington is getting punished for Stanford and Oregon not being very good.

And while the Huskies’ non-conference slate (Rutgers, Idaho, Portland State) was poor, I always struggle with the thought of punishing a set of players and coaches because of the scheduling actions of some associate athletic director years earlier. Washington has scheduled teams like Boise State and LSU in non-conference play in recent years and just had an upcoming home-and-home with Wisconsin canceled.

This was a frustrating look at what the committee values. Yes, we want to reward teams for scheduling tougher non-conference slates. But we should still value rewarding great teams for being great more.

If Washington wins out, the “conference title bump” will probably boost the Huskies into the top four even if other teams losing out hasn’t already done that for them.

At least ... that might be the case. A look at win probabilities suggests these next few weeks could be more orderly than usual. Clemson’s win over Florida State last Saturday was a large bullet dodged for fans of chalk. (Full win probabilities can be found in the Football Study Hall stat profiles.)

Of the top 15 teams, 13 are given at least a 76 percent chance of winning this coming weekend. The only exceptions are Nebraska (at Ohio State) and LSU (vs. Alabama). And in Week 11, no team is below 59 percent.

It goes beyond that, though. Only six of the top 15 are projected underdogs even once. Clemson has at least an 88 percent chance of winning in each of its final four regular season games, while Washington drops below 86 percent just once. If Alabama survives Baton Rouge this weekend, the Crimson Tide’s odds of finishing 12-0 rise from 47 percent to 74 percent.

Among the top seven teams, Texas A&M has only about a one-in-six chance of winning out, and Ohio State’s chances are only about two-in-nine because of the Michigan game (and the Buckeyes’ recent mini-funk). The other five, however, are all at 73 percent or higher of finishing with zero or one loss.

While Texas A&M and Louisville need significant help to reach the title game — A&M would need to win out and hope Auburn does the same (which includes beating Alabama), while Louisville would need Clemson to lose two of three to Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and Wake Forest — the other five teams among the top seven still have decent odds of reaching their conference championships. Here are their win probabilities against their most likely title game opponents.

There are a few battles left among the CFP’s top 15 teams.

Still, even with the frustrating placement of Texas A&M, this year’s rankings feel pretty orderly. The odds of full-fledged chaos aren’t as high as we would perhaps prefer.

What, you think that I’m saying all of this in attempt to jinx us into chaos? I would never do such a thing.