Landlord
Banned
So a user over on reddit had an interesting idea. He made a blind resume system for users to rank teams on.
The resumes showed a team's record, record vs Top 25, record vs Top 10, strength of schedule, margin of victory, and description of loss. no names, no conferences.
Almost 900 regular ole college football fans just like you and me filled out the survey, ranking the teams in the order they thought was fair based on blind resumes. Here were the results:
Now, obviously this is a very imperfect means of ranking. Even more obviously, there is no such thing as a perfect means of ranking. Even more obviously still, teams can't be ranked in a vacuum without influence of the general college football landscape, including ESPN. But, remarkably, 900 regular fans without knowledge of the names or conferences of the teams they were actually voting for, came up with a poll that was remarkably close to the poll of the CFB Playoff Selection Committee.
The resumes showed a team's record, record vs Top 25, record vs Top 10, strength of schedule, margin of victory, and description of loss. no names, no conferences.
Almost 900 regular ole college football fans just like you and me filled out the survey, ranking the teams in the order they thought was fair based on blind resumes. Here were the results:

Now, obviously this is a very imperfect means of ranking. Even more obviously, there is no such thing as a perfect means of ranking. Even more obviously still, teams can't be ranked in a vacuum without influence of the general college football landscape, including ESPN. But, remarkably, 900 regular fans without knowledge of the names or conferences of the teams they were actually voting for, came up with a poll that was remarkably close to the poll of the CFB Playoff Selection Committee.