Since it's obvious that the Committee cares less for number of losses and more for resume (and I don't blame them), I'm expanding to account for that. I've ordered teams by what I think their resume as listed indicates. I don't think the Committee cares as much for margin of victory so it mainly matters how good your opponents are and how they've done. Rankings are the most-recent Committee rankings.
Team A - Beat #9, #17, #24; No loss
Team B - Beat #18, #19; No loss
Team C - Beat #11, #12, #23; Lost to #14
Team D - Beat #13, #25; Lost to #7
Team E - Beat #17, #24; Lost to #10
Team F - Beat #18, #23; Lost to #11
Team G - Beat #4; Lost to unranked
Team H - Beat #12; Lost to unranked
Team I - Beat #10, #13, #17; Lost to #1, #24
Team J - Beat #6, #14; Lost to #2, #23
Team K - Beat #5, #24; Lost to #9, #17
Team L - Beat #16; Lost to #2, #8
Team M - Beat none; Lost to #4, #9
Team N - Beat #2, Lost to #11, unranked
Team O - Beat none; Lost to #12
Team P - Beat #10, #20; Lost to #1, #5, #9
Team Q - Beat none; Lost to #3, #6
Team R - Beat none; Lost to #3, #15
Team S - Beat #19; Lost to unranked x2
Team T - Beat #22; Lost to unranked
Team U - Beat #9; Lost to #1, #5, #10
Team V - Beat #11; Lost to #2, #6, unranked
Team W - Beat none; Lost to #4, unranked
Team X - Beat none; Lost to #17, unranked
Team Y - Beat none; Lost to #21, unranked
Good stuff, Mav. I have some thoughts regarding the committee's inconsistency. Going off of your benchmarks (and accepting we don't know if this is exactly what the committee is doing), I can not see how a two-loss, no-ranked-win Kansas St is in front of Arizona (two-loss, one-ranked-win) or Nebraska (one-loss, no-ranked-win). For that matter, I don't see how Arizona with two losses (one to an unranked team) is ahead of a one-loss Nebraska. Sure, Arizona won against a ranked opponent, but they also lost to an unranked opponent the following week and a lower-ranked team two weeks after that. So, which Arizona team are they?
Also, why are they not penalizing Notre Dame and Clemson more? Both have two-losses but have no ranked-wins. Is it because their losses are against quality opponents? If that is the argument (which it doesn't seem to be), then Nebraska should also be favored.
Good stuff, Mav. I have some thoughts regarding the committee's inconsistency. Going off of your benchmarks (and accepting we don't know if this is exactly what the committee is doing), I can not see how a two-loss, no-ranked-win Kansas St is in front of Arizona (two-loss, one-ranked-win) or Nebraska (one-loss, no-ranked-win). For that matter, I don't see how Arizona with two losses (one to an unranked team) is ahead of a one-loss Nebraska. Sure, Arizona won against a ranked opponent, but they also lost to an unranked opponent the following week and a lower-ranked team two weeks after that. So, which Arizona team are they?
Also, why are they not penalizing Notre Dame and Clemson more? Both have two-losses but have no ranked-wins. Is it because their losses are against quality opponents? If that is the argument (which is doesn't seem to be), then Nebraska should also be favored.
I think it's pretty close. To me, Arizona's big win and bad loss kind of cancel each other out - the downgrade they get for losing to an unranked team is offset by having the "best" win in the country. If you take that approach, then KState still has the two losses but they're both "better" than either Nebraska's or Arizona's loss. You could change the order around a little but I think it's close.
Neither ND or Clemson have a "good" win but every team behind them has lost to an unranked team except three-loss aTm.
Does beat (said ranked team) by ( said amount of points) have no bearing? Same as lost to (said ranked team) by (said amount of points) have no bearing also?
If team A beats #4 ranked team by 20 but loses to #6 ranked team by 2 you would think that would influence the ranking. Shouldn't this come into play with your original list?
You must beat perceived weak teams by a large margin and if you beat a team perceived as a strong team by a large margin, that's even better. Losing to a weak team is clearly a no-no, but losing a close game to a perceived strong team is really not too damaging. Hard to argue that the margin of victory isn't a big factor right now.
I have no explanation for Georgia. They have won some games by bigger margins but they also lost to two unranked teams and one of those was by 18 points.
The combination of Oregon winning big and FSU not dominating may have been what put Oregon ahead but Oregon also has more and better wins over current Top 25 teams.
UCLA has one big win but they've also won by 8, 7, 3, 2, and 3 over not particularly good teams. It's possible that they are giving credit for big wins but not downgrading close wins but I don't think the people sitting on the Committee would feel that way.
