Joe Klatt contrasts Mississippi State vs Penn State in College Football Rankings

As they usually do, the College Football Playoff rankings brought a lot of controversy on Tuesday night. The biggest of them all was Alabama debuting at No. 2 even after a loss to Texas A&M.

During his weekly appearance on The Herd with Collin Cowherd, Fox’s Joel Klatt said the committee was inconsistent with their rankings. His main concern was with Mississippi State being ranked at No. 17 despite not having an impressive resume.

The team he used as a comparison was Penn State. Both hold 5-3 overall records with a couple of bad losses respectively. The Nittany Lions even have two wins against CFP ranked opponents.

Despite the similarities between the two, Klatt argues the committee is saying they are nothing alike.

“One is ranked seventeenth and the other is unranked,” said Klatt. “The committee is telling me there is a significant difference between the two. Penn State currently has two wins against teams that are currently ranked in the CFP Top 25. They beat Wisconsin Week 1, they beat Auburn at home. They’ve got three losses. One of those losses was a bad loss in which they controlled the game against Iowa then they got their quarterback hurt — which the committee is supposed to look at. Then also got beat the next week by a bad Illinois team, there’s no doubt, but Mississippi State got beat by Memphis.”

Even though the Bulldogs have won three of four (loss to Alabama), Klatt believes a loss early in the season such as Memphis is too much to justify a near top 15 rankings.

Boosting Alabama’s resume

Klatt goes on to say the reason the committee put Mississippi State where they did was to make the Crimson Tide look better. Alongside Ole Miss at No. 16, it gives Alabama two large margins of victories against ranked opponents.

“So they’re including Mississippi State at 17,” Klatt said. “Why? So they can legitimately put Alabama at No. 2 — it makes their resume look better.”

The Fox analyst went on to say the Bulldogs ranking “is fine” but that the idea behind it “is flawed.”

The same could possibly be said for an Ohio State team ranked No. 5 in the country. With Penn State outside of the top 25, the Buckeyes, who have rolled in five straight games, do not have a CFP ranked win on their schedule.

Mississippi State will have the opportunity to back up the committee’s ranking in two weekends, facing off against No. 12 Auburn. From there, we would know how impressive of a win Alabama really secured on Oct. 16.