Notre Dame’s No. 10 College Football Playoff ranking shows this committee is leaning more on feelings than data

The College Football Playoff Committee is supposed to be the rational group, the room full of people who watch the games, interpret the meaning of the results and dive deeper into raw data than any reporter or fan could conceive. Watching football — and ranking teams — is their chief responsibility in life.

That’s why the CFP Rankings and the Associated Press Poll are usually different. The rankings aren’t shaped by feelings or hypothetical future matchups. Their deliberations don’t look like social media debates on X. It’s just data. And the rankings reflect that data.

Which is why Notre Dame checking in at No. 10 may be the most misplaced ranking I’ve seen in the initial CFP Poll in the decade-plus they’ve been using this system.

The Irish, who began the year with consecutive losses to Texas A&M and Miami, have won six games in a row. Quarterback CJ Carr is turning into a real weapon, and running back Jeremiyah Love is one of the best overall players in college football. Anyone with eyes can see this team is very good, one that could make a run into January for the second consecutive year.

But Notre Dame is ranked ahead of No. 11 Texas, No. 12 Oklahoma and No. 18 Miami, all of whom have the same number of losses and more quality wins. Miami, of course, beat the Irish in the season opener with the entire country watching.

It seems like feeling ruled the ship in these rankings, which makes you wonder — is this year’s CFP Committee going to rank teams more like the AP Poll voters than any previous iteration of that group?

So what did the Committee see to put Notre Dame in the No. 10 slot?

“I think it starts with two losses of a total of four points against two very, very good teams,” CFP Committee chair Mack Rhoades, the Athletics Director at Baylor, said after the rankings reveal. “Six straight wins. You look at their backfield, Jadarian Price and Jeremiyah Love, probably the best backfield in the country when you think about 1-2 punch. Going into the Southern Cal game, they lost their starting center, and they were able to overcome that and run for a bunch of yards. When we look at the tape, we think Notre Dame is a really solid football team on both sides of the ball.”

What did you notice about that quote? More feeling, less data.

Let’s look at the data, starting with strength of record. Texas ranks No. 9, Oklahoma is No. 11 and Miami is No. 18. Strength of schedule? Texas is No. 11, Oklahoma is No. 12 and Notre Dame is No. 23. How about quality wins? Texas has beaten No. 12 Oklahoma and No. 16 Vanderbilt. Oklahoma has beaten No. 21 Michigan and No. 24 Tennessee. Miami has beaten Notre Dame. Notre Dame’s lone quality win is over No. 19 USC.

Again, why is Notre Dame ranked higher than those teams?

Feelings? Are we doing feelings?

I have those feelings, too. I think Notre Dame is a team that can make a second consecutive run in the CFP, a year removed from predicting the Irish would make it all the way to the national title game last season and being right. I have a ton of respect for head coach Marcus Freeman and the roster he has assembled in South Bend. It’s understandable — and reasonable — to like Notre Dame. I fully anticipate the Irish will finish 10-2, make the field and potentially go on another run.

But the rankings have to consistently mirror what the data tells us. The results of the games have to matter. How far can the CFP Committee veer off data and lean into feelings? Was it responsible to give Notre Dame the benefit of the doubt and overly rely on the eye test when putting together the initial poll for public consumption?

“I think, for Miami – I’m just gonna say it. For Miami, it’s about consistency and their lack of consistency,” Rhoades said. “We just need to see more consistency out of Miami headed down the stretch.”

Makes sense. And if Miami doesn’t illustrate consistency, it won’t win its final four games to put itself in position to make the CFP. But as the entire resume is currently constructed — which is all we can use to rank the teams today — are feelings the reason the Hurricanes are eight spots behind the team they beat head-to-head while having a similar complete resume?

I asked Rhoades about the balance of listening to the data and falling in love with the eye test on the media conference call after the rankings reveal on ESPN on Tuesday night.

“We refer to it as art and science,” Rhoades said. “The art is watching the team on film and tape. How good they are up front, offensive line, defensive line, their quarterback play, their skill players. And then certainly contemplating and looking at metrics. Ari, I know you know this, but there isn’t one metric weighted more than the other. We use them all at our disposal to get the very best answer. … The beauty in this is the debate and the discussion in the room when we are discussing all those metrics.” 

Art and science.

Got it.

This year’s CFP Committee seems different. There was much more feelings talk in the conference call than I ever recall hearing in the 10-plus years doing this.

What a ride this could be.