When the first College Football Playoff ranking came out around this time last year, Ohio State was ranked 16th. The Buckeyes not only made the tournament but also won it in convincing style, beating Alabama and Oregon. A failure on the committee’s part? Not exactly. The bigger problem is the way the rest of us analyze the rankings. We pay too much attention to the specific order and not enough to the buckets into which each team falls. It may have been deeply surprising that a team starting at No. 16 rose to become champion. It was less surprising that a one-loss conference champion – which describes Ohio State – won it all. Our goal here is to give you a guide to this year’s rankings, the first version of which will appear Tuesday at 7 p.m. The best way to approach the early seeding is to think less about specific teams than about categories of teams. An example is the Southeastern Conference champion. …
Continue Reading: The Upshot|College Football Playoff 2015: A Smarter Way to Look at the Scenarios
