Explanation of CFP selection process and prediction

Q: What's the purpose of the playoff selection committee?

A: "to select the four best teams from among several with legitimate claims to participate." (Source: selection committee protocol)


Q: How are they supposed to decide who the 4 best teams are?

A: There is no mandatory formula or criteria. The committee has consistently said they look at each team's "resume" or "complete body of work." According to the official protocol, one of the goals of the CFP selection committee is to allow "enough flexibility and discretion to select a non-champion or independent under circumstances where that particular non-champion or independent is unequivocally one of the four best teams in the country."


This year, based on the above we can pretty safely assume that the committee will first rank the conference champions based on their resume, which will go something like:

1. Bama
2. Clemson
3. OU
4. OSU

Then they will look at the teams who didn’t win their conference or don’t play in a conference and determine if they are unequivocally one of the four best teams in the country (in other words, undoubtedly have one of the 4 best resumes in the nation).

Comparing UGA’s resume to OU’s and OSU’s, I don’t think you can say without doubt UGA has a better resume than either. Therefore, UGA is out.

Doing that comparison with Notre Dame is a little tougher. Notre Dame has a decent schedule and won every game. OSU has more high quality wins and a conference championship, but at the end of the day Notre Dame didn’t lose by 29 points to a 6-6 team, and I feel ok saying for that reason Notre Dame undoubtedly has a better resume than Ohio State.

Comparing Notre Dame’s resume to OU’s, with OU’s only loss to a decent Texas team by 3 points who they just beat yesterday, I feel ok saying that Notre Dame does not undoubtedly have a better resume than OU.

Therefore, the final rankings will be:

1. Bama
2. Clemson
3. OU
4. Notre Dame