What’s the value of a win?

This isn’t a rhetorical question. It’s something the committee should be asking on a weekly basis. We tend to discuss win-loss records in concrete terms, then debate résumés in subjective ones, and that’s where fans, pundits and, especially, the committee run into trouble.

For example, when a reporter asked Curt Cignetti if his Indiana Hoosiers still belonged in the playoff after a blowout loss to Ohio State, he responded with a mix of befuddlement and indignation. How could a team with a 10-1 record in the Big Ten not be in the playoff?

To which any critic might rightfully argue that Indiana’s one loss — by 23 to the only SP+ top-30 team on their schedule — said more about the Hoosiers than the 10 wins did.

On the other hand, there’s Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, who this week suggested it would be an outrage if a Group of 5 champion eclipsed his conference for the final playoff bye (which might actually be the least of his problems). He rattled off his fair share of data points — strength of schedule, margin of victory, advanced metrics — that make a clear-cut case for the Big 12. The only problem? The Big 12 champ might have as many as two more losses than the Group of 5’s representative.

Or, more succinctly: The Big Ten thinks its teams are best, because they’ve lost fewer games, while the SEC thinks its teams are best, because they’ve played a tougher schedule.

So, which is it?

Let’s apply some math.

If we use the Football Power Index’s pregame win expectation, we can get an approximate “degree of difficulty” on each win.

Indiana, to Cignetti’s point, might not have beaten great teams, but winning is still hard. The odds, by the FPI, of winning all 10 of the Hoosiers’ victories come out to about 12%.

Compare that with Texas. The Longhorns have had a particularly soft schedule, too, and like Indiana, they were overmatched in their one serious test (against Georgia). Using those same FPI odds, the chances Texas would’ve won the 10 games it has are actually pretty good — 42.4%, or a little less than a coin flip.

So by that logic, Indiana’s 10-1 record is far more impressive than Texas’ 10-1 record.

Of course, those pregame win projections also account for an important variable: team quality. Indiana’s odds were lower because the FPI innately understands that Texas is a better team, in terms of talent, than Indiana.

So what if we just go by strength of schedule?

That’s tricky, too. Indiana’s schedule strength entering last week stood at an embarrassing 106th nationally. Then the Hoosiers played Ohio State, and its strength of schedule jumped to No. 51. So did the Hoosiers’ record get any more impressive as a result? Of course not! They won their 10 games against the 106th-best schedule and lost a game against, effectively, the No. 1 toughest schedule of Week 13 (though certainly Texas A&M, Ole Miss and Alabama might quibble with that analysis).

This is where ESPN’s strength-of-record metric is helpful. It accounts for both opponent strength and the actual outcome. It suggests Texas (at No. 5) is ahead of Indiana (at No. 7). But what does that actually mean? The answer is not much. If we look at the raw numbers on strength of record, Texas’ score is only about 3% better than Indiana’s. The difference is negligible — and that’s before we remember that opponent quality is both subjective and an independent variable. In other words, Texas doesn’t control how good its opponents are. Is it the Longhorns’ fault Michigan, last season’s national champ, isn’t very good in 2024? Is it Texas’ fault that, in a conference with a dozen solid teams, the SEC office handed out a schedule that featured just two genuinely good opponents? Texas is the same team regardless who it plays, we’d just have a better gauge of how good that team is if it had played a few more quality opponents. Strength of schedule is a measure of certainty not quality.

Or, perhaps a better example: SMU has wins against Louisville and Pitt and a close loss to BYU. Three weeks ago, BYU and Pitt were undefeated and Louisville was a top-25 team. That’s a strong résumé (not that the committee noticed). But BYU has lost two straight, Pitt has dropped three in a row and Louisville delivered one of the most inexplicably disastrous losses in recent college football history against Stanford. Suddenly SMU — through absolutely no fault of its own — has a much less impressive résumé, long after the games in question were actually played.

Let’s get back to our central question then: What is a win worth?

In nearly every other sport the answer is simple. A win is worth a win, or at least a non-loss. But in college football, it’s all debatable, which is why we have a committee.

The problem, of course, is the committee debates are secret and its explanations are often paradoxical. Rankings often seem less about a genuine appreciation for what a team has done than a speculative assumption about what it might do in a hypothetical future or alternate timeline, and this season, more than any in recent memory, that seems a fool’s errand.

AP poll:
No. 5 lost to NIU
6 has multiple losses to 3-loss teams
7 lost to Ark
8 lost to GT
13 lost to Vandy & Okla
14 lost to TxTech & Cincy
15 lost to UF & UK
17 lost to TxTech & Kansas
18 lost to Okla
19 lost to Kansas
20 lost to Auburn
21 lost to Cuse
22 lost to Minn
23 lost…

— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) November 25, 2024

So here we are. After a weekend of chaos around college football — particularly in the SEC — the committee is throwing ideas against the wall and simply reporting back what stuck.

Which brings us to this week’s Anger Index.

1. The Big 12

Imagine the following scenario: Boise State and Tulane both win out, earning conference championships.

The Big 12’s champion, however, is three-loss Kansas State, three-loss Colorado or even two-loss Iowa State. All of them are currently ranked behind both Tulane (the presumed AAC champ) and Boise State (the presumed Mountain West champ), which could lead us to this eventuality: Two Group of 5 champs get in, and the Big 12 is shut out completely.

This would be a genuine catastrophe for the league, but it’s not a major leap to envision exactly that happening.

But would it be fair?

Yormark certainly doesn’t think so.

“Based on where we sit today, I see no rationale for the Big 12’s champion not getting a first-round bye,” Yormark told Yahoo Sports. “From a strength-of-schedule standpoint, all four of our schools at the top of the standings are ranked ahead of Boise State.”

Well, sure, but the committee isn’t ranking strength of schedule, and right now, everyone but Arizona State sits behind multiple Group of 5 teams.

The problem is the committee seems incredibly concerned with the quality of losses, and in that respect, Boise State (one loss to Oregon) and Tulane (losses to Kansas State and Oklahoma) have far more explainable blemishes than Iowa State (losses to Kansas and Texas Tech), Colorado (losses to Nebraska, Kansas and Kansas State) or even Arizona State (losses to Cincinnati and Texas Tech). The great irony is Kansas State has a pretty clear-cut case to be ahead of Tulane — a 34-27 head-to-head win — but the Wildcats’ loss to Houston looks much worse than, ironically, Tulane’s L to … Kansas State.

For more context on the committee’s willingness to engage in this circular logic, go back to 2014 when the Big 12 was also left out, despite Baylor and TCU knocking on the door.

On the other hand, seeing Coach Prime left out in favor of a team from the American might create enough hot takes to power all the holiday lights in America.

2. Every team with playoff hopes not named Clemson (9-2, No. 12)

Somehow the Tigers, left for dead after a 33-21 loss to Louisville less than a month ago, are now our first team out.

Why is that exactly?

Clemson might have the single thinnest résumé of any team in the top 25 — and worse than a handful of unranked teams, too — when you dig into the numbers.

Clemson’s best win by SP+ came against Virginia Tech, which is ranked No. 31. The Hokies, 5-6 and on the verge of missing a bowl after a loss to Virginia in Week 14, are hardly an indicator that Clemson is capable of greatness.

Clemson’s next best win came against Pitt by four points in a game mired by controversial officiating. That’s the same Pitt currently embroiled in a four-game losing streak. Pitt is the only Power 4 team with a winning record to lose to the Tigers.

The two teams with a pulse that have played Clemson both won handily — Georgia by 31 in the opener and Louisville by 12 on Nov. 2 in Death Valley.

So, what exactly is the rationale for ranking Clemson ahead of, say, Arizona State (three wins better than Virginia Tech), BYU (two), Kansas State (three), Alabama (four), Ole Miss (three) or South Carolina (three)? Iowa State, Arizona State, Texas A&M, South Carolina, BYU and Alabama all have better strength-of-record metrics than the Tigers.

The Gamecocks will at least get a chance to prove the point on the field Saturday in the Palmetto Bowl, and given where the committee has things now, it’s entirely possible that game is a de facto play-in for the playoff.

Whether Clemson belongs in that advantageous position, however, seems a dubious proposition.

Of course, if this is all setting the stage for the committee to deviously jump Alabama over an ACC team in the final poll, then we applaud their willingness to play the long game.

Let’s do a quick blind comparison here.

Team A: 9-2, 1-1 vs. FPI top-40, losses to teams with a combined record of 18-4 by a combined 8 points

Team B: 9-2, 0-2 vs. FPI top-40, losses to teams with a combined record of 14-8 by a combined 22 points

Would it help here if we noted both of these teams are from the Group of 5, but Team A has two wins vs. Power 4 opponents, while Team B has none?

Pretty easy pick, right? Team A has a clear edge. Only Team A is UNLV, which ranks No. 22 and would be at a disadvantage for a playoff bid, even if it wins out.

Team B is Tulane, which checks in at No. 17.

Heck, UNLV might even have the best case of anyone for jumping the Big 12 by virtue of wins over Kansas and Houston — two teams that have beaten BYU, Colorado, Kansas State and Iowa State.

There are 10 schools from Power 4 conferences with 8-3 records after Week 13. Eight of them are ranked. The two that aren’t are both in the ACC, outside the AP Top 25 and with ample reason to be outraged.

Team A: No. 26 strength of record, best wins vs SP+ Nos. 36 & 52, losses to SP+ Nos. 16, 41 & 55 by a total of 37 points

Team B: No. 31 strength or record, best wins vs SP+ Nos. 31 & 44, losses to SP+ Nos. 8, 13 & 61 by a total of 33 points

Pretty darned close, right? Team B, however, has the better wins and the better losses, so the only thing supporting Team A seems to be a moderately better middle of the résumé.

So, who are they?

Team B is Duke. Team A is Colorado.

Syracuse is admittedly a tougher sell because of w`an ugly loss to Stanford, but the Orange have wins over No. 22 UNLV and a Georgia Tech team that knocked off Miami.

And yet, neither Duke nor Syracuse is ranked.

Does it really matter? Neither would sniff the playoff anyway.

And yet, as Syracuse QB Kyle McCord told ESPN, the recognition is meaningful to a young program with a first-year coach hoping to establish an identity — a story that’s true of Duke, too.

“You want to get that recognition,” McCord said. “That’s one of our goals is to be ranked by the CFP committee.”

And it matters, too, for the other teams making a case for the playoff. Miami faces Syracuse this week. It has already defeated Duke. SMU, still criminally underappreciated by the committee, has a win over Duke, too. When “ranked wins” are a metric — fraught as it might be — it matters.

What could Notre Dame possibly have to quibble with? After all, No. 5 is as good as it gets for the Fighting Irish, who cannot, by rule, earn a first-round bye.

But here’s the problem: They’re outflanked by three Big Ten teams and narrowly ahead of perhaps the most intimidating team in the country in Georgia. And because the first four spots have to go to conference champions, we could be looking at a final ranking that looks something like this: Oregon, Georgia, ACC champion and Big 12 or Group of 5 champion get the byes, with Ohio State, Texas and Penn State next in the pecking order.

That leaves Notre Dame poised precariously on the brink of landing a home game for the playoff.

The odds are still long that the Irish would get pushed beyond the top eight, but stranger things have happened. And it really shouldn’t be a topic for debate. Notre Dame has six wins vs. opponents that are currently 7-4 or better — the most of any team in the country — and is riding a nine-game winning streak in which it outscored the opposition by an average of 33 points per game.

Of course, there’s still that messy incident in Week 2 when the Irish fell to Northern Illinois. If those two played 100 more times, it would surprise no one if Notre Dame won 99 of them. But there’s no ignoring what happened, and for as good as the Irish look today, they also have the worst loss of any playoff contender by a country mile.

It sure would be a shame if that loss kept them from hosting a game in northern Indiana in mid-December.

Also angry: Iowa State, Kansas State, Curt Cignetti, Greg Sankey, anyone going to the grocery store on Wednesday.

The top four stayed the same for the third week in a row in the fourth installment of the College Football Playoff rankings Tuesday night, but a chaotic Saturday brought plenty more changes to the playoff picture.

No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Texas and No. 4 Penn State remain atop the selection committee’s rankings entering the final week of the regular season. Indiana (10-1) dropped five spots to No. 10 following its 38-15 loss at Ohio State but remains in position to earn a CFP bid with a win over Purdue (1-10).

“We viewed Indiana, they played well at times against Ohio State,” Warde Manuel, chair of the CFP committee, said on ESPN’s rankings release show Tuesday night.

“We were impressed with some of the things that Indiana did. And they dropped five, but we still felt that their body of work was strong enough to remain in the top 10.”

Notre Dame replaced the Hoosiers at No. 5 following its 49-14 rout of undefeated Army, which dropped out of the committee’s top 25 this week. Miami (No. 6), Georgia (No. 7), Tennessee (No. 8) and SMU (No. 9) join Indiana in rounding out the top 10.

THE UPDATED CFP TOP 25 HAS DROPPED 👀 pic.twitter.com/p4pom73Np0

— ESPN (@espn) November 27, 2024

Using the current CFP rankings, Oregon (Big Ten), Texas (SEC), Miami (ACC) and No. 11 Boise State (Mountain West) would be the four highest-rated conference champions and would earn first-round byes in the 12-team bracket. No. 16 Arizona State (Big 12) would earn a playoff bid as the fifth-highest-rated conference champion but would be the No. 12 seed and would play a first-round game.

The seedings for the first-round matchups would look like this: No. 12 Arizona State at No. 5 Ohio State; No. 11 Indiana at No. 6 Penn State; No. 10 SMU at No. 7 Notre Dame; and No. 9 Tennessee at No. 8 Georgia.

When asked Saturday whether the Hoosiers still belong in the 12-team field based on their body of work, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti replied, “Is that a serious question? I’m not even going to answer that one. The answer’s so obvious.” The first-year coach then smiled and nodded yes with a wink.

No. 12 Clemson would be the first team left out of the playoff, with the Tigers ranked ahead of three-loss SEC bubble teams Alabama (No. 13), Ole Miss (No. 14) and South Carolina (No. 15). But the ACC landing three teams in the top 12 this week could be an encouraging sign that the conference has an opportunity to earn two bids in the final bracket.

A trio of road upsets Saturday shook up the SEC’s playoff picture. Alabama slid six spots after a stunning 24-3 loss at Oklahoma. Ole Miss dropped five spots after falling 24-17 at Florida. And Texas A&M dropped five spots after losing 43-41 at Auburn in four overtimes. Georgia and Tennessee benefited by moving up three spots each this week.

Arizona State climbed five spots to No. 16, thanks to its 28-23 win over BYU, while Iowa State moved up four spots to No. 18 after a 31-28 victory at Utah. But the committee continues to rank No. 11 Boise State ahead of the Big 12 front-runners, raising the possibility that the Big 12’s eventual champion could miss out on earning a top-four seed and a first-round bye.

The Big 12 currently has a four-way tie atop its standings with the Sun Devils, Cyclones, BYU (No. 19) and Colorado (No. 25) all hoping to play their way into next week’s conference championship game in Arlington, Texas.

Tulane continues to rise into contention for the fifth conference champion bid if Boise State loses again or the Big 12 ends up with a three-loss champ. The Green Wave climbed to No. 17 this week and have won eight in a row since losing to Power 4 foes Kansas State and Oklahoma in nonconference play. They’ll face Memphis on Thursday before playing Army in the AAC championship game Dec. 5.

“It is a balance,” Manuel said. “We have to look at what teams do throughout the season. And obviously as we watch film and take a look at what teams are doing against the opponents they have to face, we see a Tulane team that is really playing great football right now. … They’re really one of the teams that has surged up in our mind as it relates to how they’re playing at this time.”

No. 20 Texas A&M hosts No. 3 Texas on Saturday night, renewing their rivalry game for the first time since 2011, with the winner advancing to the SEC championship game in Atlanta. Missouri (No. 21), UNLV (No. 22), Illinois (No. 23), Kansas State (No. 24) and Colorado round out the top 25.

Eight SEC teams are ranked in the top 25 again this week, along with five Big Ten teams, five Big 12 teams, three ACC teams, two Mountain West teams and one AAC team.

The four first-round games will be played at the home campus of the higher-seeded teams on Dec. 20 and 21. The four quarterfinal games will be staged at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl presented by Prudential and Allstate Sugar Bowl on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.

The two semifinal games will take place at the Capital One Orange Bowl and Goodyear Cotton Bowl on Jan. 9 and 10.

The CFP National Championship presented by AT&T is scheduled for Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

North Carolina announced Tuesday that Mack Brown will not return next season, one day after the Hall of Fame coach declared his intentions to return to the Tar Heels.

Athletic director Bubba Cunningham informed Brown of his decision on Tuesday. Brown, 73, will coach the team in the regular-season finale against NC State on Saturday, but a decision has not yet been made about whether he will coach the Tar Heels (6-5) in their bowl game.

“While this was not the perfect time and way in which I imagined going out, no time will ever be the perfect time,” Brown said in a statement. “I’ve spent 16 seasons at North Carolina and will always cherish the memories and relationships Sally and I have built while serving as head coach.

“We’ve had the chance to coach and mentor some great young men, and we’ll miss having the opportunity to do that in the future. Moving forward, my total focus is on helping these players and coaches prepare for Saturday’s game against N.C. State and give them the best chance to win. We want to send these seniors out right and I hope our fans will show up Saturday to do the same.”

In two stints at North Carolina, Brown has gone a combined 113-78-1. Brown, who won a national championship with Texas after his first UNC tenure, returned to the Tar Heels in 2019 and took them to an ACC championship game appearance in 2022.

“Mack Brown has won more games than any football coach in UNC history, and we deeply appreciate all that he has done for Carolina football and our university,” Cunningham said in a statement. “Over the last six seasons — his second campaign in Chapel Hill — he has coached our team to six bowl berths, including an Orange Bowl, while mentoring 18 NFL draft picks.

“… Coach Brown has led the Carolina football program back into the national conversation as we improved the program’s facilities, significantly increased the size of the staff, invested in salaries and bolstered our nutrition and strength and conditioning programs. He also has been a dedicated fundraiser, strengthening the football endowment while also supporting our other sports programs. We thank Coach Brown for his dedication to Carolina, and wish him, Sally and their family all the best.”

Brown ranks eighth all time among FBS coaches with 288 victories, and he’s the only coach with 100-plus wins at multiple FBS schools — 113 at North Carolina and 158 at Texas.

With Brown out, there are now just two active FBS head coaches who have won a national championship: Georgia‘s Kirby Smart and Clemson‘s Dabo Swinney.

As Brown finishes out the season, Cunningham and Chancellor Lee H. Roberts will begin the search for a new head coach.

Brown has three years left on his contract, which pays him $5 million annually. The school said the remainder of the contract will be paid by the UNC athletic department and not through state funds.

The announcement Tuesday concludes what had become months filled with speculation about Brown and his future with the school. After allowing a school-record 70 points in an embarrassing home loss to James Madison in September, Brown told the Tar Heels in the locker room that he would step down if the team felt he could no longer do the job. His comments leaked publicly, and Brown had to announce that he was not resigning.

North Carolina lost three more games from there, then had to deal with the loss of receiver Tylee Craft, who died in October 2½ years after being diagnosed with cancer.

Brown told ESPN in a recent interview that his perspective had changed after that, with him believing the team now needed him more than ever “to step up and be strong and try to help them learn to navigate through these storms and this turmoil.”

After winning three straight — including Brown’s first win over his alma mater, Florida State — North Carolina stumbled in another poor performance at Boston College last weekend, losing 41-21.

That did not stop Brown from announcing during his weekly news conference Monday that he intended to return to North Carolina. However, he also said he hadn’t yet met with Cunningham to discuss his long-term future.

“Not one player has ever come to me and asked me about my future. Not one coach has ever come to me and asked me about my future. That’s what happens this time of the year,” Brown said Monday. “It’s really funny, if you lose a game now, you’re fired. It’s 100%, it’s unbelievable. So why worry, you just got to do your job.”

In 35 years as a head coach, Brown has gone 282-149-1. He got his head-coaching start at Tulane in 1985 and, after three seasons there, went to North Carolina. Following back-to-back 1-10 seasons, Brown transformed the Tar Heels program, taking them to nine or more wins four times. Texas hired him in 1998, and he won the most recent national championship for the Longhorns in 2005.

Following his departure from Texas in 2013 after 16 seasons there, Brown spent time working as a television analyst at ESPN. He returned to North Carolina following a five-year coaching hiatus to try to build back a stagnant Tar Heels program. During his most recent stint, he took North Carolina to the 2022 ACC championship game and helped Drake Maye become a first-round draft pick in 2024.

Big starts to the 2022 and 2023 seasons — including rising as high as No. 10 in 2023 — ended in disappointment as Brown didn’t get North Carolina to the 10-win mark. The 2024 season got off to a rough start when starting quarterback Max Johnson broke his leg in the opener and was lost for the season.

Still, the way Brown’s team responded to adversity, and the death of their beloved teammate, is something Brown told ESPN last week that he will always remember.

“It is one of the most satisfying years I’ve ever had because of the way people are responding to each other,” Brown said before the Boston College game.