The first edition of the College Football Playoff Rankings are here, and while the SEC got four of the top six, the Big Ten holds the top two spots with Ohio State at No. 1 and Indiana at No. 2. While the CFP committee fell basically in line with the AP Poll at the top, submitting the same top five, ESPN’s Joey Galloway couldn’t believe that the SEC’s top-ranked team didn’t grab the top spot.
Texas A&M, at 8-0 with a road win over Notre Dame, which checked in at No. 10, remained stuck behind Ohio State and Indiana. However, Booger McFarland thought the Aggies should have made the jump, and Galloway couldn’t understand why they didn’t.
“Who’s Ohio State’s best win?” McFarland chided the rest of the panel after the Buckeyes were revealed as the No. 1 team. “I think Texas A&M’s resume, the way they look, what they’ve done, deserves to be No. 1.” McFarland’s argument, though, was more anti-Ohio State. Galloway was all about the Aggies.
“This tells me that they’re going a lot on eye test,” Galloway responded to Rece Davis, who asked him which team is the best in the country. “If we’re going on rankings and analytics, Texas A&M is best analytically, over Indiana and Ohio State, and they’re sitting at No. 3.”
All night, even before the rankings were revealed, Galloway continually said that by the analytics, Texas A&M is the best team in the country. While Aggies fans will love to have an ally on the ESPN desk each week, his argument doesn’t hold up under much scrutiny.
Is Texas A&M the analytics darling Joey Galloway believes them to be?
The CFP committee is relying on a new metric called “record strength” this year, which evaluates how well a team has performed against their schedule compared to how an average top 25 team would be expected to perform. This data isn’t readily available, but ESPN’s “strength of record” metric are, and they do favor Texas A&M as No. 1.
By just about every other metric, though, the Aggies aren’t looked upon quite as favorably. By ESPN’s FPI, the Aggies are ninth while Ohio State and Indiana are No. 1 and 2, respectively. By Bill Connelly’s SP+, the Aggies are fifth with Ohio State No. 1 and Indiana No. 2. When you look at adjusted EPA/play, Ohio State is No. 1 with Texas A&M at No. 4 and Indiana at No. 5 (Oregon and USC are two and three). By net success rate, Indiana is No. 1 with Ohio State No. 2 and A&M at No. 6.
No one metric is all-encompassing, and the committee clearly isn’t viewing it that way. While A&M’s “strength of record” is stronger, the Aggies have still only played one team that was ranked in this week’s CFP top 25, the No. 10 Fighting Irish.
Texas A&M has had a fantastic season and has chances to climb even higher than No. 3 with a matchup at Texas to end the regular season, and then presumably the SEC championship game. It’s possible to argue for the Aggies to be No. 1 right now, but the analytics are not quite as cut and dry as Galloway made them out to be on Tuesday night.