With two weeks left in the regular season, the playoff picture is coming into focus. At this point, the top six teams in the rankings seem like near locks. The ACC and the Group of 5 will supply champions, too, whether the Big Ten likes it or not. The winner of a Week 13 showdown between

    • 1 Related

    The case for Tulane is pretty simple. The Green Wave has a Power 4 win. Sure, it’s against Duke, a team that also lost to UConn, but it’s a Power 4 win nevertheless. Tulane also beat Memphis and East Carolina. That’s rarified air, shared only with the likes of UAB and NC State. This is a team with a real résumé.

    But the thing is, James Madison didn’t choose its schedule. It faces the teams in its league, and in 2025, the Sun Belt isn’t as good.

    So what? While Tulane has struggled with the likes of Army and South Alabama, JMU has beaten its seven conference foes by an average of 24 points. Of JMU’s nine wins, only Georgia State came by fewer than 10 points. In the past month, the Dukes have won all their four games by a combined score of 208-80. No, they haven’t played great competition, but they’re dominating the teams they do face. Quality of wins is a metric teams control. Strength of schedule is not.

    3. Open dates

    Two weeks ago, Georgia Tech took the week off, presumably, because the Ramblin’ Wreck was stuck in traffic on I-75, and somehow, despite being the rare ACC team that didn’t embarrass itself in Week 11, the Yellow Jackets were leapfrogged by Miami.

    Last week, it was Vanderbilt that had a week off, presumably to scrub glitter and hot sauce off the field after renting out FirstBank Stadium to a bachelorette party. What happened? The Commodores, too, were jumped in the rankings by Miami.

    So, to sum up: Miami’s head-to-head win over Notre Dame did not matter to the committee, but compared the Canes to a blank void, and the committee slightly favors Miami.

    Let’s do a quick blind résumé here.

    Team A: Best win vs. SP+ No. 20, next vs. No. 30. Losses to SP+ Nos. 12 and 13 by a combined 29 points. No. 14 strength of record.

    Team B: Best win vs. SP+ No. 37, next vs. No. 51. Losses to SP+ Nos. 3 and 17 by a combined 27 points. No. 18 strength of record.

    Who’s better?

    Both have understandable losses. Neither has an elite win, but clearly Team A has beaten better teams. Neither exactly looks like playoff material at the moment, but Team A, for what it’s worth, still has a monster opportunity on the horizon.

    OK, you’ve probably guessed Team A is Michigan. Team B is Utah, ranked six spots higher.

    If anything, Utah’s spot in the rankings is confounding — ahead of Miami, USC and Vanderbilt, all with markedly better wins. But the frustration for the Wolverines is that they have a shot to knock off Ohio State again this year, and even if they do, the end result probably will look just like 2024. The Buckeyes will still cruise into the playoff, and Michigan — despite being far better than a year ago — doesn’t have much of a shot.

    If Michigan was hovering around the No. 12 or 13 spot, there’s a path — with a win over Ohio State — to a playoff berth. At 18? Not likely, even if they beat the Buckeyes by 40. Instead, all they’ll be left with is a trip to the Music City Bowl and a long offseason, sipping on the tears of Ohio State fans everywhere. It’s hardly fair.

    5. The committee

    We’ll never quite know what’s discussed in the committee room, but this week, we imagine, as the hours ticked by, someone spoke up and said, “Well, we have to include Virginia, so put them at 19, and then let’s just draw names from a hat.”

    Seriously, look at the bottom of these rankings. Who’s good? Tennessee? The Vols’ best win was a loss to Georgia. Illinois? Indiana beat Illinois so badly that the descendants of the 1916 Cumberland team sent condolence cards. Houston was housed by West Virginia less than three weeks ago. Missouri is like “Criminal Minds.” The Tigers pop up on the rankings, and your first thought is … “That’s still on? Didn’t Beau Pribula retire like six years ago?”

    So, after spending so much time berating the committee for its limitless lack of creativity and nuance, it’s only fair we include those folks in the Anger Index. Finding 25 teams worth ranking is no easy task. But you know what they call the person who graduates last in medical school? Doctor.

    Also angry this week: East Carolina Pirates (7-3, unranked), North Texas Mean Green (9-1, unranked), Notre Dame Fighting Irish (8-2, No. 9 and really wanting everyone to stop mentioning that Miami game), Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (9-1, No. 16 behind seven two-loss teams), Lane Kiffin’s realtor. Make up your mind already, Lane!