Bye Week

So, the college football playoff committee announced its first rankings for the CFP, and surprisingly it had Georgia ahead of Alabama.  Alabama has held the number one ranking for the entire year, and they have dominated every team they have played so far.  While Georgia also has an impressive resume and has been steadily climbing up the rankings, Alabama has not faltered this year.  So, it’s surprising that a team that has been playing well lost the number one ranking, seemingly for no reason. 

What is even more surprising is that Alabama was on a bye week.  That’s right, they did not play.  So, the committee has deemed that Georgia’s win this week was more impressive than Alabama’s bye week.  Yeah, I can see how if you held the stats up side-by-side that Georgia would come out on top.  Alabama was on a bye!

This same logic amazes me about the Heisman Trophy tracking.  A player will actually lose ground in the race on the week they aren’t playing.  I don’t know how you can penalize a guy for not even being on the field.  How could they have possibly gotten worse, when they weren’t even playing?!