The College Football Playoffs announced on Wednesday morning that there will be changes to the selection process by incorporating a new metric while also changing a currently used one.
I made a video about this on The Big Ten Huddle, but I also want to zoom in on the Illini and how this change impacts them.
This is no surprise, as SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was vying for this type of change at SEC media days. Turns out, the committee has been working on this change for around six months now and is finally ready to implement the change. Here is a portion of the statement they put out:
Changes for the upcoming season include enhancements to the tools that the selection committee uses to assess schedule strength and how teams perform against their schedule. The current schedule strength metric has been adjusted to apply greater weight to games against strong opponents. An additional metric, record strength, has been added to the selection committee's analysis to go beyond a team's schedule strength to assess how a team performed against that schedule. This metric rewards teams defeating high-quality opponents while minimizing the penalty for losing to such a team. Conversely, these changes will provide minimal reward for defeating a lower-quality opponent while imposing a greater penalty for losing to such a team.
Essentially, the committee is changing three things:
- Playing big games against good teams will be a greater reward for a win and a smaller penalty for a loss.
- Playing smaller games against bad or average teams will provide a great penalty for a loss and less of a reward for a win.
- The committee will begin using “record strength” to not only analyze the strength of a team’s schedule, but also how they performed against that schedule.
At first glance, this is a major win for the SEC, as they got what they wanted. It provides little difference for them against the Big Ten. The win here is for both the Big Ten and the SEC over the ACC and the Big 12. But the win here for Illinois is evident too, as there is proof from last year that this change could have gotten Illinois into or, at the very least, much closer to making the College Football Playoff.
Last year, Illinois had three ranked wins and only two ranked losses. Based on the statement by the CFP, Illinois should have received more credit for those ranked wins and a lesser penalty for their ranked losses.
Nearly half of the Illini’s schedule was against ranked opponents; however, they were never in the discussion of the playoffs at 9-3, like Alabama, South Carolina, and Ole Miss were. The only one of those three teams that had as many or more ranked losses as Illinois was South Carolina.
The committee’s new way of selecting teams will use “record strength,” which sounds similar to a metric that ESPN already calculates. Last season, Illinois had a better strength of record according to ESPN than Alabama, South Carolina, and Ole Miss.
Thankfully for Illinois, the schedule works out well, where they could potentially face four or more ranked teams this year. Indiana will win their first three games and remain ranked. USC is one week after that, and they will most likely begin the season 4-0 to be ranked, and then Ohio State will surely be ranked with a wild card of Washington after them later in the season.
Those are all very winnable games for the Illini and could boost their strength of record when it comes time. But what is even better is that if those teams do beat Illinois, the penalty shouldn't be worse. Win-win.
Essentially, this is all great news for Illinois. Take care of business and win ten games, and they should be in the playoffs. If they only win nine, it might be iffy, but they should still have a better shot than they did last year, providing the SEC has more parity.
However, the thing that could throw a wrench in all of this is what metrics the CFP committee chooses to use. I used ESPN here, but there are so many models out there, and they all measure different things. Record strength is a bit more straightforward, but still, just like any other metric, bad data in, bad metrics out.
The committee has not announced what metrics they will use, but we will hear from them in November as the rankings will be released every Tuesday in November and on December 2 at various times on ESPN. Time will tell how this impacts the selection process, but one thing is for sure. Bret Bielema and the Illini are in a prime position this season to make a playoff push.