I hate to be the grumpy old man – honestly, it’s not usually my lane – but my skepticism is how much these initial rankings will matter. I’ll be more interested in taking what we see tonight and comparing to how they adjust to results over the next week or two, thus giving us real insight into what the final rankings will be.
The first rankings last year had 10 of the eventual 12 teams, which is pretty good: SMU and Clemson, the two teams that were out, and they were eventually the last two teams in. But there also weren’t a wild amount of upsets down the stretch last year, nor much clutter at the top of the standings in the power conferences, as there is this year, especially in the SEC and ACC. I could see the committee ranking those SEC and ACC teams one way this week, subconsciously knowing there’s going to be a lot more data coming during the next four weeks.