You’ve got questions. I’ve got questions. We’ve all got questions. On Tuesday night the initial College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings were released for the 2021 season and the biggest shocker in the rankings was Oklahoma at #8. After the rankings were released playoff committee chairman Gary Barta met with the media where he was specifically asked about the Sooners. Here’s a copy from the official transcript.
I wanted to ask you about Oklahoma. When you were evaluating the Sooners against the other teams in the top 10, how much did the advanced metrics, the relative scoring, things like that, come into play when you were looking at them?
GARY BARTA: Well, every time we put a team up for discussion, all of those metrics are in front of us on our screen, so they certainly were included. So that answers your direct question. A little bit beyond that, just looking at who they’ve beaten, Kansas State and Texas Tech, both good wins, but the strength of schedule is considered among other things. I hope that answers at least your direct question about the metrics.
They’re always up on the board, and they certainly were looked at. Oklahoma is 9-0, a great team, but I hope that answers your question.
Concerning the Sooners, their strength of schedule has not been great, and they haven’t dominated or even won convincingly most of those games. How much did all those close calls factor into where they were ranked?
GARY BARTA: Well, the committee sees all those things. First of all, they’re 9-0, and so they belong being ranked eighth. They’re undefeated, so they get a lot of credit for that. But you mentioned it, defensive struggles throughout the year certainly was discussed.
The other thing that was discussed is Oklahoma is still trying to find their identity, but certainly when they added Caleb Williams at quarterback, the committee agreed that the offense certainly changed in a positive way, but it may – we may be seeing it impacting the whole team, defense included.
Nine is where they’re at right now, but that switch in quarterback, I think everybody agreed, is potentially – it’ll be fun to watch from here forward.
Yeah, those close calls are seen by the committee just like everybody else.
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