The Book 2015: Week 14

We come to week last of the regular season, the conference championship games and a few other flotsam and jetsam games from the far reaches of the Big 12 and the Sun Belt.  By next Sunday night, we will know the four teams that will make up the College Football Playoff.

The Book and Phil Steele of course, don't totally agree with the CFP rankings at this point.  Oklahoma and Alabama are in the committee's current top four, but our polls still have North Carolina, Ohio State and even TCU as our "who's in" group with Clemson, Michigan State, Iowa and Stanford all on the outside looking in.

Our poll looks at the season in its entirety, albeit entering with a pre-conceived bias.  The CFP, although it says it looks at the body of work, obviously values games played later in the season more so than those early in the season, therefore it is highly unlikely that a team with a late season loss would have the juice to overcome that outcome.

The CFP selection committee protocol states the following:

Establish a committee that will be instructed to place an emphasis on winning conference championships, strength of schedule and head-to-head competition when comparing teams with similar records and pedigree (treat final determination like a tie-breaker; apply specific guidelines).

The criteria to be provided to the selection committee must be aligned with the ideals of the commissioners, presidents, athletic directors and coaches to honor regular season success while at the same time providing enough flexibility and discretion to select a non-champion or independent under circumstances where that particular non-champion or independent is unequivocally one of the four best teams in the country.

I am not an Ohio State fan, but I will say that when all is said and done, and based on 11-1 and the thrashing they put on Michigan on Saturday, the Buckeyes, although it is highly unlikely they will get in regardless of what ensues, could well be viewed as unequivocally one of the four best teams in the country.  Ohio State's issue this year is when they lost, and that they won't be a conference champion.  When this started there was a lot of discussion around the four best teams, what is becoming more and more clear, outside of a year where Notre Dame goes 11-1 or 12-0, is that they are selecting the four best conference champs.

Both the Book and Phil Steele had solid weeks, 10 games and 8 games over .500 respectively.  With this week and the bowls still to play, Steele holds a 7 1/2 game lead in the race for season honors, with both closing in on guaranteed winning seasons.

This week, with so few games across the country, the spreads for every game are listed below, including next week's Army-Navy game.

BC's final loss at Syracuse, as many of them have done this year, didn't cost the Eagles too much.  The spread was close to begin with so the Eagles remained essentially in the same spot and will finish 12/12th in the ACC and at this point 83/76 in the nation.  The Massey poll has the Eagles all the way down at 90.

Last season BC finished 50th in the Book poll following their 7-6 season.  The last time BC finished lower than 83rd, was 2012 when they finished 84th.

Next edition of the The Book will be two weeks from now, December 16, when the bowl games are released.

Enjoy your football weekend and Go Eagles!