Kirk Herbstreit, Nick Saban Say It’s Time to Ditch Weekly CFP Rankings Show

Amid a torrent of insanity and head-scratching decisions that emerged from the College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings that were released this weekend, an actual good idea managed to find its way out.

During Saturday’s edition of ESPN’s College GameDay, lead college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit said it’s time to “get rid of the Tuesday night rankings show.”

“This is not the AP poll where if this team played and this team didn’t play, how can we evaluate them?” Herbstreit said. “If you talk to the conference commissioners—honestly, I think we should remove, with all due respect, the Tuesday night show. Because truly, until all the data is in—conference championships, head-to-head—I think all the data comes in, and then you can look at it fairly.

“But to look at this week by week, I just think it sets us up for things like, ‘Well, that doesn’t make sense, how can you do that? You’ve had Notre Dame ahead of these guys all week; they didn’t even play. How are you going to flip Miami now?’ It’s really not supposed to really be the real rankings until the season’s over.”

Fellow ESPN analyst and Alabama coaching legend Nick Saban was quick to agree.

“I agree with you. Because you put yourself in a box.”

Much of the controversy stirred up by this year’s weekly CFP rankings centered on Miami and Notre Dame. Notre Dame was consistently ranked ahead of Miami, despite the Hurricanes defeating the Irish 27-24 in August. However, the committee pointed to factors such as Miami’s two losses to unranked teams and Notre Dame’s consistently high play from that point on to justify ranking Notre Dame higher.

Whether anyone agrees with the way the committee ranked the two or not, Notre Dame remained ahead of Miami for several weeks until, with both teams idle, the committee moved Miami ahead of Notre Dame.

There are still obvious problems with the way the selection committee conducted itself this year, but maybe not televising it every week and turning it into a ratings-driven drama would be a good start.