Michigan Football: What No. 5 CFB Playoff ranking means for Wolverines

The first College Football Playoff rankings were released Tuesday and Michigan football came in fifth. Here’s what it means for the Wolverines.

With the way that the College Football Playoff Committee feels about the SEC, you could almost feel it coming, so when Michigan football was ranked outside the top five Tuesday, in the first edition of the playoff rankings, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone.

What it should do though, is worry the heck out of Michigan football fans. That’s because after the committee ranked six SEC teams in the top 20 and five in the top 11, the idea that UM can win out and be guaranteed a playoff spot simply might not be true.

Alabama, of course, was No. 1 and deservedly so. The Crismon Tide was followed by Clemson, another no-brainer. But then, came the first surprise of the night and that’s the fact that undefeated Notre Dame was passed over for one-loss LSU. That’s right the Tigers are No. 3, followed by the Irish in fourth and the Wolverines in fifth.

To be honest, I expected Michigan football to be No. 5. What I didn’t expect was for LSU to jump ahead of undefeated Notre Dame. Yes, the Tigers have an impressive resume that features wins over Georgia, Mississippi State and Auburn. Yet, it also features a bad loss to a two-loss Florida team, one that has lost to both Kentucky and Georgia.

Notre Dame, on the other hand, doesn’t have any losses and three solid wins. The Irish beat fifth-ranked Michigan, Stanford and Virginia Tech, on the road.

So why does LSU deserve to be ahead of the Irish and furthermore, why do the Tigers deserve to be two spots ahead of Michigan? Yes, the Wolverines have a loss, but it came on the road against the fourth-ranked team. It was also the first game of the season.

Since then, Michigan beat a solid Northwestern team on the road, a solid Michigan State team on the road and absolutely blew the doors off Wisconsin. In fact, during their seven-game winning streak the Wolverines have dominated every game but Northwestern. That’s why they rank so high in the S&P rankings. But it seems the committee cares only about resume.

You might argue that LSU’s spot doesn’t matter because most expect Alabama to beat the Tigers on Saturday anyway. But if that’s your thinking, you are missing the point.

The biggest takeaway from these rankings is that if Georgia or Kentucky wins out and beats Alamba in a close SEC Championship game, then the conference we all love to hate will get two teams in again, maybe even at the Wolverines expense.

Don’t think it can happen? Just ask Ohio State how it felt to win the Big Ten and still lose out to a one-loss Alabama team that didn’t even win its own division.

If Alabama beats LSU and reaches the SEC Championship, then falls to the Bulldogs or Wildcats, provided they finish with one loss, it could be the perfect storm that leaves Michigan out of the playoff, even at 12-1.

Maybe Kentucky wouldn’t pass over Michigan, but how does any one-loss SEC champ with a win over Alabama get left out? And beyond that, how does a one-loss Bama team, one most experts agree is the best of all Nick Saban’s teams get left out? The answer is it won’t.

For Michigan football, the only objective is winning games, because that is all it can control. However, if things don’t play out a certain way, the committee is already sending the signal that might not be enough.