5-at-10: College football playoff rankings, Committee questions, Flair's 30-for-30, Rushmore of TV cooks and chefs

Notre Dame quarterback Brandon Wimbush breaks away from a pack of Boston College defenders, led by Will Harris, during their game last month in Boston. Wimbush has helped the Fighting Irish to a 5-1 record going into Saturday's game at Stanford. Boston College helped expose Louisville's defense during last week's 45-42 victory over the Cardinals.
Notre Dame quarterback Brandon Wimbush breaks away from a pack of Boston College defenders, led by Will Harris, during their game last month in Boston. Wimbush has helped the Fighting Irish to a 5-1 record going into Saturday's game at Stanford. Boston College helped expose Louisville's defense during last week's 45-42 victory over the Cardinals.

College Football playoff

Well, that was the shampoo version of the college football playoff committee rankings.

Announce. Rinse. Repeat.

Last week's top five remained unchanged Tuesday night with Georgia, Alabama, Notre Dame and Clemson currently occupying the four playoff spots and Oklahoma waiting for a stumble at five. Or are they?

With each passing week, the galvanization around Georgia with each passing week moves the committee one step closer toward the very real possibility of having the winner and the loser of the SEC title game in four-team playoff field.

Still, there's a lot at stake in those directions, and while the four teams in the fold as of Tuesday evening rightly can assume they control their own fate, here are the four teams outside the rankings that are the most interesting.

We'll start with Miami, which somehow after a dominating win over then-No. 13 Virginia Tech and sitting there unbeaten in the ACC, is No. 7 behind Oklahoma and No. 6 TCU. Miami, like the top four, controls its fate. Win out - the Hurricanes have Notre Dame this week and most likely would play Clemson in the ACC title game - and Miami will be no worse than the 2 seed behind an unbeaten SEC champion. (Side note: It seems duplicitous for the committee to rank Georgia ahead of Alabama on resume over eye test and then have unbeaten Miami below one-loss teams because of the 'eye test.')

Next on the list is Auburn. Yes, the second-half meltdown at LSU was painful, but these Tigers may not have nine lives, but they appear to have at least a second-chance. Yes, it's an Everest-level tall order but if it wins out - which would be two wins over Georgia and a win over Alabama - and it seems impossible to keep Auburn out. In fact, the ESPN Football Power Index - the computer rankings using analytics and simulations - lists the following percentages for these groups to have at least one team in the playoff: SEC 99.7 percent; ACC 86.8 percent; Big 12 72.2 percent; FBS independent (aka Notre Dame) 35.7 percent; Big Ten 21.9 percent; Pac-12 4.2 percent.

Speaking of the Big 12, TCU has Oklahoma this weekend in an elimination game. In fact, if the winner of the Frogs-Sooners loses in the Big 12 title game, the best resume from the Big 12 will have two losses.

Finally, there's Wisconsin, which just continues to plow along and win. Every person with a microphone is quick to say, "Don't reward Wisconsin just for being unbeaten." Well, OK.

But when Wisconsin scheduled BYU, no one expected this to be the worst BYU team since before LaVell Edwards. And yes, if Wisconsin wins out, it's pretty hard to fathom a 13-0 Big Ten champ that by that point would have wins over No. 20 Iowa, Michigan and whomever wins the Big Ten East, be it Michigan State or Ohio State, and either will be close to being No. 10 at that point.

photo Georgia tailback Sony Michel (1) celebrates with guard Isaiah Wynn after scoring a touchdown early in the Bulldogs' 24-10 victory Saturday against South Carolina that clinched first place in the SEC East.

Some playoff issues

We mentioned before that there appears to be some double-takes and mixed signals from the committee's rankings.

And while that does not matter a lick right now - quick, which teams comprised the top four in the second-week of the rankings last year? Exactly - it is worth watching for a couple of reasons.

First, and this is the caveat we all must remember in the polls that come out weekly until the final poll and the penultimate poll: The committee in particular and college football in general crave the nutty November nervousness, the late-fall frenzy, the autumn outrage and the pre-Thanksgiving misgivings.

Truly, the madness adds controversy and the unknown adds intrigue and that together equals drama. That serves the sport and the committee well, in terms of eyes and sponsors and that little ol' thing driving this whole train. (Nope, it's not the goal of crowning a true champion. It's the goal of cashing the biggest checks. Period.)

That desire for unrest pushes the committee to conveniently use this argument for that team and shape this ranking with another premise. Hey, we all take the devices at our disposal to try to convince others to see our way of thinking. But this is high school debate; this is a monster enterprise that funds most, if not all of college athletics as we know it, and we could see a way that the open-mindedness/duplicity of the committee could hurt the sport sooner rather than later.

Let's start with the eye test. Man, that's so opened ended it's hard to get your head around it.

And if you go blind resumes, well, that makes the sentiment of "Don't reward Wisconsin just for being unbeaten" even more puzzling. How is going unbeaten a bad thing? And if your first response is, well, go play somebody, well, Wisconsin's resume is not that much different that Alabama's to be honest.

They each scheduled a non-conference team they expected to be a lot better than they turned out. Alabama beating an FSU team 24-7 before the Seminoles lost their QB; Wisconsin hammering BYU after it had lost its first- and second-string quarterbacks 40-7. Another difference there is Wisconsin plays nine conference games - another difference that if the committee's ultimate goal was fairness and picking the best four teams would need to be addressed - but no one bags on Alabama for its schedule, which before last week's ho-hum two-touchdown win over LSU, had the Tide's best win may have been over Fresno State. (The same Fresno State team that beat that pesky 2-8 BYU bunch 20-13 last week.)

Also of note: The primary reason Georgia stands atop the poll is because of what Notre Dame has done since losing to Georgia. Yes Georgia went there and won in week two, and the Dawgs deserve credit for that. But coming into the season, other than prestige, would you have thought facing a BYU team coming off a 9-4 2016 or a Notre Dame coming off a 4-8 2016 with a coach on the hottest seat in the country was a tougher test?

Plus, the whole "Play a tough opponent" is becoming more and more of a challenge as you schedule these things multiple years out. If you set you 2017 schedule in 2013 and put Missouri (No. 5 in the final 2013 AP poll) Oregon (No. 9) and Baylor (No. 13) on the slate, people would have thought you to be crazy. Considering that bunch is a combined 10-18, the argument would be, "Play a tough opponent."

This is not a stump speech for Wisconsin. No one really likes to watch Wisconsin football, not even Wisconsin fans. (They go for the beer and the "Jump Around" song before the fourth quarter.)

Mainly this is a request to use the same prism for all the teams, whether they are placed 1 or 10 or 24, and that request is offered from this place. Please, committee, as you are positioning for intrigue and interest, please protect the most important aspect of your sport - the awesomeness of your regular season. And the biggest threat to that awesomeness is the dreaded E-word (expansion).

We can all agree that the four teams they have in the top four would make a super fun and highly visible playoff. And that's good if they are deserving. And yes, all the scenarios are part of the intrigue, but let's play along with this one friends, and see what how the puzzle looks.

Georgia and Alabama meet unbeaten in the SEC title game. One of them wins by a field goal.

Notre Dame beats Miami in a great game this weekend and runs the table.

Clemson runs the table and beats Miami in the ACC title game convincingly.

Oklahoma runs the table, and that includes beating TCU twice, to finish with one loss and the a dominating road win at THE Ohio State.

Wisconsin runs the table and wins the Big Ten title over then No. 8 Michigan State.

Who you got then, gang?

And if that plays out and it turns out that two SEC teams and Notre Dame get to dance and that leaves out three conferences form the big payday and the big platform of the playoff, well, the E-word is coming sooner rather than later.

Which in this view will make all college football fans lose.

photo FILE - In this Sept. 22, 2007, file photo, wrestler Ric Flair addresses the media during a news conference at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. Flair's representative said on Twitter Aug. 14, 2017, that Flair was dealing with some "tough medical issues." (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

A Real Flair

Wow, the Ric Flair 30-for-30 "Nature Boy" debuted last night.

(If you missed it, that's OK. It was 90 minutes and started at 10 p.m. Some of you folks have day jobs that require you to be someplace pretty early. We get it. Plus, it's not like ESPN won't re-air that puppy like 20 times between now and Friday.)

Anyhoo, as we mentioned around these parts we were excited for this one. Really excited.

We grew up a fan of Southern rastlin' and if you were a fan of Southern rastlin' in the 1970s, 80s and into the 90s (and apparently well into the 2000s, too), you had to love Ric Flair. Or you hated him, but then you also secretly loved to hate him.

He's one of those guys. The all-timers that everyone had to stop and watch because you never what he could pull off next and you knew that the lasting story line from almost every event they are in would always be what one of those guys did.

Tiger was that way. MJ, too. Tyson and Dale Sr. LeBron. A few others maybe, but they are very few and far between. And Ric Flair was right there with them.

They were the super ships that raised the entire tide of their entire sport, and that was one of the main takeaways from last night. The overarching respect that Flair got from his colleagues, peers and contemporaries in the ring was amazing.

Hulk, Triple H - he was great, by the way - Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, Sting, Arn Anderson, and so many others were all overflowing with Flair the wrestler and what he meant to the sport and those connected to it.

The other takeaway was an immense sadness for how Flair lived his life away from the squared circle. The personal stuff was heartbreaking - especially the interviews with his first wife and his kids from that marriage and the stories Flair told about his parents - and left an undeniable imprint that Richard Fliehr became addicted to a lot of things.

Mainly he became addicted to being Ric Flair, and all that that entailed.

photo FILE - In this Aug. 8, 2014, file photo, former Philadelphia Phillies' Roy Halladay acknowledges the crowd before a baseball game against the New York Mets, in Philadelphia. Authorities have confirmed that former Major League Baseball pitcher Roy Halladay died in a small plane crash in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

This and that

- Man, a crazy election day across the country.

- And from the files of "Man, people are crazy" here's a runway model wearing a dress that looks like a dry-cleaning bag. Seriously. Asking price: $737 bucks. (Not to be out done, Tiffany is selling a $9,000 ball of yarn. Yes, you read that correctly.)

- Roy Halladay, one of only six pitchers in baseball history to win a Cy Young in each league, died Tuesday in a plane crash. He was 40. Dude was also a Hall of Famer.

- In case you are curious, last week's LSU-Alabama game was the most-watched college football broadcast of the weekend with more than 6.7 million viewers and a 3.9 rating. For some comparison shopping, last year that game got a 5.8 rating and almost 10.4 million viewers. Wow.

- Speaking of college football ratings, and these numbers do not play out well for the top-heavy-nature of this year's SEC, CBS is getting shellacked this year. Here are the most-watched college football games this year: Penn State-Ohio State (Oct. 28 on Fox), 9.868 million viewers; Michigan-Penn State (Oct. 21 on ABC), 6.954 million; Michigan-Indiana (Oct. 14 on ABC), 4.122 million; Michigan-Michigan State (Oct. 7 on ABC), 6.628 million; Clemson-Virginia Tech (Sept. 30 on ABC), 4.693 million; Penn State-Iowa (Sept. 23 on ABC), 5.341 million; Tennessee-Florida (Sept. 16 on CBS), 5.133 million; Oklahoma-Ohio State (Sept. 9 on ABC), 8.255 million; Alabama-FSU (Sept. 2 on ABC) 12.335 million. Two things of added note: That Oct. 14 donnybrook between the Hooisers and the Harbaughs was a nooner and got 300,000 more than the Alabama-Arkansas prime time game on ESPN, which ranked two, and more than 500,000 more than Auburn-LSU on CBS, which ranked fourth. Also, the Michigan-Florida game the opening weekend had 7.805 million viewers, but that also was on ABC.

- Really weird day on the UCLA hoops beat. First, LiAngelo Ball was among the three hoops players arrested for shop-lifting in China as the Bruins get ready to play Georgia Tech. Here's more, and if you want to insert a LaVar Ball joke, go right ahead. (Considering I'm pretty sure I'm not a perfect father no matter how hard I try, I'm going to sit this one out. Deal? Deal.) Then, former Indiana coach Bob Knight will detail how he has no respect for former UCLA legend John Wooden because of his recruiting practices back in the day on Joe Buck's show tonight at 8 p.m. Here's more and gang, if the Wizard of Westwood was cheating, then everyone - and I mean EVERYONE, EVER in college hoops cheated. (Wonder if Buck asks Knight if he ever cheated?)

Today's question

We'll start with some feedback: If you watched the Flair 30-for-30, what did you think? (Couple more: Other than the sadness, I kind of wished they had done a little more on the Four Horseman and some of the more fun times. I know the hardships and emotional turmoil makes for good copy, but there had to be more. Also, man, that wrestling is a tough way to make a living. All of the older wrestlers looked like they had paid a lot of physical prices for their fame and success.)

Next, if the above scenario played out in the college football realm, who are your four teams in the playoff. Discuss.

As for today - Nov. 8 - let's see what history holds:

An actor was elected governor on this day in 1966 in California. Some cat named Ronald Reagan.

A business man and part-time actor was elected president on this day 50 years later. Some cat named Donald Trump.

Doc Holiday died on this day in 1887.

Hey, Chattanooga-area songtress Lauren Alaina is 23 today.

As for a Rushmore, well, let's go a little different today. Gordon Ramsay, the celebrity chef dude who yells at everyone is 51 today.

If we threw out the Rushmore of TV cooks/chefs (real and characters mind you) would Ramsay make it? We think Mel from Mel's Diner is a contender for sure.

Who you got on a Rushmore of TV cooks and chefs?

(Also, we've got only a spot or two left in Friday's mailbag, and we got a couple of wham-bam hate mails, so there's that.)

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