Chip Patterson, CBS Sports, breaks down college football rankings

I'm Hayes Permar filling in substitute teaching, hanging out at the kids table with my good friend Victoria producing the program. NC State trails Kansas 39-31, but only because Grady Dick went 6 for 9 from 3, which is ridiculous. State played pretty well, and they didn't trail by 8 until the very end, so it was a nip and tuck game.

Let's hope Traquavion Smith hits more 3s than Grady Dick in the second half, and NC State can pull the upset here. To talk a little football, again, this game basically kicks off, this isn't like 100% accurate, but it's almost true. From now until the end of New Years, there will be live sports on ESPN and ESPN2 most of the time, between holiday basketball tournaments, which go right into bowl games, and sometimes they go back and forth. We will have live sports on in NC State, Kansas in the Bahamas for the Bad Boy Mowers Battle for Atlantis Championship.

Just dripping with history, the Bad Boy Mowers Battle for Atlantis title up for grabs is part of it all. But, to talk about the bowl games to come and the college football playoff rankings that we got last night, it's our good friend Chip Patterson from CBS Sports and the Cover 3 Podcast. Chip, what's up dude? What's up, how are we doing? Doing very well. Sitting in for Adam Gold, I like to keep things as normal as possible, so I need to comment on the fact that you're making me uncomfortable wearing a dress shirt and a blazer, because I know that makes Adam Gold uncomfortable as well. Are you holding it down on HQ for more shifts than usual over the holidays?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I'll tell you what, we've got an 11am Friday pregame show to get you set, because Friday, full day of games, and then on Saturday, 11am pregame show on CBS Sports HQ, and we've got a watch, like a pregame sort of watch party hangout with special guests for the Iron Bowl on 2.30pm Eastern Time. If you want to watch it on YouTube, YouTube.com slash Cover 3, former Alabama player, that I don't know if I can reveal who it is, but it is a linebacker who has played in the NFL, who will join us to preview the Iron Bowl, throw in a few other hits as well, some halftime shows, this, that, or the other.

They're getting their money's worth out of your boy, don't worry. I thought it was going to be former Alabama Caker Jeremy Shelley, go Cavs, I thought that would be the special guest it would be, but it will be a mystery. Last time we did this, we had Matt Corral actually join us, and it was in advance of the Alabama Ole Miss game, and he couldn't find a place to get set up, so he joined us from Lane Kiffin's office. It was actually kind of awesome, he was very cool, obviously he's had a lot of disappointment with the Panthers, but his insight on the quarterback room, and sort of how this was not exactly the rookie year he expected. If Matt Corral's interview with us on the Cover 3 hangout was any precursor of what we've got in store, both for the Iron Bowl and the SEC Championship, it should be a good time.

So 2.30pm Eastern Time, it'll be all over the CBS Sports socials, but if you want to know where you can definitely find it, it's at YouTube.com slash Cover 3. Did you, when Matt Corral was sitting in Lane Kiffin's office, were you like, hey Matt, just open up some drawers there and see, are there any letters from any schools? Is there a freshly printed resume? What's going on there?

Get some info from them. Alright, last night the college football rankings had Clemson 8, which is notable because no team this late in the season has come from deeper than 7th in the rankings to make the college football playoff. Is there a path to which Clemson could get into the college football playoff? Yes, would you like to hear it? Nope, I just want to know that there is one. Next question.

No, no, no, tell me what it is. So I think that you want Georgia to be 13-0, which means obviously they take care of business and clean old-fashioned hate and they win against LSU. LSU's got three losses.

We get them out of the paint. You want Ohio State to beat Michigan and you probably want it to be a large spread, sizable difference. And the reason why you want Ohio State and not Michigan is that Michigan's non-conference strength of schedule is very poor. Out of conference play, they only played UConn, Hawaii, and Colorado State, of which UConn is the best win out of conference play for Michigan. Ohio State had Notre Dame, especially the way that Notre Dame has surged here at the end of the season. You want Georgia 13-0, Ohio State 13-0.

Those are two that are in. Now you get down to this conversation where TCU losing the Big 12 title game would open up the potential for Clemson to be able to maybe jump ahead of TCU, with Clemson having one loss, TCU having one loss, but Clemson being able to say it is a conference champion. But there is another option where even if TCU goes 13-0 as well and makes it to the college football playoff, and I actually think this is a little bit more realistic, you are rooting hard against USC. Shouldn't be hard for a Clemson fan, because I know that we all debated over who USC is, but you're rooting against USC on Saturday at noon, you're rooting against USC Saturday at 730, and next Friday in the Pac-12 title game, you're rooting against USC there. Because I do think that USC losing to either Notre Dame or in the Pac-12 title game would open up the door for the Clemson Tigers, because again, if they are able to beat South Carolina and North Carolina to be able to jump in there and get the fourth seed. So the easiest thing to do is that you want Georgia and Ohio State to both be 13-0, kicking out Michigan and LSU, then you get into debates with TCU and USC, and so if USC has another loss and is a two-loss team, I think that is the most likely rooting interest for a Clemson fan. Is it significant that Clemson was behind Alabama last night, or does it not matter, because obviously Clemson will have to win out, and wins over South Carolina and North Carolina would actually be enough justification to put them over as a conference champion, to put them over Alabama, even though they're behind them right now?

Correct. Alabama beating Auburn is not even a win against a winning team. Auburn is 5-6 right now.

You defeat Auburn, they're 5-7, that doesn't help your strength of schedule, that makes it worse. For Clemson, as you mentioned, South Carolina is going to be a bowl team. North Carolina is still in the college football playoffs. So I would say that if you want to add another wrinkle here, you are definitely rooting for North Carolina to beat NC State. The last thing that you want is for North Carolina to fall all the way out of the committee's top 25.

So you also want North Carolina to still only have two losses when you play against them in Charlotte, but I think the combination of South Carolina and North Carolina being better wins than Auburn, and also a conference championship, would allow for Clemson to move ahead of Alabama. One of the things I was talking about earlier, I don't know what the, like, are the committee given instructions, or are they just told, you know, are they told what the criteria is, or they just know we're picking the four teams in the playoff? The reason I ask is because it often seems like it comes down to a fundamental question for the committee, and that is, who is the most deserving versus who I believe is actually the best, right? You talk about things like conference champions and the number of losses you have being fewer than in other teams, those criteria tend to shade towards deserving of being there, right? I've done the things, I've beat the teams on my schedule, I've scheduled the teams that you've told me to play, I deserve to, versus, you know, maybe an Alabama who has two losses and doesn't have an ability to win, but everybody looks at all the metrics.

I'm not saying that Alabama is, but I'm just saying you could look at a team that has two losses and still say, you know what, I still think they're the best team. Is there anywhere that says you're picking the most deserving or you're picking the best, or do they just leave it wide open and they know that they're putting four teams in the playoff and they aren't told how to do it? It's both, and that's one thing- Nah, I don't want both. I don't want both. No, no, no, I am firm on this because I think that we should get in the practice of holding the selection committee's feet to the fire for their decisions that they're making outside of the top four, because it is true that right now their only job is to pick the top four, maybe slot the top 12 so we can get the New Year's six set, but in the future when we have a 12-team playoff and we're still using the selection committee, all of these decisions are going to mean a lot more up and down the rankings, and sometimes it does feel like they are reverse engineering the back half of the rankings in order to justify the decisions that they've made at the top of the rankings. And I would like to see this be a combination. We cannot let college football, a game that only has 12 games, a sport that only has 12 games in the regular season, solely be decided by, oh yeah, well, if they played tomorrow in a neutral, who would Vegas favor?

Forget that! Like, we have to have deserving as part of this. And so what they do on these team sheets is they look at statistics that are probably pretty similar to what goes into formulating odds. It goes into yards per play, points per drive, there are offensive efficiency metrics, there are defensive efficiency metrics, and most importantly, there are rankings among all FBS teams beside all of these metrics. And that's where I always say you don't want any red numbers. The numbers that I've seen from team sheets are not actually red, but it's that idea that you want to make sure that as a committee member is being overloaded with information, they seem to think that you are balanced and you have a high ranking for both your offense and defense.

Then on the right side of the sheet, strength of schedule metrics. How many wins or what is your record against the current top 25? How many wins do you have against teams with a winning record?

And what is the record of all the teams that you have played? So strength of schedule, your record against other ranked teams, that is deserve. The metrics on the left side, which are about your offensive and defensive strength, that is who is best. They are telling the committee to try to use best and most deserving, and I think that we should continue to encourage that because this is an imperfect sport that I do not want to be decided by who would be favored on a neutral because you've got to go and win the games. Yeah, and who will be favored on a neutral will always lean towards the historical names.

Alabama. Yeah, the big names versus the other guys. Do you think the four undefeated teams are the four best teams right now? I think there's a very good argument that Georgia and Ohio State are on a different tier and that Michigan is imperfect, but the statistics say that Michigan deserves to be included. In fact, when we want to talk about being well-balanced and elite on both sides of the ball, right now there are four teams that really stand out in terms of being high ranking on both sides of the ball. It is Georgia, it is Ohio State, it is Michigan, and it's the Florida State Seminoles, interestingly enough, who have been absolutely just a whole wagon here in the back half of the season winning games by like 35, 34, 28, just thrashing teams since they went on that three-game losing streak. Michigan, I think, has to settle for field goals too many times when they get inside scoring opportunities, not as impressed with their quarterback. Ohio State probably needs to see its defense tested by a team that can play bully ball. Of course, all those things we get to find out when Ohio State plays Michigan.

Georgia is undoubtedly to me the best team in the country and I don't think it's a debate. Go to Geico.com or contact your local agent today.