At its core, the legitimacy of the College Football Playoff rankings has always stood on a flimsy foundation. A group of 13 individuals—all with various ties to the schools they're tasked with ranking based on their football prowess—meet on a weekly basis and decide through some murky combination of metrics and in-person debate who the 25 best teams in the country are. Such a setup is rife for head-scratching developments, which there have been no shortage of since the format's inception in 2014.
But Tuesday night's performance from committee chairman Gary Barta might take the cake for the most curious case of brow-furrowing logic that's been put forth to justify the group's decision.