The task of the College Football Playoff committee has never been easy, although it has often been obvious. In the four-team era, there were numerous seasons with just four clear candidates; other years, there was maybe a single decision to be made.
Yet despite that, the committee was routinely vilified for bias, hypocrisy and inconsistency, mainly because of the folly of the weekly rankings show each Tuesday (beginning in November) on ESPN.
It was there that for five weeks — despite limited data — the committee had to roll out rankings as if the “season ended today,” which it didn’t.