ESPN analyst pokes at committee following Arkansas ranking

During the weekly College Football Playoff ranking reveal show, the analyst team broke down the reason for Arkansas climbing the ranks with three losses. Arkansas moved up four spots in the rankings to No. 21 after a pair of wins over LSU and Mississippi State.

Arkansas’ new College Football Playoff ranking

As the newest rankings were revealed, ESPN’s college football analysts Rece Davis, Joey Galloway, David Pollack and Kirk Herbstreit were on hand to give their takes on where each team was ranked.

“Arkansas, after outlasting LSU, they’re going to Tuscaloosa this week,” began Davis about Arkansas’ upcoming game against Alabama.

“Obviously an opportunity presents itself for Arkansas,” answered Galloway.

“They’ve done a great job. Listen, all three losses were pretty competitive losses — except for, well two of the three were pretty competitive losses,” laughed Galloway as he remembered Arkansas’ matchup with Georgia where they lost 37-0. “Georgia did what they did to everybody.”

“It’s good to see,” agreed Pollack. “They should have been ranked, I thought, a couple of weeks ago. But now obviously [they’re] up there ranked.”

“But they’ve been in and out of the rankings, they were in there last week. They’re up four spots to number 21,” closed Davis.

ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit also explained his stance on teams like Arkansas and Mississippi State being in the top 25 despite multiple losses. Herbstreit stated he was glad to see Arkansas and Mississippi State ranked after they’ve been good teams this year.

“I know we focus on the top four, five or six [ranked teams] — I just love to see these teams with three, four losses not lose their way. Continue to battle, continue to be rewarded for playing good football.”

Gary Barta’s controversial comments

After the rankings were revealed, CFP Selection Committee chairman Gary Barta once again joined ESPN’s Rece Davis for a conversation about the Week 12 rankings.

When asked to go further in-depth on his repeated comments about Michigan’s status as a “complete team,” Barta seemingly dug a hole for himself – at least in the eyes of college football analysts and fans.

“If you look at it statistically – set aside watching the games, that’s certainly a part of it – but statistically in just about every category offensively and defensively Michigan comes out on top over Michigan State,” said Barta. “Again, it certainly is understood and considered that Michigan State beat Michigan, but at the end of the day the committee added another game this week and the committee decided that Michigan is still needing to be ranked a game ahead of Michigan State. Next week we’ll come back and we’ll look at it again.”

While Gary Barta’s explanation of head-to-head importance will do just fine for Oregon and Michigan fans, others take issue with the inconsistency. However, as the final authority, the College Football Playoff Selection Committee has issued its ruling for the week.

On3’s James Fletcher III contributed to this article.