Greg McElroy: Penn State is ‘most egregious’ over-ranked team in College Football Playoff rankings

The first College Football Playoff Selection Committee rankings are out and there is plenty to debate. That includes the ranking of Penn State at sixth in the country, which analyst Greg McElroy thinks is the most egregious over-ranked team in the rankings.

McElroy explained on Always College Football that Penn State’s resume lacks marquee wins to justify their ranking, emphasizing that the lack of big wins should matter.

“The most egregious example of a team that is being completely overvalued is Penn State,” Greg McElroy said. “Penn State, their best win this year is against Illinois, and while I have watched Illinois…I’m not sure anyone is going to come away from watching the Illini this year and go, ‘You know what? That’s a program-defining win.’ It’s not. I mean, Illinois is a good football team. They’re 6-3. You deserve tons of credit for beating a team 6-3, but if that’s your best moment, and your next best win is against a Wisconsin team that has had their doors blown off a couple times, then what are we doing here?”

The Nittany Lions currently have one opponent who is well-respected by the Selection Committee. That’s Ohio State and they lost the game. Still, as McElroy pointed out, Penn State isn’t the only team that lacks marquee wins and finds itself ranked highly.

“Penn State has no business being number six. Honestly, Texas, I don’t know if they have a ton of business being number five, based on resume,” McElroy said. “Then, we get to Tennessee. While Tennessee has had moments where they look a little lethargic, right, not great. Not great whatsoever. They do have a win against Alabama. Alabama currently sits in the top 11 of the College Football Playoff committee rankings. So, they have the best win of the bunch. Do they have the worst loss? Yeah, technically, they lost to Arkansas where Texas lost to Georgia, Penn State lost to Ohio State.”

For McElroy, this shows an interesting trend where losing to a good team has value in the mind of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. It’s a trend that McElroy doesn’t appear to fully agree with.

“So, are we valuing who you lost to, now? Because that would be new from the committee. We have not had that from previous versions of the committee. They don’t factor in as much who you lost to but more how many times you lost or what the margin of defeat may have been. So, in my opinion, those three teams — Texas, Tennessee, Penn State — all have solid resumes but far from elite resumes. Penn State and Texas don’t have a Top-25 win. Tennessee has one, which is against Alabama, which is why I think Tennessee should be ahead of both Texas and Penn State,” McElroy said.

“Then, I’ll go one step further. You know who should be ahead of Texas and Penn State potentially? BYU. BYU, who currently sits right now, according to the Playoff committee, at number nine.”

Greg McElroy is far from the only one who feels that Penn State is overrated in the initial rankings. On3’s Ari Wasserman also shared his thoughts, arguing that it’s the Nittany Lions’ logo that has them ranked ahead of Indiana and SMU.