FOX analyst offers faint praise for committee over TCU's CFP ranking at No. 4

The second edition of the 2022 College Football Playoff rankings were unveiled on Tuesday night and following a weekend of crazy action that saw a handful of top contenders lose, at least one FOX analyst thinks the committee got TCU‘s CFP ranking right this time around.

FOX analyst Emmanuel Acho commended the committee’s move to slide TCU up three spots to No. 4.

“Good to see @TCUFootball in the top 4,” Acho wrote on Twitter. “I’m glad they weren’t ridiculous enough to put a 1 loss team over an undefeated Power 5 school.”

Of course, that had happened in the previous week’s edition of the CFP rankings, with one-loss Alabama at No. 6 and TCU at No. 7. Not this time around, not after Alabama picked up its second loss on Saturday and both Clemson and Tennessee fell from the ranks of the unbeaten.

That’s not to say there aren’t still some interesting questions about TCU’s CFP ranking, though.

For one, the question of the Big 12’s strength as a whole has emerged as a pivotal topic when it comes to the Horned Frogs. The rest of the league hasn’t done TCU and coach Sonny Dykes many favors.

Can TCU’s CFP ranking hold up with a loss?

Given how slow the committee was to reward TCU for winning its first eight games a week ago, it’s reasonable to wonder if the Horned Frogs might be dropped out of contending range for good should they lose a regular-season game but still go on to win the Big 12 title.

In fact, that was a question ESPN’s Chris Fowler put to Dykes indirectly on Tuesday night, asking if a Big 12 champion must be undefeated to make the College Football Playoff.

Dykes didn’t provide a direct answer but vouched for the method the Big 12 uses to determine its champion.

There’s a little less gray area than some other conferences.

““Just the fact that we have 10 very, very solid football teams, also we play a nine-game schedule where we’re going to play every single team in our leage and there’s no scheduling opportunities. In other words, we’re not going to ‘catch a good schedule’ one year because you’re going to play everybody,” Dykes explained. “You do get a true conference champion.

“You get an idea of who the best team is going to be. Again, this league, from top to bottom, is incredibly solid. We were the seventh or eighth pick preseason in our league. Kansas was, I think, the consensus No. 10 pick and they’ve got an outstanding football team. There’s no layups in the Big 12, that’s for sure.”

In any case, TCU is in that all-important spot for now.

It’s up to the Horned Frogs to keep the committee from having to figure out what happens if they lose. Up next are road games at Texas and Baylor, so TCU has work to do.