Paul Finebaum eviscerates Big Ten, College Football Playoff committee for 'embarrassing slate of top teams'

Paul Finebaum continued to lambaste the College Football Playoff Selection Committee for their latest rankings, where the Big Ten made up four of the top five teams.

Evidently, the SEC Network analyst believes teams like Penn State and Indiana shouldn’t be anywhere near the top-ranked teams in the country, if within the current College Football Playoff rankings at all. Highlighting their weak schedule compared to teams like the Georgia Bulldogs, Finebaum stated his case on the latest edition of Get Up on ESPN.

“Indiana is a phenomenal story, and Curt Cignetti has done a masterful job, and this is a really good football team, but the schedule is embarrassing,” Finebaum said, regarding the Big Ten’s stranglehold on the top five in the latest College Football Playoff rankings. “I look at Indiana’s schedule and say, ‘If you play Georgia’s schedule, you would have your fifth loss tomorrow night against Tennessee.’ Penn State has played one good team, they’ve lost.

“It’s going to shake out, but it’s still ridiculous at this point, for this committee to meet for two days and come up with just an embarrassing slate of top teams.”

In response, Mike Greenberg added some context about how the expanded Big Ten and SEC have coincidentally allowed some teams to play easier schedules, which prompted Finebaum to liken Indiana’s road to Texas‘ position in the SEC: “That’s the case. Texas has not had a very challenging schedule,” Finebaum added.

“Their one tough game in the SEC at home, they lost to Georgia. They have a tricky game tomorrow night — tomorrow afternoon, against Arkansas. But ultimately, the championship games will decide this, but it’s still ridiculous for us to trust a committee who, after two weeks, have done this poor of a job.”

Many will write off Finebaum’s statement as SEC bias, but he makes some salient points. Regardless, all that matters as it pertains to which teams make the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff is what the committee thinks, and right now they’re showing some love to the Big Ten.

Time will tell if that continues, but Paul Finebaum will call out any flaws in their logic with each passing week, especially if teams like Georgia remain on the outside looking in.