Paul Finebaum rips College Football Playoff Committee, Georgia ranking: 'A complete travesty'

The latest College Football Playoff Selection Committee rankings are out. With that, there was some pretty major movement among the top teams, including the Georgia Bulldogs falling out of the current bracket thanks to their loss to Ole Miss.

Selection Committee chair and Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel explained that decision as coming down to an inconsistent offense and head-to-head results. That was an explanation that Paul Finebaum took issue with during an appearance on Get Up the day after the rankings were revealed. Ripping the committee, Finebaum made the case for Georgia to be ranked higher than their current ranking of 12th.

“You have to start by saying that what the committee said last night was a complete travesty,” Paul Finebaum said. “There’s no getting around it. I know they work hard. They sit in a room at a five-star resort ordering caviar and champagne and sit around and talk about college football when they have 4,000 members to look at. So, I don’t know how they came up with these numbers. Georgia started the season against Clemson, which has been ranked in the top 10 at the time. Their road schedule has been the toughest of anyone in the country, as you pointed out. They went to Alabama, Texas, and Ole Miss. They’ve all been ranked in the top 10. They also went to Kentucky, which is very poor but they did beat Ole Miss, which is ranked inside the system.”

Georgia now has two losses this season. That’s on the back of one of the toughest schedules in the country. Only two other teams are ranked ahead of Georgia with two losses, both of which the Bulldogs lost to this season. Even with that, the Bulldogs still have the opportunity to play their way back into the Playoff field.

“They have a chance. They’ll play Tennessee this weekend and if they win they’ll probably end up back in the committee’s good graces, but how the committee can disrespect them and put schools like Penn State? Are you serious? What has Penn State done this year? Do they even have a — their most impressive win, I think, was at Southern Cal a five-loss team and against Michigan, another five-loss team. Somewhere in there, they beat Illinois, which I haven’t seen in a couple of weeks,” Finebaum said. “There’s no justification for it. I know I’m getting excited because there’s still three weeks to go, but how can you not be outraged at what we heard.”

Penn State has not played Michigan this season. The Nittany Lions’ only loss came to Ohio State. They don’t, however, have a win against a team ranked in the committee’s Top 25. By opponent’s record, their best win is 6-3 Illinois.

At this point, Heather Dinich shared some insight into how these rankings ended up the way they are now. Conference realignment and the way schedules have worked out is a major factor. However, she also noted there is still plenty of time for things to change.

“What we have here is the result of conference realignment and no divisions and the fact that Indiana doesn’t have to play Penn State. They don’t have to play Oregon. We’ll find out how good they really are when they play Ohio State. In the SEC, you have a Georgia team that as you mentioned has the toughest schedule in the country and has to go to Texas. Think about this for a second, Clemson can still win the ACC. What if a three-loss Georgia has wins against the SEC Champ Texas and the ACC Champ Clemson? There’s a lot of things that can still happen.”

At that point, Finebaum chimed in to add a comment about unbeaten Indiana. He argued that the Hoosiers would have multiple losses against Georgia’s schedule.

“By the way, you give Indiana Georgia’s schedule, they have four losses right now,” Finebaum concluded.