Finebaum: Penn State’s No. 4 ranking part of ‘complete travesty’ from CFP Committee

Penn State football took a significant step up in the second week of the College Football Playoff rankings, moving from No. 6 to No. 4. However, as expected, not everyone agrees that the rankings currently reflect the top teams in the sport. Perhaps the most vocal among the critics is ESPN personality Paul Finebaum, who took to the airwaves Wednesday to lambaste the CFP Selection Committee’s placement of Georgia by putting James Franklin and the Nittany Lions directly in his crosshairs.

“You have to start by saying that what the Committee said last night was a complete travesty,” Finebaum stated on ESPN’s Get Up in response to CFP Selection Committee Chair and Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel’s explanation of the rankings. Currently ranked No. 12, the Bulldogs would miss the playoffs if No. 13 Boise State wins the Mountain West Conference. “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 numbers to look at. So, I don’t know how they came up with these numbers.

“Georgia started the season against Clemson, which had 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.”

"What the committee said last night was a complete travesty. … Are you serious?. … How can you not be outraged at what we heard?"

—@finebaum on where Georgia was placed in the latest College Football Playoff rankings 😯 pic.twitter.com/cLtgcBns6z

— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) November 13, 2024

Finebaum: “No justification” for Penn State football to be ranked above Georgia

After coming in at No. 6 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings last week, Penn State football moved up to No. 4 following losses from Georgia and Miami. Now 7-2, the Bulldogs have losses to then-No. 4 Alabama and No. 16 Ole Miss but defeated top-ranked Texas.

“They [Georgia] have a chance,” Finebaum continued. “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 [ahead of them]? 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 [sic], another five-loss team. Somewhere in there, they beat Illinois, which I haven’t seen in a couple of weeks. 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 football has not played the Wolverines, but did defeat a 5-4 Wisconsin team in Madison. Although ranked fourth, the Nittany Lions would be seeded No. 6 in the CFP bracket and host No. 11 Ole Miss in a first-round playoff game based on the current rankings.

© Chris Eutsler / Basic Blues Nation, 2024

“If you look at this season and who some teams have lost to, I don’t think anybody on this call would say — would have predicted some of these teams would be losing to the teams that they lost to,” Manuel said Tuesday night when asked if the CFP Committee considers potential head-to-head matchups, specifically Penn State versus lower-ranked SEC teams, when determining its rankings. “We have to evaluate based on the performance on the field that we see.

“We can’t determine who would hypothetically win a game on paper. That’s not any of the things that we do. It’s not a part of our protocol to try to predict what would happen in the future. So we don’t have any conversations about that as it relates to how we rank the teams.”

Penn State football travels to 1-8 Purdue on Saturday.

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