Why I Hope OU Moves Ahead of Oklahoma State in the CFP Rankings

Carson and I were texting after the Baylor-OU game on Saturday night when he joked that OU would probably move ahead of Oklahoma State when the CFP rankings come out on Tuesday.

Turns out … it might not be a joke.

I woke up on Sunday morning to a pair of my colleagues at CBS writing that they would rank OU in the top four on Tuesday night instead of Oklahoma State. Even our friend Joel Klatt isn’t immune.

My New CFB Top 10 (11/15)
1) #Clemson
2) #OSU
3) #Bama
4) #Sooners
5) #OklahomaSt
6) #NotreDame
7) #Iowa
8) #Florida
9) #MSU
10) #Baylor

— Joel Klatt (@joelklatt) November 15, 2015

This would be pretty unbelievable, wouldn’t it? OU lost to Texas! Texas! OSU hasn’t lost.

It would also go against what the committee did last year to TCU and Baylor. When the first rankings came out in 2014, TCU had already lost to Baylor and Baylor had already lost to West Virginia. The committee had TCU ranked ahead of Baylor every week until the final one.

This tells me the committee punished a bad loss (which Baylor had — to West Virginia … and OU has) more than it valued a good win (which Baylor also had — over TCU). And here’s the thing, OSU hasn’t even lost yet. Why is everyone acting like that’s not a reality?

It’s almost as if the committee is saying, “you know, you might have won 92 straight games by one point, but we really aren’t sure that matters because 8-5 USC just looks like a Playoff team.” Like I’ve been saying for the past two weeks, what’s the point of playing games then?

We’re getting ahead of ourselves, I know, and I’m already loading up the hot take cannon. But you know OSU won’t get credit for running the table on the road in conference play and OU will get credit because it’s OU (this is a brand-name competition, remember).

It seems unfathomable that OU would jump OSU on Tuesday night. OSU (No. 8 right now) should slide into the sixth slot behind Clemson, Bama, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Iowa. And OU (No. 12) and Florida (No. 11) should probably follow in some order since, you know, they’ve lost. But the committee doesn’t operate like the normal polls (which I’m told is a good thing) so who knows what’s going to happen.

I’m actually sort of rooting for OU to move ahead of OSU despite having lost to Texas for three reasons.

1. Glenn Spencer gets a new deck of “nobody believes in us” cards to play and you know he doesn’t need many of them to get his squad fired up at home.

2. Getting the opportunity to beat teams ranked ahead of us seems like it would be a good thing. I think. I might not have any idea about anything anymore.

3. The hilarity and absurdity of it all would be outstanding. As a proprietor of a web property, I’m rooting for as much controversial madness as possible.

Either way, Tuesday night should be fun.