The ACC and strength of schedule top this week's Anger Index

Greg Sankey says he hasn't been working the refs, but it's hard to ignore the constant buzz from SEC coaches and administrators about how important strength of schedule is, how deceptive win-loss records can be, how grueling the path through nine games of conference play is in the SEC. That, of course, is Sankey's job. It's up to the committee to accept or ignore the SEC's argument based on the merits. To this point, they've chosen the former. To be fair, Sankey has a compelling case. The SEC appears to be the strongest conference top to bottom, and metrics such as SP+ bear that out. But it's one thing to agree with the general idea that Texas might have it a bit harder than Texas Tech. It's another thing to quantify exactly what that means. The committee believes Alabama is the No. 3 team in the country. It believes this mostly due to one metric: The Tide have the No. 1 strength of schedule in the country. And yet the AP voters have watched Alabama all year, too, and they have the Tide at No. 7. The coaches' poll, presumably made up of voters who know exactly how much a tougher schedule drains a team, has Alabama seventh, too. Then there are the advanced metrics. SP+, which looks to take luck-based outcomes out of the picture and focus on actual performance, has Alabama eighth. The Tide's strength of record is fifth. Strength of record accounts for only the outcome, not how a team played in those games, so it's also worth pointing out that Alabama is 30th in average in-game win expectancy. Yes, but the schedule strength! Won't someone please think of the schedule strength! The thing is, SP+ and strength of record actually account for strength of schedule. It's built into the formula. But the committee doesn't seem very interested in the recipe for other stats. Eleven of the 14 toughest schedules belong to SEC schools. That's all the argument the committee needs to stump for the Tide, South Carolina or LSU. The Bayou Bengals are a prime example of the problem. LSU is 6-3 and ranked 21st. It has the No. 19 strength of schedule. Its best win, though? Clemson, maybe? Or Louisiana Tech? Ah, but the losses. Getting drubbed by Alabama is like losing a race to Usain Bolt. People are just impressed he took the time to lace up his shoes for you. And yet, it's not even the quality losses that matter anymore. Georgia lost to Auburn. Texas lost to Florida. Oregon lost to Illinois. South Carolina lost to Mississippi State. Who cares? Georgia has wins over teams with really tough schedules! Texas, Oregon, South Carolina -- schedule strength galore! The true genius of schedule strength is that it's a machine fueled by hyperbole and repetition, and it exists in a locker room where teams can neither enter nor exit. It is a room populated with the name brands, the ones we all accepted a decade ago were good because they had the pedigree, and no matter how much Wake Forest, Texas Tech or Boise State bang on the door, they'll never be let in. The SEC dominates the top 25 because its schools have played the toughest schedules. The schedules are the toughest because the SEC's schools dominate the top 25. Chicken, egg. Never mind that the ACC was 8-6 vs. the SEC last year. Never mind that the SEC hasn't had a team play for a national championship in the past three years. Never mind that Texas A&M and Oklahoma were top-10 teams to open the season but turned out to be pretty bad. (Note: The same can be said for the Big Ten, where Penn State, Michigan and Washington still manage to prop up teams' schedules long after being exposed as frauds.) But it's also a concern as we look ahead to an era of 24 teams in the playoff, because if doors to the party are open only to the teams with the toughest schedules, the bulk of the invitation can be sent out before the season kicks off. 1. The ACC Is the ACC bad? That's like asking whether "Road House" was a bad movie. It misses the point. Its beauty is in all the ways it entertains us by upending traditional definitions of "good" or "talented" or "not being Stanford." The ACC is like all great art in that it challenges us to think differently, to see beauty in the absurd, to consider a team whose mascot wears a top hat and rides a motorcycle as genuine playoff material. The committee, however, is not so enlightened. Where a truly curious mind can look at Duke and see a Heisman Trophy candidate in the backfield, a defense with the highest pressure rate in the Power 4 and a head coach who routinely grows one of the country's finest beards just in time for the postseason, the folks on the selection committee see only a loss to Georgia Tech and a strength of schedule ranking worse than most Duke grads' average score through 18 at Pinehurst. But if the committee refuses to look deeper at the ACC, then we're happy to do its job instead. Explain how Miami, a clear-cut No. 1 in the country last week, can go on the road to South Bend without its best player, lose by a touchdown in a game that would've been tied if its tight end had held on to an apparent catch in the end zone for a half-second more, and tumble all the way to No. 7 in the rankings behind multiple two-loss SEC teams? Somehow beating Miami was so impressive that Notre Dame was able to jump six spots, but losing to Notre Dame was so egregious that Miami fell seven places? Explain how Wake Forest -- No. 10 in strength of record, No. 8 in average in-game win percentage, No. 11 in the AP poll and No. 12 in SP+ -- still checks in at No. 13 in the committee's estimation behind five two-loss teams from other conferences? Oh, perhaps Wake could improve its résumé this week against 7-2 SMU -- if only the committee had bothered to rank the Mustangs. Instead, Kevin Jennings & Co. -- No. 18 in SP+ with two losses by a total of 13 points -- remain unranked, while seven three-loss teams are in the top 25. OK, sure, one of SMU's losses was to Syracuse, but is that all it takes to write a team off? Because Oregon lost to Illinois. South Carolina lost to Mississippi State. Oklahoma State lost to Tulsa. And SMU is one of just two power-conference schools with two losses or fewer that remain unranked. The other, of course, is also in the ACC. That'd be Duke. The Blue Devils, by the way, beat that same Illinois team that defeated Oregon. Oh, while we're on the subject of three-loss teams cracking the top 25 -- how about Louisville? The Cardinals have three losses by a total of nine points -- two of which came against ranked foes. Louisville's SP+ is No. 14 -- ahead of BYU, Iowa, Oregon, USC and a number of other supposed top-25 teams. So what? Lose to Syracuse or NC State or Georgia Tech, and there's no one to blame but yourself when the committee looks past the rest of your résumé. We get it. The problem is on the other side of the ledger, though. If no ACC teams are ever considered good -- despite solid records and strong performances -- then there's no way to ever build a résumé the committee will recognize. Wake Forest has one loss in a closely contested game against Miami. It has beaten its past five opponents by an average of 47 points. And yet, there are only two outcomes possible Saturday: Either Wake Forest will beat SMU, earning a collective yawn from the committee, or it will lose to an unranked SMU and can be ignored completely the rest of the way. The ACC has seven teams at 6-3 or better -- one fewer than the Big Ten and SEC, one more than the Big 12. The ACC has two schools ranked. The Big 12 has six. The Big Ten has six. The SEC has nine. As Patrick Swayze said in the cinematic masterpiece "Road House," "Pain don't hurt." But, man, a bad strength of schedule sure does. 2. Texas Tech Red Raiders (8-1, No. 12) If the playoff started today, the first team out would be the Red Raiders. That will certainly change down the road -- starting with Texas Tech's showdown against No. 25 Oklahoma State this week -- but the committee isn't supposed to look ahead. It is supposed to judge a team on the merits of its résumé today. And yet, consider that five two-loss teams are ahead of Texas Tech at the moment, including conference-mate BYU. Yes, Texas Tech lost an ugly game to middling Cincinnati. But BYU also lost an ugly game to middling UCF. Yes, BYU has a good -- if controversial -- win over Notre Dame. But the Red Raiders have a win against No. 14 Houston that didn't come with the same officiating shenanigans. They both have wins over Arizona at home. They've both beaten Arizona State, though Texas Tech did so in far more impressive fashion. The Red Raiders also have a solid win over Oregon State. Texas Tech has one loss and is trending up. BYU has two losses and is trending down. And yet BYU is three spots higher, well into the safe zone of playoff contention. Picking a fight with Texas Tech seems a bad choice for the committee, though. For one, the school's mascot is armed. Second, no school has spent more time in courtrooms this year than Texas Tech. And third, Cody Campbell is on Line 3 with a half-dozen lawyers, a sternly worded letter from Ted Cruz and a bag of cash he's just going to leave on the table, turn his back and ask no questions of any committee members who might be looking to redo their kitchens. 3. USC Trojans (7-2, No. 18) Let's compare some résumés of two-loss teams, shall we? Team A: No. 13 strength of record, best win vs. SP+ No. 4 by 12, losses to SP+ Nos. 15 and 39, No. 29 strength of schedule. Team B: No. 14 strength of record, best win vs. SP+ No. 2 by 4, losses to SP+ Nos. 9 and 67, No. 30 strength of schedule. Team C: No. 20 strength of record, best win vs. SP+ No. 20 by 3, losses to SP+ Nos. 9 and 17, No. 38 strength of schedule. How would you rank them? You might be inclined, depending on how you weigh certain metrics, to follow the A-B-C order. Team A has the toughest schedule, the best strength of record, two reasonable losses and a solid win, after all. But Team A is USC, which checks in at No. 18. Team B, a slumping BYU, is eight spots higher. Team C, a Houston squad with nary an eye-catching win on its résumé, is four spots higher. Even Iowa, another 7-2 team in USC's own conference, is three spots ahead of the Trojans. With Indiana and UCLA still on the docket, there's every chance for the Trojans to play their way into the 12-team playoff. But if USC were getting the same benefit of the doubt that other two-loss teams such as Texas, BYU and Houston are getting, it might need just a split against the Hoosiers and Bruins to be in good position. Now, they'll need to win both and still might need a bit of help. 4. Tennessee Volunteers (7-2, No. 8) Remember when the final rankings were released last December, and to Notre Dame's surprise, the Irish had flip-flopped positions with Miami despite the fact that neither team had played? The explanation -- reasonable as it might've been in all the weeks before those rankings -- was that the Hurricanes had the same record as the Irish and had beaten them head-to-head. Advantage: Miami. In the first set of rankings this year, too, the committee seemed to take head-to-head results seriously. That's a big reason Notre Dame was at No. 11 a week ago. The Irish lost to BYU, so they had to be behind the Cougars. This week though? Well, consider this one: Team A: 7-2, 17.3-point average margin of victory, two losses to top-20 teams by a combined six points, three wins vs. FPI top 40, best win vs. SP+ No. 8. Team B: 7-2, 17.1-point average margin of victory, two losses to top-20 teams by a combined 19 points, four wins vs. FPI top 40, best win vs. SP+ No. 7. So, who would you rank higher? It's basically a coin flip, right? Well, what if I told you that Team A beat Team B head-to-head by 16 points? That should pretty clearly put Team A ahead in the rankings, right? Not if you're on this committee, where Team B -- Alabama -- is ranked third, while Team A -- Tennessee -- checks in at No. 8. This one seems to be about some magical spell Alabama has over the committee more than a slight against Tennessee, but it's still a pretty black-and-white case on paper. Just don't get us started on 6-3 Illinois being unranked while 6-3 Oregon, which lost to Illinois by 11, is No. 16. Maybe the committee just hates orange? 5. The Group of 6 It's official. The playoff is expanding to 24 teams. And in years past, that'd be great news for the Group of 6. Not so much now, though. In last year's final committee rankings, there were three Group of 5 schools ranked. The year before that, there were four. There were nine others between 2021 and 2023. But now that the teams at the bottom of the rankings will actually matter in who makes a future 24-team playoff, the committee isn't interested in handing out consolation prizes anymore. So, Boise State makes the cut -- just barely at No. 24. Never mind that the Broncos are No. 19 in strength of record and No. 17 in the AP poll. New Mexico cracked the AP Top 25 this week, but the committee ignored the Lobos completely. Liberty is 8-1. James Madison is 8-2. North Texas, Memphis and UTSA are all 7-2 in the American. No love for any of them. Yes, the gap between the power leagues and the Group of 6 has widened in a post-revenue-sharing world. But the top of the Group of 6 is still pretty good. It is the committee's willingness to reward the teams for their performance that has changed. Also angry: LSU donors, Mario Cristobal, Ole Miss Rebels (6-3, No. 19), UCLA Bruins (9-0, No. 4)