Greg McElroy complaining about Oregon ratings. Greg McElroy complaining about Oregon ratings.
College FootballESPNBy Andrew Bucholtz on

ESPN college football analyst Greg McElroy wound up with a rather wide discrepancy between his CFP picks as he put out on Twitter Monday and his picks as he argued on ESPN’s CFP discussion show on their linear network Tuesday. And that was particularly true when it came to Oregon. On Monday, McElroy listed the Ducks as his No. 6 team:

But, when the second week of official CFP rankings came out Tuesday, the 8-1 Ducks were in exactly that spot, behind the same five undefeated teams (although in quite a different order from McElroy’s rankings, with Ohio State at No. 1). And rather than argue with the ordering of the undefeated teams, McElroy used his airtime to say that Oregon had a lesser strength of schedule from playing teams like the Cal Golden Bears and Texas Tech Red Raiders:

“But what you’re telling people, to an extent, is ‘Hey, just schedule Texas Tech in the preseason.’ Because Texas Tech, that’s who Oregon played. And Oregon went on the road and looked ugly in that game, by the way, got a late touchdown that made it look a little better. But if you look at the strength of record, it’s not comparable. Alabama and Texas are both operating, right now, pretty well. I wouldn’t say that they’re passing the eye test with flying colors.”

“But they don’t have the luxury of playing Cal. And I’m not trying to take shots at Cal, I’m not trying to take shots at Colorado and these other teams. But I just think that ‘Why is this committee?’, and this committee’s irritating me, I’m going to be honest with you…why are we using resume to define Ohio State as No. 1, we’re using eye test to define Georgia and Michigan as No. 2 and No. 3, we’re using resume plus eye test to define Florida State at four, and then we like Washington, but, you know…there’s no consistency.”

Look, analysts can absolutely change their mind when presented with new information. But there was no new information here between Monday and Tuesday. And as many noted, those Cal complaints in particular seem weak:

McElroy may well have a point when it comes to inconsistent committee rankings. But it’s perhaps more inconsistent still for someone to rank the Ducks No. 6 himself and then complain about the committee doing so.

Update: McElroy addressed this Tuesday and Wednesday, saying he wasn’t criticizing Oregon but rather the committee’s logic in mixing resume and eye test, and saying his rankings are only about the eye test.

Sure, that’s an argument. It’s still an interesting move to spend so much time specifically criticizing the schedule of the No. 6 team when you also ranked them at No. 6, albeit for a different reason.

[Awful Announcing on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

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