Texas Tech Rising + Debating Playoff Ranking Methods
The Audible with Stew, Bruce & Ralph: A show about college football
The Athletic
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The second College Football Playoff rankings drop soon, and the guys dive into where things are heading down the stretch. How high could Texas Tech end up after dominating wins over BYU and other ranked opponents? Does Ole Miss deserve their lofty ranking, or is their resume thin?
The guys lock horns on how these teams should be evaluated: Should the committee rely on computer rankings and strength of record metrics, or focus on head-to-head results and quality wins? Bruce gets frustrated with power rankings that have 3-6 Penn State in the top 25, Ralph defends using analytics as a starting point, and Stew tries to find middle ground.
They also make their picks for the week's biggest games: Notre Dame at Pitt, Texas at Georgia, Oklahoma at Alabama, and Iowa at USC.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | That's not all you're saying. |
| 0:01.5 | That is not all you're saying. |
| 0:02.7 | You think that's pretty much what I'm saying. |
| 0:04.5 | That's what strength of record is. |
| 0:06.5 | No, you think that's what you're saying. |
| 0:08.4 | That's actually not what you're saying. |
| 0:10.4 | I mean, we'll lead it there. |
| 0:15.5 | Hello and welcome to the Audible, presented by Trader Joe's. |
| 0:23.5 | I'm Ralph Russo from The Athletic, joined as always, or as most always, by my colleagues, Stuart |
| 0:29.1 | Mandel and Bruce Feldman. |
| 0:31.0 | Don't forget every episode of this show. |
| 0:33.8 | You can find on YouTube. |
| 0:35.5 | Find us at Audible Show. |
| 0:37.6 | Later, we'll make some picks for this week's biggest games. |
| 0:41.9 | We'll also target a couple of upset picks and give some flowers to Bruce, who finally came off the canvas and had a pretty nice week in terms of his picks. |
| 0:51.5 | But first, it is ranking season, the college football playoff. |
| 0:56.3 | Second rankings come out, well, later today, depending on when you're listening, |
| 1:02.4 | we are recording on Monday. |
| 1:04.4 | We are not necessarily going to preview those rankings. |
| 1:07.0 | Not much happened this week to affect the college football rankings, but we are going to |
| 1:11.3 | dive into some scenarios and where we think things might be heading in the college football |
| 1:16.8 | playoff picture. Boys, where to start, where to start on the playoffs, because it's all about |
... |
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