Florida football: How to watch the College Football Playoff rankings

Tonight, Florida football will learn just where it stands in the College Football Playoff rankings when they are announced.

The expectation isn’t that Florida football will in the all-important top 4 of the College Football Playoff rankings when they’re announced tonight.

But, it will be interesting to see just where the No. 10 Gators fall.

Tonight, we learn where the College Football Playoff selection committee’s head is at and how they look at things like strength of schedule, wins and losses, etc.

We’ll see just what is more important to the committee, who you’ve beaten or who you’ve played.

Because college football, like just about every other sport, has become very data-driven, various strength of schedule ratings could be taken into account — such as Sagarin or the Colley Matrix.

However, as in year’s past, the actual wins and losses could also be taken into account.

If we see Alabama as the No. 1 team in tonight’s rankings, you can deduce the committee is looking purely at just how a team looks. However, if LSU is No. 1, then you can deduce that things like strength of schedule will actually matter greatly in the rankings.

Another factor to consider is quality wins over bad losses.

If Georgia is ranked lower in the poll it is because that one loss to South Carolina weighs considerably more than the win over Florida football.

Florida Gators Football

Conversely, if that’s the committee’s thinking, Florida football could be nudged a little higher simply because both of their losses are to top-10 teams and they have a top-10 win under their belt as well.

As for Florida football, as I said, they won’t be in the top 4 to be sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them in the top 10.

Their strength of schedule could hurt a bit as FCS teams like Towson and UT-Martin don’t factor well. However, a strong win over Miami coupled with the top-10 win over Auburn and the Gators have a solid case to be in the top 10 overall.

And, as I said, their two losses are to now-No. 1 LSU and now-No. 6 Georgia. So, as long as LSU keeps winning and Georgia either loses badly down the road or wins out, Florida football will stand to get better in the rankings, based purely on strength of schedule.

Of course, that will also depend on the Gators winning against Vanderbilt this weekend, then at Missouri and against Florida State to close out the regular season.

Georgia will have to lose twice to SEC opponents for Florida football to have a shot at the SEC championship game, but let’s not think about that right now.

Tonight, all eyes will turn to the committee to see just where this years’ group of members will place the most value — how a team is doing now, the strength of schedule, quality wins vs. losses, etc.

You can watch the College Football Playoff rankings come out at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.

And, No. 10 Florida will be back in action at noon Saturday when they host Vanderbilt at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.