Gäste Forum » watchers understands that USC isnt your a

After the beautiful chaos that emerged from what was supposed to be a ho-hum Week 11, this is how its going to be? An undefeated Alabama followed by a wad of one-loss teams. If thats how it indeed plays out (and at this point assuming anything is as ill-advised as holding up a We want Bama sign on College GameDay), then how will the men and women in that hotel conference room in Grapevine, Texas, sift through that pile of one-blemish résumés? Will they compare the best moments of each teams W column? Or will they stack up the low points over on the right side of the season-dividing dash?For now, lets assume theyre going with that common solo digit, the shared 1 in the loss column. Not all Ls are created equal. So, who owns the most impressive defeat? Heres how we rank them.1. Louisville Loss: Oct. 1 at No. 5 Clemson, 42-36Perhaps the biggest advantage that the College Football Playoff selection committee holds over the analytics of the BCS era is the gift of context. Real humans who watched games and closely follow the season understand what a game really was at the time it was played. No game this season has been played with more hype or pressure or within a more insane atmosphere than Lamar Jacksons visit to Death Valley in Week 5. That committee also knows that the Cardinals came within a few yards of being in position to tie the score or win the game via a PAT in the closing ticks. No other team on this list suffered a loss to a ranked team on the road, let alone came within a couple of plays of defeating a top-five team in one of the games most vicious stadiums.2. Ohio State Loss: Oct. 22 at unranked Penn State, 24-21In the playoff era, your enemies are also your friends. The Buckeyes legitimized Penn States rebound season and have continually benefited from doing so as the Nittany Lions have climbed the charts in the weeks since, reaching the AP top 10 on Sunday afternoon ... though now OSU needs PSU to lose one more so the Buckeyes can make a Big Ten title run. Again, context matters, and anyone who watched Ohio States emotional slobberknocker of an OT win at Wisconsin the week before knows the Buckeyes were the walking wounded when they arrived at Happy Valley yet still carried a lead into the final five minutes of the game.3. West Virginia Loss: Oct 29 at unranked Oklahoma State, 37-20The committee is clearly not impressed with the Mountaineers or the Big 12 overall, but a visit to Stillwater is never easy and hindsight tells us this victory is now part of a six-game winning streak for the Cowboys, during which they have rocketed from unranked to 13th in the AP poll. The final score is also not indicative of a game in which WVU trailed by only one TD with less than nine minutes remaining, though its offense was exposed with an untimely clunkiness.4. Michigan Loss: Nov. 12 at unranked Iowa, 14-13Losing to a four-loss team is never good, but a one-point loss on the road in a hostile environment against a brand-name program that came within seconds of being in last years playoff? Theres not a lot of disgrace to be found there. Except, you know, for the unranked, four-loss stuff.5. Washington Loss: Nov. 12 vs. No. 20 USC, 26-13Again, a room of football watchers understands that USC isnt your average three-loss team and is also light-years beyond the Trojans team that started the season 1-3. But losing at home is bad. And losing a game at home in which you spent most of the fourth quarter down two scores is really bad, especially when your remaining games -- whether it be two or three -- will be against teams with two or more losses.6. Clemson Loss: Nov. 12 vs. unranked Pitt, 43-42The Tigers still hold the steering wheel on their playoff road, but this loss was a bad one any way you carve it. It takes all the worst parts of the defeats weve already listed and combines them into one nast