Column: College Football Playoff: Somehow, Ole Miss wins for losing

Until this week there was no question about the greatest defeat in the history of Mississippi football.

It is etched in Rebels lore: Oct. 4, 1969.

That was the night Ole Miss quarterback Archie Manning was magnificent in a 33-32 loss to Alabama at Birmingham’s Legion Field. Manning passed for 436 yards and ran for 104 while accounting for five touchdowns.

It wasn’t enough, though, as the Rebels were undone by Bear Bryant’s Crimson Tide in a nationally televised game.

Who knew, 45 years later, that another Ole Miss loss might have as much gravitas?

It didn’t look like party time last Saturday when Mississippi pulled out of Baton Rouge, La., after a 10-7 loss to Louisiana State. Coach Hugh Freeze made a questionable decision that led to quarterback Bo Wallace throwing a late interception.

The loss sent the Rebels’ plummeting six spots, to No. 9 in this week’s USA Today coaches’ poll, which last year at this time was mucking up the Bowl Championship Series formula.

However, Tuesday’s first College Football Playoff rankings had Ole Miss five spots higher at No. 4 — the last playoff spot!

Has there ever been a better rise from the ash heap?

Rebels fans had cause to uproot goal posts again and parade through Oxford, which happened after the team’s Oct. 4 win over then-No. 1 Alabama. Ole Miss moved up seven spots in the coaches’ poll after that one — and now five spots in the CFP rankings after a loss to No. 24 LSU.

That’s a pretty good parlay.

The take-away from the first playoff rankings is that this system is going to be better. The committee has an obvious advantage over the BCS and other polls because it is not simply tallying up numbers sent in from disparate outposts.

The Associated Press media poll and coaches’ poll are stuck with their results — which can lead to embarrassment. For example, the coaches for weeks have had Michigan State ranked ahead of Oregon, which won the head-to-head by 19 points in September. The coaches also have Alabama at No. 3, six spots ahead of a Mississippi team it lost to this month.

The committee has the huge advantage of being able to control the narrative. When I served on a mock selection panel this month, we called it “the sanity check.”

The committee does not have to release findings as they were spit out on a computer printout. The panel can discuss outcomes and revote as many times as they want to get a desired result.

With possible exception of the one sportswriter they let participate, these are smart people. Condoleezza Rice and Tom Osborne hold doctorate degrees; USC Athletic Director Pat Haden is a former Rhodes Scholar.

The committee constructed a respectable 25 knowing it was being released dangerously early, and only to satisfy the insatiable appetite of sugar daddy ESPN.

“We debated, we reviewed facts and statistics, and we used our judgment,” said committee chairman Jeff Long, the athletic director at Arkansas. “There are 18 one-loss teams in the FBS and the differences between many of these teams are slight. The bottom line is it’s early, it’s close and it’s going to change.”

The panel was even able to sidestep the tinder-box position of No. 5, the odd-team out in a four-team playoff. No one from Eugene could complain about the Ducks being No. 5 because you can see how it’s going to play out.

The top four of Mississippi State, Florida State, Auburn and Mississippi is a quartet of cotton candy. Auburn and Mississippi play each other Saturday, and Mississippi State plays No. 6 Alabama in two weeks.

The rankings were neatly arranged so that every top-five team had a win over a team in the top 10.

Most teams with realistic visions of making the playoff can chart a path based on the committee’s release.

You can argue Notre Dame is too low at No. 10, considering the Irish narrowly lost at No. 2 Florida State and are ranked higher in the traditional polls. But you can also calculate the still-excellent odds of Notre Dame making it to No. 4 if it finishes 11-1.

Georgia seems undervalued at No. 11 but, again, there is a clear avenue to the playoff if the Bulldogs win out and capture the Southeastern Conference title.

Folks from Tucson might not like the gap between No. 12 Arizona and No. 5 Oregon, but that can be overcome if the Wildcats win the rest of their games.

The rankings left interesting things to ponder:

•The SEC might not be in as great of a position as it appears. Mississippi State is the only unbeaten left and all five schools in the top 11 have combinations of games against each other.

That kind of voracious infighting might make it difficult for the SEC to get two teams in the playoff, which most SEC fans expect.

What if Georgia loses a second game (Georgia Tech, Florida?) but still wins the weaker SEC East, and then the SEC championship game?

Could the SEC be left out entirely? (Answer: Never in a million years.)

•If Florida State claims a playoff spot from the Atlantic Coast Conference, the by-far weakest power conference, which other major champion will be watching the playoffs from home?

The Big Ten, at the moment, looks the most vulnerable in a season where the Big 12 has mounted a surprising resurgence.

However, the Pac-12 might be hanging on Oregon’s string in a week where the Ducks host, gulp, nemesis Stanford.

There is a long view in all of this, certainly, but the committee largely succeeded in providing an interesting short look.

chris.dufresne@latimes.com