Anyone who tuned in expecting Michigan and Clemson to plummet following their respective upset losses to Iowa and Pitt must have been disappointed. The No. 3 Wolverines remained right where they were last week. The No. 4 Tigers dropped two spots but still control their destiny.

If it’s not yet abundantly clear three years into this system, let me try to make it so: The committee values big wins far more than it punishes for bad losses.

As committee chair Kirby Hocutt noted, the Wolverines have three wins over current Top 10 teams (No. 7 Wisconsin, No. 8 Penn State and No. 10 Colorado). No other team can claim that. And Clemson has three Top 25 wins (No. 5 Louisville, No. 15 Auburn and No. 17 Florida State), two more than the Louisville team directly behind it – which it also beat head-to-head.