I’m with Dabo Swinney. What is the FPI, and what does it have to do with anything related to college football?

During his appearance on ESPN’s College Football Live on Monday, Clemson’s head coach was asked to debate on which division is better in College Football, the ACC Atlantic or the SEC West. When ESPN came back from the commercial break it threw up a statistic that said the FPI (the football power index) had Florida State as a 51-percent chance of winning the ACC, while Clemson had a 38-percent chance.

As Swinney started to comment on the question, he paused for a second and asked, “What is FPI? Is that like Finebaum Personal Interest? What is that? I’m trying to figure that out, and ya’ll are throwing out these (stats) and I’m like ‘What is FPI?’ I never heard of that. Why couldn’t we have found the one that had Clemson on top? There has to be one of them out there.”

The funny thing is there was one out there. Hours earlier, the ACC released its media preseason poll which picked the Tigers to win the ACC in 2016. Clemson received 144 of a possible 191 votes to repeat as ACC Champions. For the record, the Seminoles had just 39.

Now I know what the FPI stands for and what it is. For those who don’t, it is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is.

However, who cares?

It’s a formula ESPN made up for some reason. They act as if it is the gauge in which all things should be measured.

I get it. It is just another statistic people like to use. But, it is not a real statistic. I’m all about stats. Heck, I live for statistics. Ask anyone who knows me. However, I like to use real statistics. You know, like a true poll of voters who picked Clemson to win the conference.

Personally, I thought it was slap in the face to Swinney and Clemson for the producer on College Football Live to use a formula that has Clemson behind FSU, when Swinney was coming on their show to fill time. It is one thing if he was coming on and the majority of football experts out there thought Clemson was second best to the Seminoles, but when the Tigers were just picked to win the ACC by the media who cover the conference day in and day out, and you don’t even mention that on your show. Then you use your own formula stat that has his team losing the conference. Swinney had every right, in my opinion, to call them out on that.

I’m sure Swinney was joking around a little about it, but I’m also sure there was some truth to his question. He wasn’t just asking what the FPI was because he didn’t know. No, he was making a point and a pretty darn good one.