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This is an opinion column.

A different kind of chaos is here for the College Football Playoff selection committee. What to do with the dirty, rotten, no-good scoundrels of Michigan?

The first set of College Football Playoff rankings will be released at 6 p.m. on Tuesday night. This is the final season for the College Football Playoff’s controversial four-team format. It has been a disaster for the sport of major college football, and will be replaced by a 12-team playoff next year. The playoffs should actually be expanding to at least 16 teams, but that’s the subject of a different column.

One problem at a time, people. Take a number and have a seat. There are complimentary bagels by the coffee machine for everyone except the teams that illegally obtained the football signals of their opponents over the last couple seasons.

Some people learned how to play guitar during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some people started new businesses. Michigan apparently decided to use all that free time to transform into the Marvel Comics super villain of college football.

According to a growing mountain of absurd evidence, Michigan staffers allegedly hatched a plan back in 2020 to illegally steal the signals of opponents using the intel of a former Marine Corps captain who is so devoted to the team he loves that he co-wrote a 500-plus page Google doc he calls the “Michigan Manifesto.”

They call that “obsessed” in the Big Ten. Here in SEC country we just call that our friend Keith.

You know, Keith. Keith lives on the message boards, watches every game 10 times and then emails coaches with suggestions.

Well, the Michigan version of Keith is a guy named Connor Stalions and his emails to coaches were so compelling that the coaches actually started to listen. Michigan was desperate, in other words, and needed all the help it could get. The Wolverines then apparently started sending Stalions money and tickets to games. That wasn’t enough, though. Michigan needed Stalions around so badly that they hired him as an analyst in 2022.

Stalions’ now-deleted LinkedIn profile even boasted that his responsibilities for Michigan included “identifying and exploiting critical vulnerabilities and centers of gravity in the opponent scouting process.”

Michigan is pathetic, but I actually kinda like Connor Stalions. He’s a real go-getter. Until recently, he was living the dream. Connor is just a fan who loved his team. If we’re being completely honest, Connor Stalions has been calling the Paul Finebaum show for the last 20 years.

College football, gotta love it.

Connor’s emails were paying off big time, too.

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh finally defeated archrival Ohio State in 2021. The Wolverines then won the Big Ten in back-to-back years and advanced to the 2021 and 2022 College Football Playoff.

And then — whoopsie — an independent investigator found a trail of concerning evidence on Michigan’s own computers earlier this season. It all came crashing down for the Wolverines from there.

The latest in the blockbuster scandal? According to a new report by WSJ.com, Michigan recently rescinded a new contract offer that would have made Jim Harbaugh the highest paid coach in college football. Michigan hasn’t said much about the alleged sign-stealing plot, but this latest development in the story speaks volumes. It’s the first indication that Harbaugh’s employment at Michigan is in question.

Michigan has been the most dominant team in the country through the first nine weeks of the season. Welp, now we know why. The game is a little easier when teams know what plays are coming.

And so the College Football Playoff selection committee has a big decision to make. How to value the Michigan football team when all of the Wolverines’ victories were probably aided by cheating? The answer is simple. The College Football Playoff committee should exclude Michigan from the rankings to preserve the credibility of the sport.

If Michigan is included in the CFP rankings, then we’ll know once and for all that the CFP selection committee is a complete scam. There are plenty of worthy teams that don’t cheat and deserve to be in the hunt for the College Football Playoff. Michigan (8-0) isn’t one of them. By ranking Michigan over others, the CFP will be sending a clear signal that its postseason exists for reasons other than rewarding fair play on the field.

There are currently six undefeated teams in college football besides Michigan. It’s not going to be difficult for the CFP selection committee to find good teams that actually play by the rules. I’d rather see James Madison (8-0) in the playoff than Michigan, and the Dukes aren’t even eligible to compete in bowl games. No.23 James Madison is a great story. It moved up to the Football Bowl Subdivision this season and earlier in October became the first team in FBS history to be ranked in the AP Top 25 in its first season at the highest level of college football.

The NCAA is working quickly to determine the extent of Michigan’s sign-stealing schemes, but it’s obvious that the Wolverines are in big trouble. The team was off last week and plays Purdue this Saturday. It won’t matter how good the Wolverines look on the field, though. No one is going to take Michigan seriously at this point, and the College Football Playoff committee shouldn’t either.

By ranking the Wolverines, the CFP selection committee would expose college football to further scrutiny it doesn’t need. Coaches like Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin have already openly admitted that college football is being determined by the “legalized cheating” of paying players through NIL collectives. Is college football just another version of pro wrestling or is it a legitimate competition that’s not already predetermined?

That’s what’s at stake here.

The first playoff rankings every season never mean all that much, but this time it’s different. Michigan’s massive scandal is testing the integrity of an entire sport.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama”, a book about togetherness, wild times and rum. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.