There are only seven teams in college football this season who can claim they have multiple wins over teams in the College Football Playoff Top 25.

UCLA is one of those teams. USC is not. Though the Bruins have a convincing win over the team that beat the Trojans this year (Utah), they sit four spots back of their in-state counterparts in the latest CFP rankings — at No. 12 while USC is at No. 8.

FOX’s Joel Klatt called that an oversight.

“They did it again. I just don’t understand how you can sit in that room and have UCLA be four spots behind USC. It just doesn’t make much sense to me,” said Klatt. “USC ranked at (No.) 8 over UCLA at (No.) 12 was wrong. There’s kind of just no other way to put it. I think it’s an oversight.”

There are a few interesting ways to look at the gap between the two L.A. teams.

USC is 13th in FPI while UCLA is 22nd. However, UCLA is ninth in SP+ while USC is 16th. But USC is 14th in Sagarin, UCLA is 18th.

The Trojans have a closer loss, losing by just one point on the road to a Utah team that currently ranks 13th in the CFP rankings. That loss came courtesy of a two-point conversion in the final minute from Utah’s Cameron Rising. Utah appeared to tie the game with a late score and then, instead of kicking the PAT to actually knot things up, it went for two and the win.

UCLA’s lone loss this year, on the other hand, came by 15 points to Oregon. That loss was also on the road to a top-ranked team, but the Ducks looked dominant.

And yet that game has been trumpeted by the CFP selection committee as a key driving force behind Oregon’s sixth-place spot in the latest rankings — even a result that helps to balance out the ugliness of the Ducks’ Week 1 loss to Georgia — which means the committee obviously views UCLA in high regard.

The Bruins’ loss came to a team ranked higher in the committee’s own rankings than the team the Trojans lost to.

Asked this week about the two teams, CFP selection committee chair Boo Corrigan really didn’t (wouldn’t? couldn’t?) provide an answer.

“I think the one-point loss by USC at Utah, going for two, the emotion of that game is something that the committee certainly has talked about, the job that Caleb Williams has done with the 28 touchdown passes, one of the top offenses in the country, putting up 41 points (a game),” Corrigan said on the CFP teleconference call this Tuesday. “That being said, there’s a lot of respect for UCLA in that (room), with their one loss being to Oregon by 15 at Oregon. Again, we’re taking what we have to date and going to continue to evaluate and make sure that what we’re doing and how we’re looking at this is in the best interest of college football and making sure we get the top 15 right.”

And there’s an element to this of just wait and see. USC and UCLA play each other on Nov. 19 at the Rose Bowl. This will sort itself out on the field. And UCLA coach Chip Kelly said this week none of this really matters for another four weeks.

“A lot of football to be played between now and then, so I don’t think you can get caught up in it,” Kelly said. “I think it’s good for television, good for people to talk about, ESPN gets a TV show out of it and people tune in, but if you don’t win your next four games, then it really doesn’t matter. We want to be in the conversation, but the only way you can stay in the conversation is you can continue to prepare well and play well on Saturdays.”

And yet…

“It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve tried to make it make sense, and it doesn’t,” Klatt says. “They both have the same record, and UCLA has two wins over College Football Playoff ranked teams. USC, zero. So it’s like, ‘Well, wait a second, how did this happen?’ I can’t tell ya. I literally cannot tell you.

“There is no data point that I can point to that suggests USC is four spots ahead of UCLA.”

USC averages 41.0 points a game, UCLA 40.8. USC gives up 25.2 points a game, UCLA 25.6. UCLA gets 7.3 yards a play, USC 7.2. Both possess strong offenses, led by standout quarterbacks. Both have questionable defenses.

Klatt, who has been critical of USC’s defense all season, says the recent performance from the Trojans’ defense makes the ranking disparity even more confusing.

“This feels all over again like brand bias,” Klatt said. “USC carries the day as far as brand goes. The bottom line for me is that this was a ranking about Lincoln Riley, about perception, about Caleb Williams, and the logo on the side of the helmet because there’s no number or game or film that you can put on which would suggest USC is four spots better than UCLA.”