College Football Playoff committee exposes their own hypocrisy with the final rankings that will change the sport forever
The College Football Playoff committee proves their incompetnece once again in releasing their final rankings.
Remember how much hatred the Bowl Champion Series had for having computers determine who got to play for the National Championship? It drove many in the sport nuts, especially in some years when there were more than two teams worthy of playing for the sport’s top prize.
The biggest years of contention were 2003 (Oklahoma over USC), 2004 (three undefeated teams), and 2006 (Florida over Michigan), all of which were serious debates before and after. In fact, Oklahoma lost the Big 12 championship game the day before the final BCS rankings were released.
The idea was that having people pick the College Football Playoff participants would make things better because the computers didn’t do a good enough job. Now that we have over a decade of playoff rankings and two years of the 12-team playoff, it raises the question: Is it better?
College Football Playoff Committee continues to contradict itself
We’ve seen some crazy things over the course of the playoff rankings. An Alabama Crimson Tide team that didn’t play in the SEC Championship Game in 2017 got in over the Big Ten champion Ohio State Buckeyes, a controversial decision at the time. It wasn’t because the Buckeyes lost to Oklahoma at the beginning of the year, but rather a 31-point loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes on the road.
Last season, the biggest snub from the final rankings was a 10-2 Miami team that finished behind a 9-3 Alabama, which was also left out but was in position for that to happen once again this year.
The committee decided not to be consistent in any way, shape, or form throughout the process. Let’s get this out of the way. The committee put in Alabama and Miami with the final two spots, leaving out the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. In a vacuum, it’s not a big deal, as Notre Dame lost its two best matchups. However, it was how the committee got there that was a problem.
Throughout the process, committee chair Hunter Yurocheck has led a group that continues to contradict itself. Let’s start with the criteria. They are supposed to follow specific criteria, but there are no real guidelines on what matters more than the others.
The committee will select the teams using a process that distinguishes among otherwise comparable teams by considering:
- Strength of schedule,
- Head-to-head competition,
- Comparative outcomes of common opponents (without incenting margin of victory), and
- Other relevant factors, such as the unavailability of key players and coaches, may have affected a team’s performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason performance.
They don’t seem to take their own criteria seriously; instead, they pick their favorite teams and try to justify their picks. The selection of Alabama will be a controversial one, and for good reason. They are the first three-loss team in playoff history, and they tried everything to “justify” their inclusion.
The week before the conference championship games, Yuracheck said that Tennessee wasn’t viewed as a quality win for the Vanderbilt Commodores, but now it’s all of a sudden a quality win for the Crimson Tide because they got into the playoff. On top of that, they were the only conference champion loser to stand pat in the rankings, with the Buckeyes dropping from one to two and the BYU Cougars dropping from 11 to 12. Why is Alabama getting preferential treatment? Would they be getting the same treatment if it were Vanderbilt in that spot? We know the answer there.
The other painful aspect that doesn’t make sense is the way the Miami Hurricanes and Notre Dame Fighting Irish are handled. In Week 1, the Hurricanes beat the Fighting Irish 27-24. It feels easy enough to put Miami in there due to the head-to-head victory, but both teams are so much different from what they were back in August.
Redshirt freshman quarterback C.J. Carr was getting his first start, and Notre Dame figured things out pretty quickly. At the same time, Miami came back to earth as the season went on, including two poor losses to the Louisville Cardinals and SMU Mustangs.
If you wanted to put in Notre Dame over Miami, who is the only ACC representative but didn’t make the conference title game, that’s fine, but how they got there is insanity.
Last week, the committee had:
- 9th: Alabama
- 10th: Notre Dame
- 11th: BYU
- 12th: Miami
Bama didn’t drop a spot despite being blown out, like BYU, which did drop a spot, but Miami all of a sudden jumped up two spots over Notre Dame, even though neither team’s resume changed? It makes no sense whatsoever.
Putting Miami over Notre Dame is fine, but just have it that way to begin with. Believing that Notre Dame is better than Miami and BYU when there is a gap between the two teams, but not side by side?
The committee isn’t in the business of doing things the right way, but of justifying whatever agenda they have. If Notre Dame was going to be the one team left out, the rankings should have reflected it from the jump. It needs to be fixed before next season; otherwise, people will be clamoring for either a bigger playoff or for the computers to come back.
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Notre Dame fans were expecting consistency, and instead the CFB Playoff committee doubled down on a flawed process and clear bias
The College Football Playoff selection is a flawed process, and Notre Dame found out twice.
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Playoff committee chairman Hunter Yurachek had the committee members do some homework before a final vote on Miami vs. Notre Dame
The Notre Dame-Miami debate raged into the early morning hours, but a common sense approach won out.
