Miami continues to get snubbed by the playoff selection committee, but they left one possible breadcrumb for the Hurricanes
The Hurricanes continue to get the short end of the stick, but one last ditch hope remains.
The penultimate College Football Playoff rankings were revealed on Tuesday night, and the Miami Hurricanes received no reward for their 38-7 thrashing of the then-No. 22 Pittsburgh Panthers last Saturday.
The Hurricanes stayed at No. 12 in the second-to-last rankings, behind Alabama, Notre Dame, and BYU and one spot ahead of the Texas Longhorns.
With the top 10 teams getting into the field as at large or conference champs – two teams near the bottom the rankings will make it in as ACC and/or G5 champions and will bump out teams ranked No. 11-12 – the Irish now are the last team in with Alabama jumping them this week.
But will things stay that way after Saturday?
A BYU loss to Texas Tech – particularly a blowout one – could force the committee’s hand between Notre Dame and Miami on selection Sunday
The Irish and Hurricanes are now closer than they’ve ever been in the rankings, but it’s still not enough for Miami’s 27-24 head-to-head win back in Week 1 to count, it seems.
But it could be if the teams finally move side-by-side in the rankings. Or at least that’s what committee chairman Hunter Yurachek alluded to when talking with the media after the rankings were revealed on Tuesday night.
“The head-to-head is one datapoint that the committee will use. It’s obviously easier to use that datapoint when the teams are back-to-back as opposed to when they’re separated by a team or two or three, as has been the case.”
Oh, is it now?
The team who happens to be sitting between the Irish and Hurricanes is playing this weekend in the Big 12 Championship game, and they happen to be playing the team who beat the brakes off them in the regular season in Texas Tech. The Red Raiders routed the Cougars a month ago 26-7. What if something similar happens again? Dropping BYU wouldn’t be a punishment per se – they’re already out of the field since they’re sitting at 11. There’s no real harm to them there.
And the committee has shown they’ll drop teams for conference game losses and move teams who haven’t played, as SMU dropped from 8 to 10 in last year’s final rankings after a walk-off loss to Clemson on a 56-yard field goal in the ACC Championship game, with idle Indiana moving above them.
So, if BYU loses by double digits again, is that enough to drop them and put Miami and Notre Dame side-by-side? And if that happens, how can head-to-head then NOT be applied between two teams with equal 10-2 records, nearly identical strength of record (ND 13, Miami 14) and strength of schedule (ND 42, Miami 44) marks, and with Miami winning three of four games against common opponents by more points?
After all, those factors – plus availability of players and coaches, which is completely inapplicable in this comparison – are the only stated criteria by the selection committee on the CFP’s own website. That’s it! And Miami is even with or clears Notre Dame in all of them, especially head-to-head. And that was a game that was played this season for those who want to treat it like it was a preseason game.
The results of the games on the field have to matter, not the speculated results of the hypothetical games inside people’s minds. Otherwise, why play the games at all? Notre Dame was the favorite back in Week 1, and Miami proved that belief and perception is sometimes far from reality.
We’ll see on Saturday if Texas Tech can put the committee in position to do what they should have no choice but to finally do.
