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.
The College Football Playoff field is set, and the Miami Hurricanes got the nod for the final spot in the field over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. The Hurricanes are the No. 10 seed in the bracket and will face the No. 7 Texas A&M Aggies on Saturday at noon ET in College Station, Texas.
Alabama remained at No. 9 after their 28-7 throttling at the hands of the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship game, a decision that is a bit of a head scratcher given the ugly nature of the result. But the committee’s decision to keep the Crimson Tide at nine set up Notre Dame vs. Miami for the final spot.
And according to committee chairman Hunter Yurachek on Sunday afternoon, he had a charge to his fellow committee members before they made their final decision: go back and watch the game and evaluate the teams.
Committee chair Hunter Yurachek had committee members re-watch the Notre Dame vs. Miami game during deliberations
“You look at those two teams on paper, and they’re almost equal in their schedule strength and their common opponents, the results against their common opponents,” Yurachek said. “But the one metric we had to fall back on again was the head-to-head.
“I charged the committee members to go back and watch the game again, the Miami-Notre Dame game, because it was so far back, and we got some interesting debate from our coaches on what that game looked like as we watched it, and with that in mind, we gave Miami the nod over Notre Dame into that ten spot.”
The Hurricanes defeated the Irish 27-24 on August 31, and it was a game where the Miami was the more physical team, particularly with the Canes’ defensive front against ND’s offensive line. The Hurricanes never trailed in the game and led by double digits for much of the contest. Notre Dame’s ground game was bottled up – Jeremiyah Love had 33 yards on 10 carries – and the Canes’ pass rush got after Irish QB CJ Carr.
Going back and looking at how the game played out was something that Nick Saban talked about on Saturday during College Gameday, as he said that Miami “kicked Notre Dame’s ass” on the field. It appears as though Yurachek and the committee decided to follow suit and give the film a second look.
You can have numbers and metrics all you want, but sometimes it’s as simple as flipping on the tape and taking a look at the game itself and the result. After all, the game is played on the field and not inside computer screens and between numbers.
That simply has to matter the most.
