The CFP rankings — and 'data points' — have left Miami, Ole Miss and South Carolina puzzled
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Miami wants things reconsidered. So does South Carolina. The Big 12 is puzzled. And Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin turned toward social media to ask the College Football Playoff committee a question.
“You guys actually meet for days and come up with these rankings??” Kiffin wrote.
The fallout and, for some, anger stemming from the release of the latest CFP ranking — one that almost certainly means Miami (10-2), South Carolina (9-3) and Ole Miss (9-3) all have no chance of getting into the 12-team field — continued Wednesday as the schools on the outside looking in continued making their case, even though all hope for them seems to be gone.
Alabama (9-3) would be in as the final at-large selection, for now. Miami would be the first team left on the outside looking in, and the Hurricanes are hoping the selectors take another look at their case — even though CFP committee chair Warde Manuel insisted they would not.
“I have confidence that things at the end will be viewed the way that they should be viewed,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said. “And who knows how that thing's going to work out.”
A term Manuel used repeatedly Tuesday night, when trying to explain the rankings, was “data point.”
It is not a term that the Hurricanes and Gamecocks, among others, are fond of.
“Warde Manuel, if I hear the word ‘data point’ one more time in my life, I may throw up,” South Carolina coach Shane Beamer said.
Last weekend, the Gamecocks won at Clemson — a ranked team — and moved up one spot in the CFP ranking. Alabama won over Auburn — a team that finished 5-7 — and was rewarded with a two-spot bump into the critical No. 11 position, the one that essentially would ensure a spot in the 12-team playoff.
“There's a lot of data points that they apparently take in to make their decisions. But I'm not sure strength of schedule is one of them," Beamer said. "I don't know how you can go play Clemson last week, in the biggest game in the history of the Carolina-Clemson rivalry, win a game over a team that's ranked higher than you and move up one spot. And another team can win a game over a team that's not even going to a bowl game and move up two spots.”
The pairings for college football’s first 12-team playoff will be set Sunday, the day after the conference title games. The playoffs start Dec. 20, with the title game set for Jan. 20 in Atlanta. And for many, Alabama — and the Southeastern Conference, which is in line for four of the 12 spots — being looked at more favorably than teams that would say they have better resumes is not a surprise.
“It came down to a difference in their body of work as we evaluated Alabama and Miami, not just wins, not just losses but the totality of the season and how those teams performed,” Manuel said.
The Hurricanes would love to know what the precise differences in “totality of the season” are.
Miami is ranked ahead of Alabama in both total offense (the Hurricanes are No. 1 nationally, the Crimson Tide are No. 40) and total defense (the Hurricanes are No. 24 nationally, the Crimson Tide are No. 31). Manuel said on ESPN that Miami losing two of its last two games was another factor. Those losses were by a combined nine points to teams that finished with winning records, 9-3 Syracuse and 7-5 Georgia Tech. Alabama lost this season to a pair of teams — Oklahoma, 24-3 and Vanderbilt, 40-35 — that both finished the regular season 6-6.
Another point Cristobal made: Alabama struggled at home with South Florida for three quarters before pulling away in the fourth. Miami went to South Florida and won by five touchdowns. And Miami also is puzzled why it dropped six spots in the CFP ranking after losing by four points at Syracuse while Ohio State fell only four spots after losing by three points at home to Michigan, where Manuel is the athletic director.
“We’re playing better defenses, in my opinion, than the SEC,” Miami quarterback Cam Ward told ACC Network. “It's just hard. I did what I could. The team, we controlled what we can control. We controlled our own destiny for a lot of the season and we didn't end up getting the job done. It was all in our hands and it got taken away from us when we lost.”
Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark knows his league's champion — Arizona State or Iowa State — will get in, but likely won't get a first-round bye if Boise State wins the Mountain West title and is the highest ranked Group of Five team.
The five highest-ranked conference champions are guaranteed playoff spots, with the top four getting first-round byes. The current projected pairings would make the Big 12 champ the No. 12 seed playing a first-round game on the road.
“The committee continues to show time and time again that they are paying attention to logos versus resumes,” Yormark said.
Manuel said teams not playing this weekend won't be re-evaluated. Beamer found that odd, considering that if Clemson beats SMU for the ACC title then the Gamecocks would, in theory, have an even better resume.
“A Clemson team that has a potential to be an ACC champion, having a loss on their home field to a team like us," Beamer said. “That's a pretty freaking strong data point if you ask me.”
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Hawkins reported from Fort Worth, Texas.
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