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Friedlander: History repeats itself as the Playoff Committee sticks it to an ACC team to get Alabama in
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Stop me if this sounds familiar: An ACC team from the state of Florida just got shafted by the College Football Playoff Committee so that Alabama could leapfrog over it into the bracket.
Even though the Crimson Tide have more losses.
Yep.
History just repeated itself.
As if there was ever any doubt it would happen.
College football’s newest tradition was observed on Tuesday when the Committee gave in to the SEC’s incessant politicking, bowed down to Greg Sankey and ESPN, and all but ensured 3-loss Alabama a spot in the 12-team field.
They did it by bumping the Crimson Tide up 2 spots to No. 11 just a week after suffering a 3-touchdown blowout at the hands of 6-6 Oklahoma while dropping Miami 6 spots to No. 12 – the first team out – after a 7-point loss to a Syracuse team Warde Manuel and his crew thought enough of to rank 22nd this week.
https://twitter.com/CFBPlayoff/status/1864116769050218921
Coincidentally, or maybe not so coincidentally, this year’s Bama bump comes on the first anniversary of the gerrymandering that sent the 1-loss Tide into last year’s 4-team Playoff at the expense of undefeated ACC champion Florida State.
At least then, the Committee chaired by NC State’s Boo Corrigan had the Jordan Travis injury and Bama’s upset of Georgia in the SEC title game as convenient excuses to justify their decision.
This year’s committee didn’t even have that.
The best chairman Manuel, the athletic director at Michigan, could come up with to explain his Committee’s selections is that “For us, in evaluating their body of work, we felt that Alabama got the edge over Miami.”
Embarrassing. But hardly a surprise.
In fairness, Miami is not without fault in giving Manuel and the Committee the opportunity to shove it out of the Playoff picture. All the Hurricanes had to do on Saturday was win and they would have been all but in.
Instead, they did the most Miami thing ever by taking their foot off the accelerator, squandering an early 21-0 lead and playing themselves right out of a shot at both the ACC championship and an at-large bid.
Because Manuel made it clear on Tuesday that the Committee “will not adjust those teams” that aren’t involved in conference championship games, there’s no way for the Hurricanes to bypass Alabama or anyone else ahead of them in the rankings.
No matter how hard commissioner Jim Phillips tries to lobby on their behalf.
“As we look ahead to the final rankings, we hope the Committee will reconsider and put a deserving Miami team into the field,” Phillips said in a statement issued shortly after the rankings were announced.
Sorry, Jim.
Unless the Hurricanes change the orange and green “U” on their helmets to a red script, “A,” they’re stuck on the outside looking in.
Saturday’s loss wasn’t just damaging for Mario Cristobal and his players, many of whom will follow the lead of last year’s Seminoles and opt out rather than risk injury and their draft status in a meaningless bowl game.
It also put the entire conference in a precarious position.
Just one week after it appeared as though the ACC might have an outside shot of putting 3 teams into the Playoff bracket, the league now faces the very real prospect of having just 1. That’s the only possible outcome if No. 8 SMU wins the conference championship on Saturday.
The only scenario in which the conference gets multiple entries is if Clemson earns the ACC’s automatic bid by beating the Mustangs in Charlotte. And that’s assuming the Committee decides to keep Rhett Lashlee’s team on the right side of the bubble rather than pushing it aside in favor of another 3-loss SEC team.
Even then, there’s a downside to that possibility.
Because the Tigers slipped 5 spots to No. 17 as a result of their loss to rival South Carolina, they now find themselves behind both No. 15 Arizona State and 16 Iowa State. The 2 teams that will play for the Big 12 title this weekend. Regardless of who wins that game, they’ll almost certainly stay ahead of Clemson.
If Boise State wins the Mountain West and holds onto its No. 10 ranking, it would knock the ACC champ out of a top-4 seed and the first-round bye that goes with it. Sending both ACC teams on the road for their Playoff openers.
If this was the NFL, there would be specific criteria to determine which teams are in and which are out. And how they would be slotted in the Playoff bracket.
There’s no politics. No committee to determine which teams are more “deserving.”
While the current CFB Playoff format is exponentially better than the one it replaced, it’s still incredibly subjective. One week the decision makers might put a premium on the eye test. The next it might be head-to-head results. Or in the case of this week, strength of schedule.
The only constant is that Alabama is going to get the benefit of the doubt. Especially when there’s an ACC team involved.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
