Kirk Herbstreit blames ‘misleading’ Tuesday night CFP rankings for Miami, Notre Dame controversy
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There was plenty of controversy surrounding Sunday’s College Football Playoff bracket reveal, as Miami was included in the final field of 12 in place of Notre Dame after residing behind the Fighting Irish for much of the season.
The ND faithful were predictably upset with their program being left out of the field, but ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit had an explanation ready for why fans may have been perplexed.
The longtime college football analyst emphasized that the committee re-evaluates the teams in its rankings each week, and thus the Tuesday night rankings show really only serves as a one-week snapshot. That reality prompted him to call for the elimination of that weekly program during Saturday’s College GameDay in Atlanta.
“This is, to me, a mistake and misleading. Because of having these Tuesday night shows and having Miami so far away from Notre Dame, it’s easy to say ‘guys, they should have had Miami ahead of Notre Dame all along,'” Herbstreit said. “Well, Miami had 2 tough losses in games they controlled against SMU and Louisville, and gave them both away. There had to be some kind of reaction and a punishment from the committee. But Miami did what they needed to do … and eventually, even though they didn’t play, Notre Dame didn’t play, the committee felt that with BYU’s second loss to Texas Tech in convincing fashion, they should go beneath Miami. And again, that’s where the head-to-head mattered and that’s why they ended up flipping Miami and Notre Dame.”
Herbstreit’s main point is what while many will point at Notre Dame being ranked ahead of Miami for much of the season, the committee’s obligation to re-rank these teams each week is supposed to create a brand-new ranking each time, free of previous bias. Thus, this final ranking represented the entire body of work from this year.
Parker is currently the sports editor for the Enterprise-Journal in McComb, Mississippi. He's a graduate from Mizzou who has experience covering the Tiger football and basketball beats for SB Nation, and he's worked for a variety of sports news outlets in the past.
