College Football Playoff Committee Chair Explains Miami's Drop In Recent Rankings
To many's surprise, the Miami Hurricanes did not drastically drop in the College Football Playoff Rankings announced on Tuesday night.
Miami Teases The Edge Of The Bubble In Newest College Football Playoff Rankings
The Hurricanes sit at the No. 9 spot only dropping five slots and still placed as the No. 4 seed and securing a bye as the potential ACC Champions iff they continue to make their way to the championship game in less than a month.
The College Football Committee Chair Warde Manuel was asked by the College Football Playoff panel about many question about the rankings like any typical week.
Here are the ones that highlight the Miami Hurricanes and their position with the committee as well as how they are viewed in the ACC:
Q. I was wondering about Miami and Georgia, two teams that lost last week. What was sort of the comparison between those two teams, Miami and Georgia, and having them where they're at?
WARDE MANUEL: Well, the obvious is the first loss for Miami and the second loss for Georgia. That obviously played a factor into it. Georgia Tech is coming on. They now have both their quarterbacks playing in the game. They were on the road. Georgia's losses were both on the road, as well. So it came down to factoring in those games, a close game that Miami lost to Georgia Tech and then a decisive win by Ole Miss against Georgia Tech away. So we just factored everything in and took a look at the competitiveness. Both teams are very good from our perspective, but based on the season as well as what they did last week, that's how we made the judgment of how they fell. Georgia, obviously with two losses, having lost both to Alabama and to Ole Miss, both with two losses, they obviously in the mind of the committee, Alabama and Ole Miss were going to be ahead of Georgia because of the
head-to-head and the similar record.
Q. What is the differentiator when you look at Miami and SMU, with Miami's one loss coming to an unranked Georgia Tech team, where on the flipside SMU's only loss is to BYU which is ranked No. 6 in your poll today?
WARDE MANUEL: It's a great question because both of the teams are very similar teams, and we obviously have factored in who they played, who they've beat throughout the season, and so we just felt that in looking at Miami and SMU that Miami -- their offense is very dominant in terms of how they've been winning. Haven't been as consistent defensively. So is SMU. They've won very good -- they were playing two quarterbacks at the beginning of the year. Great speed, a physical team. So we've been impressed by both. Just based on their body of work, the committee had the discussions, the feeling was that Miami was ahead of SMU in terms of their performance this year.
READ MORE FROM MIAMI HURRICANES ON SI: Three Takeaways After No. 12 Miami's First Loss Of The Season
