Q&A: How the CFP Selection Committee Ranked Miami, and Why
It'll be one of the talking points of the entire offseason. The Miami Hurricanes were riding a one-loss season until they stumbled in their regular-season finale at Syracuse, putting them on the bubble for the College Football Playoff.
However, it appears that they're on the wrong side of that bubble after not making the ACC Championship Game. The selection committee had it at No. 12 in the latest rankings Tuesday night, and the the first team out of the projected brackets as the eventual Big 12 champion doesn't have a spot yet. Meanwhile, Miami dropped to No. 14 in the AP Top 25 and the coaches polls.
With strength of schedule is a big part of the selection process, the Southeastern Conference finished the regular season with seven teams ranked in the various polls and could be looking at having four playoff teams. Three-loss Alabama was at No. 11 in the CFP rankings and in both polls.
"Obviously, we think highly of both teams; one's at No. 11 and one's at No. 12. But what it really came down to is Alabama is 3–1 against current Top 25 teams and Miami is 0–1," CFP Selection Committee chair Warde Manuel said on ESPN'sCFP Rankings Show on Tuesday night. "Alabama is 6–1 against teams above .500, and Miami is 4–2.
"Both have had some losses that weren't what they wanted out of those games. But in those last three games, Miami has lost twice. For us, in evaluating their body of work, we felt that Alabama got the edge over Miami.
Here's what Manuel and CFP executive director Rich Clark said about Miami, directly or indirectly, when they met with reporters after the latest rankings were released Tuesday night:
Q. My question is how will you evaluate SMU relative to Alabama if SMU loses in the ACC Championship game?
WARDE MANUEL: You know, that is something that we
will decide in the room at the conclusion of those games
when we evaluate what happens in the championship. I
can't sort of go into the future and tell you exactly how the
outcome of that discussion will be. It depends on the
outcome of the game and how it's played and the results
themselves.
We will just have to wait and see how the committee is
going to analyze that game depending on the outcome,
where things will go in terms of rankings and how people
will move or will not move.
Q. I want to make this clear. It's not a projection question, but it does bounce off of what you had said about if teams aren't playing, there's no datapoints. I think there are some fans who might think, well, Clemson is playing, Clemson has played South Carolina; couldn't Clemson's results sort of change South Carolina's resume? I understand what you're saying about, yeah, you should be able to move teams around if they're not playing, but I think there is probably some question from fans about whether these teams could impact other teams' resumes. I wanted to ask how the committee thought about that when you talked about not moving some of these teams that aren't playing.
WARDE MANUEL: Well, you know, it's a question that I
understand it, but we've already included that. We know
which teams have beat which teams who are playing in
championship games, and so we've already evaluated how
those teams have played throughout the season.
Them beating somebody else at this point in time adds to
the resume of the two teams, the one who wins, the one
who loses in the championship game, but it doesn't change
our evaluation. We know who has won games against
teams that are in these championships, and we've already
taken that into account this week as we evaluated them.
Q. Some people say, well, it changes the evaluation of Clemson, so doesn't that by circumstance change the evaluation of the teams Clemson plays. But I just wanted to clarify that.
WARDE MANUEL: Right, I get the question. The
converse of that, if we held it against teams that a team
that they beat lost, I think people would be equally as
outraged that we're doing that. In other words, we have to
-- we've already in our deliberations this week considered
those teams' resumes as it relates to who's playing in the
championship games and how they performed as we
ranked the teams this week, so we're not going to give -- I
get it. Some people think we should give them a boost if
they beat a team who wins, but again, on the flipside, they
don't want it to take away credit or demote them because
the team lost in the championship, that kind of thing.
Q. I want to get straight something here that you said a few minutes ago on the broadcast. I want to make sure that I understand. If a team that is in the top 12 right now loses in the conference championship game on Saturday, you're not saying that it would not fall out of the top 12, are you?
WARDE MANUEL: No, sir. I'm saying -- in answer to the
question, if you take, for example, Tennessee is ahead of
SMU, Indiana is behind SMU; Tennessee will not drop
below Indiana at any point. Neither team is playing.
But SMU could move up, depending on how we evaluate
the game. They could stay where they are or they could
move down depending on the outcome of the game. But
Tennessee and Indiana in this example would never flip.
Indiana would never move ahead of Tennessee and
Tennessee would never drop below Indiana because we've
already evaluated them. There's not another datapoint
because they're not playing in the championship games.
So we don't have anything else to add to the evaluation of
those teams, so we can't move them above or below each
other.
Q. But could SMU drop below Alabama if it loses?
WARDE MANUEL: Potentially, yes. And they can move
above teams, as well. Again, it just depends on the
outcome of the game.
Q. You mentioned on the ESPN broadcast that a deciding factor between Alabama and Miami was Alabama's win against ranked teams and teams above .500. How did the committee factor in losses considering two of Alabama's three losses were to teams that are unranked at .500 while Miami's losses were to teams above .500 and being ranked?
WARDE MANUEL: We talked about it just like you laid it
out. It's something we evaluate, both the wins, the losses,
how it teams play, where they're playing. All those things
go into consideration as we're debating and discussing
these teams.
Look, both of them are very good, and I understand
Alabama, the committee ranked Alabama one ahead of
Miami, but it doesn't diminish how we see Miami, even with
the last three weeks they have two losses. We still think
Miami is a very strong team.
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.
Q. You gave some great datapoints on the show in terms of Alabama in comparison to Miami. I'm wondering then why Miami stays ahead of Ole Miss and South Carolina who also have several top-25 wins?
WARDE MANUEL: Yeah, I think in terms of the analysis of
how everything played, I just want to say to everybody on
the call, these are not easy decisions for us to make as we
look through it, meaning we just don't come to the answer
and say, these are how the teams should be ranked.
There's a lot of conversation, a lot of back and forth
between them.
In Miami up until the last three weeks they've had a very
good season. They've lost two in the last three weeks.
Mississippi, for example, has a win against Georgia, as you
know, a win against South Carolina. But they have a loss
against Kentucky, the loss in overtime against LSU. At
sometimes their offense is putting up a lot of points,
defense leads the country in a lot of sacks. Miami, top
offense in the country with 44 points and over 500 yards
per game. So it's really close. It's not just one datapoint
over the other. We just try to take a look -- not try; we do
take a look at their body of work to evaluate them and
make decisions.
Obviously Mississippi is going to be ahead of South
Carolina with the head to head, same record. As we
evaluated them, that's how the vote came out in terms of
Miami, Mississippi and then South Carolina.
Q. Warde, in comparing playoff contenders, when one contender made their conference championship game and the other one didn't, obviously the team that wins the title game will get an automatic bid if it's a Power 4 title game. But for the team that loses, does the team that got to the conference title game have an advantage in the committee's eyes over the other contender that didn't make it to the title game?
WARDE MANUEL: Listen, the committee has coaches,
athletic directors, former players who have played the
game. We have great respect for the teams that make
their championship games, and we give them a lot of credit
for what they've done throughout the season.
But we've been asked by the commissioners to rank the
top 25 through the end of the championship weekend, and
so we have an obligation to take a look at those datapoints
and the outcomes of those games in order to rank the final
top 25, and that's what they've asked us to do since the
inception, and that's what we'll do this weekend once all
the games are played.
Q. Going back to Ralph's question before and the viability of moving datapoints for the teams who aren't playing relative to those who are, to follow up with that, what about datapoints that could move for teams who also aren't playing? UNLV and Army are playing, and with losses, they could drop out of the top 25, and depending on who y'all were to put in, if that were an ACC team that Miami beat like Louisville or Duke, would that not enhance Miami's resume with a top-25 win?
WARDE MANUEL: What you're saying is if we would, say,
give a bounce to Miami because a team that they beat won
their conference championship; is that correct?
Q. No, I'm saying if Army loses or UNLV loses and drops out of the top 25 and Duke or Louisville who presently aren't ranked become top-25 wins for Miami, didn't Miami's resume just improve?
WARDE MANUEL: We've already evaluated their resume
and we've included the fact that they've beat those teams
in our analysis of how we see Miami. The fact that they
would get a bump because now those teams are in the top
25 after that happens is not something that we will do. We
also won't use it, for lack of a better word, as a negative if
teams that are in the championship games lose. That's
how we will assess it.
Q. So if two ACC teams were to move into the top 25, that does not help Miami? I just want to get that clear. Miami is stuck on the outside looking in even if Duke and Louisville were to enter the top 25 in the rankings. I just want to be clear.
WARDE MANUEL: We don't know if Louisville or Duke will
enter the top 25 in the rankings.
Q. But they're just on the outside in the polls. That's what I'm using them.
WARDE MANUEL: You're asking me to justify or project
what would be done. We have already evaluated those
teams and recognize that Miami has beat Louisville and
Duke. So that's already in our analysis in the process of
how we've talked about them and where they're ranked.
So whether they come into the top 25, we're not going
backwards and re-ranking teams based on who wins or
who loses in the championship game.
In other words, if you're asking me to give a team credit for
wins, you're also conversely asking me to give demerits to
teams who a team beat who loses in the championship
game. That's in essence what you're asking the committee
to consider, and that's not in our purview. We've already
considered them and recognized that they've beat those
teams that they've won against and we've recognized who
they've lost against. So those kind of things with a team
that's not playing for a conference championship, the wins
and losses of those that they've beat or lost to are not
reevaluated for those teams that don't have a datapoint
themselves in terms of a game.
Transcript courtesy of the College Football Playoff
See also Miami's Case for No. 11 and a Spot in the College Football Playoff
