In the most dramatic reveal in the 12-year history of the College Football Playoff, the selection committee chose Alabama and Miami (Fla.) for the final two at-large spots, leaving Notre Dame out of the field.
In a controversial decision, the committee did not drop Alabama from its No. 9 ranking despite a blowout loss in the SEC championship on Saturday, and it flipped Miami and Notre Dame from a week ago, despite neither playing on Saturday. BYU was slotted between Notre Dame and Miami in the rankings last week, but BYU losing to Texas Tech on Saturday and dropping down a spot created a need to directly compare Miami with Notre Dame. Miami, which beat Notre Dame in September, finally moved ahead of the Fighting Irish due to that head-to-head result.
The top eight selections were as expected, but with an unknown order previously. In the end, the committee went with 1. Indiana, 2. Ohio State, 3. Georgia and 4. Texas Tech, which get first-round byes to the quarterfinals around New Year’s Day. Then there was 5. Oregon, 6. Ole Miss, 7. Texas A&M and 8. Oklahoma, which will host first-round games on campus in less than two weeks.
At the bottom of the bracket was No. 11 seed Tulane, the American Conference champion, and No. 12 seed James Madison from the Sun Belt. It’s the first time in the history of the Playoff that two teams from so-called “Group of 5” conferences have made the field, and it’s the result of Duke, with an 8-5 overall record, winning the ACC championship on Saturday night. The 12-team CFP field includes five automatic spots for conference champions and seven at-large spots. But Miami’s at-large selection meant the ACC was not shut out.
The resulting first-round matchups are James Madison at Oregon (winner plays Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl), Tulane at Ole Miss (winner plays Georgia in the Sugar Bowl), Miami at Texas A&M (winner plays Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl), and Alabama at Oklahoma (winner plays Indiana in the Rose Bowl).
Alabama and Oklahoma will play on Friday, Dec. 19, while the other three first-round games will take place on Saturday, Dec. 20.
The debate between Alabama, Miami and Notre Dame was the biggest point of controversy. Alabama suffered a blowout loss in the SEC Championship Game but did not move in the rankings, while BYU suffered a blowout loss in the Big 12 Championship Game and dropped, setting up the direct Notre Dame-Miami comparison. The committee had kept Notre Dame ahead of Miami in every single set of rankings this year, only changing them at the last moment, after a weekend in which neither played.
“The way BYU performed in their championship game, a second loss to Texas Tech, was worthy of Miami moving ahead of them in the rankings,” committee chair Hunter Yurachek said on ESPN. “Once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody had been hungering for. … The one metric we had to fall back on was the head-to-head.”
A year ago, Alabama was on the other side of this debate. The Tide were the first team left out of the field, in favor of an SMU team that had been in the field but lost the ACC Championship Game. The committee last year opted not to penalize a conference championship loser so much by knocking them out of the field. This year, that benefit went to the Tide.
“When it’s not in your control, there are anxious times,” Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer said on ESPN. “But we felt good about what we accomplished all season long, and you trust that resume is what will provide the information to make the decision.”
Miami coach Mario Cristobal spent the week publicly lobbying for the Hurricanes to move ahead of Notre Dame due to the head-to-head result. He, too, didn’t know what to expect on Sunday.
“A little bit of anxiety,” Cristobal said on ESPN. “But overall, we felt really confident. We felt confident because, as long as everybody just kind of abided by the criteria, that we would be in a good place.”
This is the first time the College Football Playoff has created first-round rematches, and there are two of them. Ole Miss beat Tulane 45-10 in September, and Oklahoma beat Alabama 23-21 in Tuscaloosa in November.
Looking forward in the bracket, Indiana will play in the Rose Bowl for the first time since the 1967 season, which is also the last time the Hoosiers won the Big Ten. Ohio State will play in the Cotton Bowl in Arlington, Texas, but that could be a matchup with Texas A&M.
Georgia is plenty familiar with the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, including last year’s quarterfinal appearance, but it could be a rematch with fellow SEC member Ole Miss, or it could be against Tulane, which is located in New Orleans. Georgia beat Ole Miss 43-35 in October, but the Rebels had coach Lane Kiffin at the time.
Kiffin, now the coach at LSU, will not coach the Rebels in the Playoff at the request of Ole Miss amid an acrimonious exit. However, Tulane coach Jon Sumrall and James Madison coach Bob Chesney will coach in the Playoff despite accepting new jobs at Florida and UCLA, respectively.
One of the biggest criticisms launched at this year’s committee was the perceived inconsistency of the weekly ranking shows on ESPN and the final result. The CFP begins releasing its rankings weekly in the last month of the season, on a studio show that is part of the CFP’s contract with ESPN and includes the chair explaining the choices.
Some people in college sports, including ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit on this past Saturday’s “College GameDay,” have called for an end to the weekly shows, believing it makes things worse because team resumes aren’t complete. College basketball, for example, does not do a weekly ranking show. Rather, there is one bracket preview show in February, only revealing the top 16 teams at that time.
Asked on Sunday if football should cut down on the ranking shows, Yuracheck said the transparency was ultimately a good thing, and that it wouldn’t stop some people from being mad about the final result.
“I think what happens over the course of the five or six weeks that we have the show is it really sets the expectations, allows us to share a little bit of a peek behind the curtain of how we’re ranking teams from week to week,” he said. “Obviously, college football has the most passionate fan bases across the country.
“Everyone can spin the metrics in favor of the team or teams that they support, and so you’re always going to have controversy, and that’s why we debated for so long. … (We were) trying to make sure we got it right. I don’t think that having less calls is going to change that perception.”
Later Sunday, Notre Dame announced it would not accept a bowl bid, ending its season, despite a 10-2 record.
