‘What have you done?’ ACC, others worried about CFP dominance of Big Ten, SEC

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips wants clarity on how two-loss Miami (Fla.) sits behind three-loss Alabama in the latest College Football Playoff rankings. Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark believes his league’s champion deserves a first-round bye instead of a Group of 5 team. And while Mountain West Conference Commissioner Gloria Nevarez’s league is positioned to get in, there’s concern about any future with bigger leagues getting designated numbers of bids.

Those scenarios illustrate how, as the Big Ten and the SEC conferences position themselves as a Power 2 from overflowing coffers to gobbling up CFP bids, the other leagues are trying to maintain their footing and avoid getting squeezed. That includes Sunday’s unveiling of the expanded 12-team field and beyond.

“Decisions by the committee should be based on facts, not on perception,” Phillips said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Not on the league that you come from, not in the geography of where you sit, but on your resume: what have you done? … Who did you lose to and who did you beat?

“To me, you have to stay true to the facts. Logos and brands and names, they have to be checked. And there shouldn’t be persuasion because of a past history of a specific team or school.”

Conference championship games

The Power 4 leagues all play championship games on Saturday. The Group of 5 leagues — American Athletic, Conference-USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt — play Friday and Saturday.

The five highest-ranked champions earn automatic bids, the top four earning a first-round bye.

Take out those bids and the designated entry point for fourth-ranked independent Notre Dame (No. 4 CFP), and that leaves six openings. Yet the Big Ten had four top-10 teams and the SEC had three in Tuesday’s latest CFP ranking, with some of those not even playing this week in what CFP committee chairman and Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said amounted to closed cases. 

“Any team that is not playing right now, we don’t have a datapoint to rearrange where we have those teams ranked,” Manuel told ESPN this week.

One CFP bid for the ACC?

That’s one of multiple concerns for Phillips, a year after unbeaten ACC champion Florida State was left out of the four-team playoff because starting quarterback Jordan Travis went down to a late-season injury.

Eighth-ranked SMU (No. 8 CFP) went unbeaten in its first league season to reach Saturday night’s title game, but No. 14 Miami (No. 12 CFP) lost its finale at Syracuse to send No. 18 Clemson (No. 17 CFP) to face the Mustangs — and potentially doom its playoff chances.

That’s because the Hurricanes (10-2) fell six spots despite losing on the road to a team with nine wins and a top-25 CFP standing, and they now trail No. 11 Alabama (No. 11 CFP).

A win by SMU could mean only one ACC bid. Or SMU could be penalized with a loss and fall out completely, a scenario likely enough that coach Rhett Lashlee told the ACC Network that his team wouldn’t opt out of Saturday’s game to protect its CFP ranking. “I think to the majority of the world, this is pretty clear-cut: if you’re in the field going into championship weekend, you’ve earned that right, you should be in,” Lashlee said.

Phillips believes SMU should be in regardless, along with Miami, if the Mustangs win.

“We have not performed at the level of a one-bid conference,” he said.

“Confusion” over CFP selection committee’s rankings

Phillips’ concerns included Manuel citing Miami losing two of its last three, though the Hurricanes’ other loss was on the road against a Georgia Tech team that just took Georgia to eight overtimes.

Comparatively, the Crimson Tide’s last three games were a blowout of Championship Subdivision program Mercer, failing to score a touchdown to lose at Oklahoma (now 6-6) and beating five-win rival Auburn.

Additionally, as Phillips noted, No. 7 Ohio State (No. 6 CFP) fell only four spots after losing at home to a Michigan team that finished 7-5. None of those teams are in the CFP’s latest rankings like Syracuse.

Phillips also took exception to the week’s idle teams essentially being locked in order rather than the committee starting fresh weekly to analyze the latest overall picture. “I’m not here to bash the work that’s been done or to question the integrity or anything like that, that’s not what I’m saying,” he said. “What I’m saying is we would like some clarity on our situation and how what we saw [Tuesday] occurred. We feel there’s just confusion right now.”

CFP conversations on guaranteed bids

It’s a good year for Nevarez, who entered Friday’s title game between No. 10 Boise State (10th CFP) and No. 19 UNLV (20th CFP) with her league set to earn one of the slots designed to provide playoff access to Group of 5 leagues.

That’s because both are ranked ahead of the AAC finalists in No. 24 Army (24th CFP) and Tulane. And a Boise State win could earn a first-round bye since the Broncos are ahead of Big 12 title-gamers 12th-ranked Arizona State (15th CFP) and No. 16 Iowa State (16th).

“One game could’ve gone either way, and it wouldn’t be us,” Nevarez told the AP. “And it is us this year, and we’re really excited about that. … Next year it could be someone else. But as long as all of us have the opportunity to play into it, that’s an exciting thing that it came down to this year.

“We were lucky to end up on the right side of it. Won’t happen every year. But that’s the important piece: the excitement and the opportunity.”

Yet there have been conversations about guaranteeing specific bid counts to Power 4 leagues as the playoff evolves. Nevarez isn’t on board. 

“Anything can happen: upsets, good years, bad years,” she said. “It’s incumbent on each team to look at what they’re going to face in conference play, to look at the team they have, and schedule the nonconference accordingly. Build the resume for selection, and then get it done on the field.

“To arbitrarily manufacture anything beyond that, to me, feels very wrong.”

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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