ACC commissioner Jim Phillips and Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich blasted the College Football Playoff Committee Tuesday night for leaving Miami out of the current playoff field.
The newest CFP top 25 has Alabama at No. 11, a spot ahead of Miami at No. 12, despite having one more loss than the Hurricanes. Should those rankings hold, the Crimson Tide would be the last squad into the 12-team College Football Playoff field, while the Hurricanes would be the first team out.
Committee chair Warde Manuel essentially said there was nothing Miami could do to jump Alabama at this point because the Hurricanes do not have any additional games on the schedule and thus no ability to add an extra “data point.”
Alabama sits at 9-3 with losses to Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Oklahoma (in blowout fashion). Miami is 10-2 with defeats at the hands of Georgia Tech and Syracuse. Manuel cited Alabama’s record against top 25 opponents (3-1) compared to Miami’s (0-1) as part of the rationale in ranking the Crimson Tide ahead of the Hurricanes.
“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,” Manuel said Tuesday night in a teleconference call with reporters.
The decision to rank Miami over Alabama understandably didn’t sit well with Radakovich, who knows the process better than most after serving on the CFP selection committee from 2014-17.
Phillips echoed Radakovich’s sentiments on the two teams’ resumes, saying the conference was “shocked and disappointed” the Hurricanes dropped six spots, and implored the committee to change its mind before Sunday’s final rankings.
“As we look ahead to the final rankings, we hope the Committee will reconsider and put a deserving Miami in the field,” his statement read. “We will continue to look forward to this weekend, when Clemson and SMU have an opportunity to earn an ACC championship and represent the conference in the CFP.”
For Phillips, an Crimson Tide team coming in ahead of a ACC squad with fewer losses brings back bad memories. Just last year undefeated Florida State was passed up by one-loss Alabama in the final rankings, leaving the Seminoles out of the four-team playoff field.
Neither Miami nor Alabama can do anything to improve its standing going into conference championship week, but chaos could eliminate both teams from contention. Should No. 7 SMU fall to No. 17 Clemson, both teams might get into the field, eating up one of the at-large spots. However, Manuel also said it was possible Alabama could get in over an SMU team that loses to the Tigers.
