{"id":435281,"date":"2024-11-13T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T13:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/?post_type=article&#038;p=435281"},"modified":"2024-11-13T07:34:20","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T12:34:20","slug":"friedlander-the-playoff-committee-loves-brand-name-programs-and-thats-good-news-for-miami","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/college-football\/friedlander-the-playoff-committee-loves-brand-name-programs-and-thats-good-news-for-miami\/","title":{"rendered":"Friedlander: The Playoff Committee loves brand-name programs. And that&#8217;s good news for Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It could have been worse.<\/p>\n<p>Much worse.<\/p>\n<p>Had the College Football Playoff Committee followed the lead of voters in both the Associated Press top 25 and coaches polls and ranked Miami 12th, the ACC wouldn\u2019t just be in jeopardy of missing out on an opening-round bye.<\/p>\n<p>The conference could also have been in danger of missing out on the Playoff altogether.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a doomsday scenario with a lot of moving parts, starting with the unlikely event that Army beats Notre Dame on Nov. 23. And it\u2019s still possible, considering that both Miami and SMU also have work left to do and Mountain West leader Boise State is lurking at No. 13.<\/p>\n<p>But by dropping the Hurricanes only 5 spots to No. 9 following Saturday\u2019s loss at Georgia Tech, the Committee has kept the ACC in a position to be among the 4 highest-rated conferences in the 12-team bracket.<\/p>\n<p>A distinction that comes with a free pass into the quarterfinal round regardless of how many at-large teams are slotted ahead of it.<\/p>\n<p>The unexpected love the Committee showed Miami in its second weekly rankings, announced on Tuesday, is a surprise to be sure. Especially considering that 6 of the 8 SEC teams in the poll \u2013 including Georgia \u2013 were picked below the Hurricanes.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Here&#39;s a look at the full College Football Playoff selection committee rankings for games played through Saturday, November 9.<\/p>\n<p>Where does your team rank this week?<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CFBPlayoff?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#CFBPlayoff<\/a> \ud83c\udfc8\ud83c\udfc6 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hcZVea7w2R\">pic.twitter.com\/hcZVea7w2R<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; College Football Playoff (@CFBPlayoff) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CFBPlayoff\/status\/1856529050937778350?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 13, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Just don\u2019t confuse it for a sign of respect toward the ACC.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s more a validation of the Committee\u2019s affinity for brand-name programs.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s in a name, you say?<\/p>\n<p>Well, let\u2019s take those names away and see.<\/p>\n<p>Team A has an 8-1 record with 2 wins against Top-25 opponents, 3 wins against bowl-eligible teams and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/playoffPicture\">Strength of Record (SOR)<\/a> of 13.<\/p>\n<p>Team B is also 8-1 with 1 Top-25 win, 4 bowl-eligible victories and a SOR of 14.<\/p>\n<p>Though the resumes are almost identical, the teams are separated by 6 places in the rankings.<\/p>\n<p>Team A, Notre Dame, checks in this week at No. 8. Team B, SMU. dropped a spot from its initial ranking to No. 14 even though it had an open date and didn\u2019t play. And its 1 loss, to No. 6 BYU, is much more respectable than the Irish\u2019s setback at the hands of Northern Illinois.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s not the only glaring disparity involving the Mustangs.<\/p>\n<p>All it takes is a quick glance at the ACC standings to wonder why the Committee holds Miami in so much higher regard than the team currently in sole possession of first place in the conference.<\/p>\n<p>Not even Committee chair Warde Manuel could come up with a reasonable answer when asked to explain the difference during a post-reveal conference call with the media.<\/p>\n<p>The Michigan athletic director acknowledged that \u201cboth teams are very similar,\u201d before going on a circular dissertation that concluded with him saying \u2013 without any facts, figures or other sort of analytical basis to back him up \u2013 that \u201cjust based on their body of work, the feeling was that Miami was ahead of SMU in terms of performance this year.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">CFP committee chair Warde Manuel&#39;s response when asked about the difference in rankings between 1-loss ACC teams Miami FL (#9) and SMU (#14): <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/pXRKFk8Z2a\">pic.twitter.com\/pXRKFk8Z2a<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Steve Helwick (@s_helwick) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/s_helwick\/status\/1856533868427321527?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 13, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>More than likely, the feeling was actually that the Hurricanes have a much more recognizable pedigree and a Heisman Trophy candidate who makes them a better ratings draw than a team better known for receiving the NCAA\u2019s Death Penalty than anything it has done on the field over the past 4 decades.<\/p>\n<p>The irony of the Mustangs\u2019 situation is that their Playoff prospects would probably be better had they remained a Group of 5 Program in the American Athletic Conference than by leveling up to join the ACC.<\/p>\n<p>The good news for SMU and Miami is that this week\u2019s standings will be long forgotten by the time the final poll is released on Dec. 8. And for at least 1 of them, the rankings won\u2019t matter so long as the winner of the ACC Championship Game finishes among the 5 highest-rated conference winners. (The only way that doesn&#8217;t happen is if 2 Group of 5 champions finish ahead of the ACC champ.)<\/p>\n<p>For the other, there&#8217;s still some slim hope of sneaking into the Playoff once the 4 Big Ten teams in the top 5 of the current poll and those 6 SEC teams below them begin cannibalizing one another.<\/p>\n<p>It would certainly help for No. 19 Louisville to win its final 3 games \u2013 against Stanford, Pitt and Kentucky \u2013 and jump a few spots higher since Miami and SMU have beaten the Cardinals.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, it probably doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n<p>Based on recent history, it&#8217;s reasonable to assume that the Committee is more likely to fill the final spot in its bracket with a 3-loss Alabama or Georgia than any 2-loss ACC team. By keeping Miami inside the top 10 and SMU just 1 spot behind Boise State, though, it has at least positioned the 1 conference team that does get into the field to hang onto a valuable top-4 seeding.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s not exactly the scenario Jim Phillips and the ACC envisioned when the Playoff field was expanded to 12 teams.<\/p>\n<p>But let&#8217;s face it. Things could be worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite losing to Georgia Tech on Saturday, the Hurricanes remained in the top 10 of this week&#8217;s rankings while SMU slipped a spot to No. 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":378960,"featured_media":435283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","tags":[],"class_list":["post-435281","article","type-article","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_types-scheduled","series_tags-brett-friedlander","teams-college-football"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/435281"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/378960"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}