statement on social media<\/a>. \u201cWe appreciate all the support from our families and fans, and we\u2019re hoping to bring the 12th national title to South Bend in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\nNo. 9 Alabama didn\u2019t move in the rankings after a 28-7 loss to No. 3 Georgia that looked worse than that. The committee didn\u2019t count that against the Tide in keeping with a hazy policy that refrains from penalizing teams for playing in its league title game. <\/p>\n
No. 10 Miami didn\u2019t play either, but the Hurricanes\u2019 27-24 win over Notre Dame in Week 1 played a role in their move once the teams were grouped right next to each other after Brigham Young lost Saturday. <\/p>\n
Committee chairman Hunter Yurachek said he directed the committee to rewatch the Miami-Notre Dame game.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we moved Miami ahead of BYU, we had the side-by-side comparison that everyone had been hungry for,\u201d Yurachek said. <\/p>\n
The committee\u2019s other key decision during deliberations that went until 2:30 a.m. Sunday, then picked up again after a short rest, was choosing James Madison over Duke for the final spot. The selection left the Atlantic Coast Conference champion out of the mix, but didn\u2019t fully exclude the ACC because Miami made it. <\/p>\n
Yurachek insisted that including the ACC \u2014 one of the Power Four conferences \u2014 in the playoff in some form played no role in the deliberations.<\/p>\n
Chesney\u2019s team was the final team revealed in the 12-team playoff, adding some drama to Sunday morning, but he always hoped his team would be rewarded for its conference championship season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019d be really hard to look a group like us in the eye and say you\u2019re not deserving after all the things we\u2019ve done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The rest of the field includes No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Georgia and No. 4 Texas Tech, which joined Indiana in getting first-round byes. The Hoosiers moved to No. 1 with their 13-10 win over the Buckeyes on Saturday \u2014 their first Big Ten title since 1967 \u2014 and their 1-2 positioning sets up a possible rematch in the national title game Jan. 19. <\/p>\n
Then it was No. 5 Oregon, followed by Mississippi, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Alabama, Miami, Tulane and James Madison.<\/p>\n
The playoffs start Dec. 19 with No. 9 Alabama at No. 8 Oklahoma. On Dec. 20 it\u2019s No. 10 Miami at No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 11 Tulane at No. 6 Ole Miss and No. 12 James Madison at No. 5 Oregon. <\/p>\n
The quarterfinals will feature Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl on New Year\u2019s Eve, then Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl, Indiana in the Rose Bowl and Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n
A costly snub for Notre Dame<\/p>\n
This is a particularly costly and painful snub for the Fighting Irish. They lost their first two games of the season \u2014 one to Miami, the other to Texas A&M \u2014 by a combined four points.<\/p>\n
They did not play a tough schedule the rest of the way; it was ranked 44th, compared to sixth for Alabama but 45th for Miami. But the Irish won all those games easily.<\/p>\n
It also hurts the pocketbook. Where conferences split $4 million for each team they place into the first round, Notre Dame \u2014 as an independent \u2014 would have banked the full amount. <\/p>\n
Yurachek said the committee had not previously considered Miami\u2019s Aug. 31 win over Notre Dame because there were always other teams in the mix, namely Alabama and BYU. The only real explanation for passing over Notre Dame was that BYU lost badly to Texas Tech and dropped to No. 12. <\/p>\n
Alabama back in after snub last year<\/p>\n
Alabama (10-3) is in despite three losses. Those who believe the Tide deserve it will look at these factors:<\/p>\n
\u2014 An eight-game winning streak after that 14-point, season-opening loss to Florida State that included a 24-21 victory at Georgia and wins over Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Missouri. <\/p>\n
\u2014 The \u201cYou can\u2019t lose ground for playing in the title game\u201d argument. Last year Alabama had three losses and was passed over for Southern Methodist, which was coming off a loss in the ACC title game. Using the same logic, someone other than the Tide needed to go this time.<\/p>\n
Associated Press staff writer Eddie Pells contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New UCLA coach Bob Chesney\u2019s James Madison team bumped Notre Dame for the final spot in the College…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28848,48370,17289,48372,10979,9520,48368,48371,48,52,51,47,50,49,3289,1540,18158,23139,8936,48369,38233],"class_list":["post-85993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alabama","tag-byu","tag-committee","tag-couch-saturday","tag-georgia","tag-indiana","tag-james-madison-football-team","tag-jmu-team","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-loss","tag-miami","tag-no","tag-notre-dame","tag-texas-am","tag-texas-tech","tag-tulane"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}