The College Football Playoff selection committee made sure conference championships do matter.
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With Duke’s win over then-No. 17 Virginia in the ACC championship on Saturday night, Miami jumped into the final bracket, becoming the only ACC program to make the CFP.
During the rankings reveal on ESPN’s broadcast, CFP committee member Hunter Yurachek explained what caused Miami to jump Notre Dame on Sunday so that the Hurricanes and the Alabama Crimson Tide earned the final two at-large spots for the playoff.
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Yurachek argued that BYU’s 34-7 loss to No. 4 Texas Tech in the Big 12 championship caused the Cougars to fall a spot, allowing the Hurricanes to rise. The selection committee then compared Notre Dame and Miami on the head-to-head matchup in August, when the Hurricanes beat the Fighting Irish 27-24.
“We felt like the way BYU performed in their championship game, a second loss to Texas Tech in a similar fashion, was worthy of Miami moving ahead of them in the rankings,” Yurachek said.
“And once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, then we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody had been hungry for, with Notre Dame and Miami… And with that in mind, we gave Miami the nod over Notre Dame.”
While the Cougars, like Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game, were punished for losing in a conference championship, Alabama stayed put at No. 9 despite being outclassed 28-7 by No. 3 Georgia in the SEC championship.
Yurachek argued that the committee took the Crimson Tide’s complete body of work, including a gnarly 31-17 loss to Florida State in Week 1, and thought that mattered more than how Alabama performed in a playoff-like atmosphere.
“We evaluated all of those conference championship games, and felt like, in the end, regardless of Alabama’s performance yesterday, their body of work in those first 12 games where they had probably the best win (a 24-21 win over Georgia on Sept. 27), arguably this season,” Yurachek said. “Having to win against Vanderbilt, wins against Tennessee as well.
“The strength of schedule was the highest in the top 11, and we felt like in spite of their performance yesterday in a conference championship, they deserved to stay in that nine spot.”
The committee had a tough job to decide whether to keep out Miami, Alabama or Notre Dame for the CFP. In the end, one conference championship game just mattered differently.
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