(KBTX) – For the third consecutive week, the Texas A&M football team claimed the No. 3 spot in the College Football Playoff top 25, announced by the playoff committee on Tuesday.
The Aggies remain behind No. 1 Ohio State (10-0) and No. 2 Indiana (11-0), but are the highest-ranked Southeastern Conference team in the rankings. Georgia (9-1) moved into the No. 4 position after previous No. 4 Alabama dropped its Saturday matchup to No. 8 Oklahoma. The Crimson Tide (8-2) fell to No. 10 in the rankings, behind two-loss Notre Dame.
The Aggies needed a near-perfect second half against unranked South Carolina to complete a 27-point comeback effort and knock off the Gamecocks 31-30 in Kyle Field Saturday.
Both Ohio State and Indiana cruised to victory Saturday, with the Buckeyes beating UCLA 48-10 and the Hoosiers downing Wisconsin 31-7.
CFP Rankings Nov. 18(KBTX)
The committee’s perspective came from a new voice this week as Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek assumed the role of chair. Former chair and Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades took a leave of absence from both of his posts last week for “personal reasons.”
“The committee, in evaluating the first half of A&M’s game versus South Carolina, it didn’t look very much like a No. 3 team, falling behind 30-3 and having four turnovers in that game,” Yurachek said on a media teleconference Tuesday. “But then, in the second half, they looked everything like a No. 3 team in the country, dominating the second half.”
In somewhat of a similar fashion, Indiana needed a last-minute drive against unranked Penn State two weeks prior to remain undefeated on the season.
“What the committee saw in both Indiana and Texas A&M — good teams find ways to win games when they don’t play their best and that’s what Indiana and Texas A&M both did,” he said.
CFP Bracket Nov. 18(KBTX)
In Saturday’s game, A&M mustered three points and 132 total yards in the first half, including -9 rushing yards. However, A&M’s offense tallied 371 yards and 28 second-half points, led by a 16 for 20 passing performance from quarterback Marcel Reed. The Aggie defense allowed 11 total yards in the fourth quarter. Three of A&M’s four turnovers came before halftime.
“From a committee standpoint, I think the second half definitely neutralized the way they played in the first half, especially when you find a way to win a game like that, when you are not very good and you’re not your typical self in that first half. But then, how they dominated, literally dominated, the first half… They looked like a top-3 team in the second half of that game, and so I think it really just balances itself out.”
The Aggies are one of four SEC teams in the top 10 and one of nine from the conference in the top 25. Alabama, with its loss to Oklahoma, dropped to No. 10, as the second-highest two-loss team behind Notre Dame. Texas fell to No. 17 after losing at Georgia on Saturday.
After a nonconference matchup with Samford on Saturday, the Aggies travel to Austin on Nov. 28 for a chance at an undefeated regular season and a berth in the SEC title game.
Championship games will be weighed similarly to years past, Yurachek said.
“We will just use the conference championship games as another data point to use in ranking our teams,” he said. “And so, it’s hard to say if [losing the game] will move a team up or down, until we really have that data point and are able to compare that against other teams that play that weekend and conference championship games.”
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