{"id":274528,"date":"2025-11-06T05:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/274528\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T05:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:32:09","slug":"rhett-lashlee-calls-out-college-football-playoff-selection-process-shades-notre-dames-ranking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/274528\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhett Lashlee calls out College Football Playoff selection process, shades Notre Dame’s ranking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following Tuesday\u2019s initial College Football Playoff<\/a> Top 25 rankings reveal<\/a>, much of the conversation<\/a> was about Notre Dame<\/a> and Miami<\/a>. The Fighting Irish came in at No. 10, while the Hurricanes ranked No. 18 despite a head-to-head victory in Week 1.<\/p>\n

SMU<\/a> coach Rhett Lashlee<\/a> reacted Wednesday, explaining why he disagrees with the CFP selection process. He also shaded Notre Dame\u2019s spot in the process.<\/p>\n

Lashlee argued the \u201ceye test\u201d was why the Fighting Irish were eight spots higher than Miami. But with that, he said he wants to see more concrete criteria with the selection process than risking any bias in the discussions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how we control a narrative that is kind of controlled for everyone,\u201d Lashlee said on SiriusXM College Sports Radio<\/a>. \u201cIf two teams have the same record, one team has better wins than the other and one team beat a team head-to-head, they shouldn\u2019t be ranked eight spots behind them. If we\u2019re saying now it\u2019s about data driven metrics, it\u2019s no longer about your opinion and eye test as much. But all we heard last night\u2019s an eye test. If I\u2019m Louisville<\/a>, how am I ranked behind a Notre Dame?<\/p>\n

\u201cBut every year, there\u2019s going to be \u2013 if it wasn\u2019t us, it\u2019d be the other league, right? Someone\u2019s going to have a gripe. And my whole thing is, that\u2019s part of what makes college football great. It\u2019s awesome. I love for the next month, there\u2019s just going to be a lot of great debate. That\u2019s what makes our game great. But let\u2019s take as much out of the human element of picking people as we can. No one else picks people. It\u2019s not a pageant. Earn it. In [the] NFL<\/a>, you know I\u2019ve got to be one of the seven teams in the AFC or the NFC to get in. It\u2019s not hard. Do that. But if I win my division, I\u2019m in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rhett Lashlee calls for 24-team CFP<\/p>\n

The 2025 season marks the second year of the 12-team College Football Playoff format, which debuted last year. Of course, there\u2019s a change this year. The bracket will feature a straight-seeding model, rather than giving byes to the four highest-ranked conference champions.<\/p>\n

But Rhett Lashlee strongly spoke in favor of expanding the field. While potential 16-team models have come up, he pushed for a 24-team bracket with four automatic bids for each power conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the college level, is it 16 teams?\u201d Lashlee said. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I mean, in a perfect world, yeah, with four automatic bids from the four major conferences. But we have all these other caveats we\u2019ve got to try to please. So maybe the one that three of the four leagues back right now with 24 teams is great. There\u2019s 136 teams in college football \u2013 24 of 136 is not watered down. And if right now in the ACC, the Big Ten, the Big 12 and the SEC, everybody knew they\u2019re competing for four spots? \u2026 Think of the parity that you could have and how great college football could be because you earn your way in.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou earn it. No one has to go politicking for it, no one has to grip it to rank behind or ahead of somebody. Man, finish the top four in your league and you\u2019re in, and you get a chance to go play for it. To me, that would make a lot of sense. It\u2019s out there. And I think three of the four leagues really back it. Until we get to more of a, \u2018You earned it,\u2019 and it\u2019s not opinions or metrics or eye tests or committees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lashlee\u2019s greater point centered around moving on from the idea of the committee \u201cpicking\u201d the teams in the field. Instead, he wants to see a world where teams \u201cearn\u201d their spots.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys, we\u2019ve got a committees with only three coaches on it and guys that are actually sitting coaches or ADs at other schools \u2013 not coaches, but ADs, administrators at other schools,\u201d Lashlee said. \u201cThey\u2019re good people. But there\u2019s human bias. So to me, until we get out of this, \u2018We\u2019re picking it\u2019 and change it to, \u2018You\u2019re earning it,\u2019 we\u2019re going to have this every year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following Tuesday\u2019s initial College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings reveal, much of the conversation was about Notre Dame…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-274528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}