CFP Committee Made A Fool Of Itself With Notre Dame Decision

For weeks leading up to the official College Football Playoff bracket reveal, the committee was consistent on one thing in particular. It ranked Notre Dame ahead of Miami every week.

Those rankings were never meant to be set in stone, but they were supposed to mean something. They turned out to be nothing but a waste of time for everyone involved.

Because Sunday afternoon, the committee flipped Miami ahead of Notre Dame for the final playoff spot after a weekend in which neither played, failing a basic test of logic and invalidating everything it said for weeks.

To be clear, ranking Miami ahead of Notre Dame is a reasonable opinion. Certain metrics favor the Irish, and others prefer the Hurricanes, who won the head-to-head matchup 27-24 on Aug. 31 in Miami. It's a close call and likely one decided by small margins. Notre Dame's inclusion in the playoffs was debatable, but the committee's process to get to the final 12-team field was undeniably foolish.

For the committee to say for weeks that Notre Dame had the better resume, only to go back on their word at the last second, surrenders any and all trust that teams and fans should have in them and puts the entire playoff selection process into question.

CFP chair Hunter Yurachek said Sunday there was a long debate on the No. 9, No. 10 and No. 11 rankings, as Alabama, Notre Dame and Miami vied for two playoff spots. That had been discussed for weeks, and each time –– except for the last and most important –– Notre Dame was one of the two teams projected in the field.

When looking at what happened during that span, the committee's last-second change of heart makes even less sense.

Nov. 15 results: Alabama lost 23-21 at home to No. 11 Oklahoma. Notre Dame won 37-15 at No. 22 Pittsburgh. Miami beat NC State 41-7 at home.

Week 12 playoff rankings: No. 9 Notre Dame (8-2), No. 10 Alabama (8-2), No. 13 Miami (8-2).

Nov. 22 results: Alabama defeated Eastern Illinois 56-0 at home. Notre Dame won 70-7 at home over Syracuse. Miami won 34-17 at Virginia Tech.

Week 13 playoff rankings: No. 9 Notre Dame (9-2), No. 10 Alabama (9-2), No. 12 Miami (9-2).

Nov. 29 results: Alabama won 27-20 at Auburn. Notre Dame won 49-20 at Stanford. Miami won 38-7 at No. 22 Pittsburgh.

Week 14 playoff rankings: No. 9 Alabama (10-2), No. 10 Notre Dame (10-2), No. 12 Miami (10-2).

Dec. 6 results: Alabama lost 28-7 to No. 3 Georgia in SEC championship. Notre Dame and Miami did not play.

Official playoff rankings: No. 9 Alabama (10-3), No. 10 Miami (10-2), No. 11 Notre Dame (10-2).

Yurachek tried to explain Sunday why Alabama moved up a spot and ahead of Notre Dame after sqeaking by a 5-7 Auburn team and losing to Georgia.

"The debate between Notre Dame and Alabama was strong and robust with arguments from the committee members on both sides," Yurachek said. "Great respect for both of those teams, but felt like last week going to a rival Auburn and the way Alabama played, especially in the first half of that game and then finding a way late in the fourth quarter to win that game was a feather in their cap above Notre Dame's going out to the West Coast and playing in a less hostile environment and doing really what they should have done against Stanford."

When it comes to flipping Alabama and Notre Dame, there's at least a shred of logic behind the move because each team took the field. While the final score doesn't suggest so, the committee apparently saw that as a better performance by Alabama than Notre Dame, and eye test should certainly be a factor.

However, the committee contradicted itself by punishing BYU for losing the Big 12 championship game to Texas Tech 34-7 and dropped the Cougars to No. 12, thus eliminating them from the playoff. But the committee was happy to ignore Alabama's uncompetitive effort against Georgia in the SEC title game altogether.

And if committee thought Notre Dame was better than Miami last week, what could have possibly changed during a weekend when neither team played? None of Miami's opponents played that weekend, either, so there was nothing to indirectly improve their resume from a strength of schedule or common opponent standpoint.

The only Notre Dame opponent that played this past week was Boise State, which won the Mountain West Conference. If anything, that should have improved Notre Dame's resume, even if by a tiny margin. And even if the committee doesn't want to give Notre Dame a boost for that, it still had the Irish ahead of Miami prior to Boise State winning their conference title game.

Notre Dame has every right to be enraged by this decision from the committee, and I don't blame the Irish for opting out of a bowl game. Iowa State and Kansas State declined bids, too, as did several 5-7 teams who were asked to replace them, including Florida State, Auburn, UCF, Baylor, Rutgers, Temple, and Kansas. Bowl games have little to no impact now, especially compared to transfer portal recruiting.

At the end of the day, Notre Dame only has itself to blame for missing the playoffs. The Irish lost their two biggest games of the season to Miami and Texas A&M, which eliminated their margin for error. Win one or both of those games, and Notre Dame would have been a playoff lock, no questions asked.

Instead, they put their fate in the hands of a committee that made a fool of itself by changing their own rankings after a weekend when neither Notre Dame nor Miami played. So when the committee gives its midseason rankings next season, don't bother watching.

It'll mean absolutely nothing.

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