Coaches should adopt Kyle Whittingham's stoic approach to Utah's College Football Playoff hopes

Unlike many of his peers, Utes head coach refrains from making the College Football Playoff discussion about him and his team

Utah Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham and his team rank No. 15 in the most recent College Football Playoff rankings. | Ben Queen-Imagn Images

The week after the college football regular season ends is when the sport starts to resemble politics more than anything else.

Some coaches of College Football Playoff contenders use the lead-up to conference championship weekend as an opportunity to preach their team's accomplishments and bang their fists on podiums to try to drive their point across more aggressively. Others might take the time to do a little damage control on social media after they left a program amid its best season ever to go coach its in-conference rival just down the street.

Either way, whether your Steve Sarkisian or Lane Kiffin, controlling the narrative through discourse is, for some reason, part of the job. But you also had three whole months to show your team was worthy of being seeded on the 12-team bracket, so, there's that too.

The problem that arises for any team not playing in a conference championship game is that there's no other way to positively change the selection committee's mind about its postseason résumé outside of politicking. Or, in the case of Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, plead for the leader of the free world to step in and sign an executive order that expands the playoff field.

Pavia's coach, Clark Lea, and Vanderbilt athletic director Candice Storey Lee wanted to go a different route entirely: arrange another game with an at-large bid hopeful — like Utah, Miami or Texas for example — to have one more shot at showing the selection committee the Commodores belong in the College Football Playoff.

Lee's pursuit of a 13th game for Vanderbilt might've happened if it wasn't such a last-minute endeavor, not to mention the logistical hoops that would've had to been cleared in order to pull it off. One of which would've involved finding a place in Hawaii to host, since NCAA rules allow for teams to play a 13th game if it its in Hawaii to defray travel costs.

It's likely not going to happen, but it would've something to see two College Football Playoff challengers go head-to-head in a do-or-die game from sunny Honolulu while the Power Four leagues held their respective conference championship games stateside. And it would've been a true "settle it on the field" moment for both parties involved.

Alas, there's no indication the Utes, or any of the other teams ranked Nos. 10-15 in the CFP rankings for that matter, will be joining the Commodores for a trip to the islands.

Would Kyle Whittingham and company have wanted a chance at improving their standing and make one last playoff push before calling it a wraps on the season? Maybe. But given Utah's head coach never used his platform to advocate for the Utes being included in the playoff picture, Whittingham would've probably said yes to a 13th game just for the sake of competition.

"We're gonna take things one game at a time and see how we do against Kansas State," Whittingham said in response to whether he though Utah was a playoff-caliber team prior to the Utes' home finale against the Wildcats. "Is it good enough? We'll find out. We got to take care of our business first, starting with this week, and when the dust settles and the regular season's over, we'll see where we're at and what kind of opportunities are there."

Whittingham could've called out the selection committee for dropping Utah two spots in the rankings depite the Utes' five-game winning streak to end the season. He had the option to point out how his team's efficiency margins stack up well with the other playoff contenders, and why a team with three losses shouldn't be ahead of the Utes in any such way.

But he didn't. Utah came up short of reaching the Big 12 championship game and subsequently missed out on a spot in the College Football Playoff, though there wasn't a peep of frustration from Whittingham after the fact.

Whittingham's humble approach isn't for everyone, but it's probably just as effective as another coach proclaiming the exclusion of his team from the playoff would be a disservice to the sport. Because at this point, only the results on the field are going to impact how the selection committee fills out the final bracket on Sunday. Campaigning one team over another in front of the media like a politician hoping to sway votes in their favor isn't going to do anything.

The selection committee has its data points — whether they're used consistently is another question entirely. Having social media departments create and post graphics that compare wins over Associated Press Top 25 teams and strength of record ratings are just reminders for the selection committee about things it already knows about. None of its new information, it's just a different perspective on the facts and a way to get fans riled up in the comment section.

Maybe a 13th game for bubble teams does need to get added to the calendar. Maybe there needs to be a new ranking system. But for now, three months worth of results are what the selection committee has to evaluate playoff-worthy teams. The people making the decisions don't need to listen to every press conference and scroll through every social media post that tries to tell them differently, because the burden was on the coaches and players to get the job done on the field. Not reshape how their season played out as orators.

Performing on the field is the only variable teams can control. The selection committee isn't always going to get it right, but that's just how it is in college football now. We went from putting the top two teams in the championship game to creating a four-team tournament, then expanded that so 12 teams could get in.

Somehow, increasing the playoff pool has only made it so that more people can feel frustrated if their team isn't in the mix (people in charge of the NCAA Tournament, take notes). Ohio State winning last season's championship as an 8-seed could be viewed as a positive outcome of expansion, but the Buckeyes were only that low to begin with because conference champions got first round byes, not necessarily because they played poorly in the regular season.

Speaking of Ohio State, it's the heavy favorite to win the 2026 national championship (+185 odds according to FanDuel Sportsbook) as presumably a No. 1 or No. 2 seed, depending on the result of the Big Ten championship against Indiana. The Hoosiers have the next best odds at +385, followed by Georgia (+800), Oregon (+1000) and Notre Dame (+1100).

To recap, three of the current top four teams in the CFP rankings have +800 odds or better to win it all in January. Everyone else has +1000 odds or worse, and that's not even including the to-be-determined teams that represent the ACC and American Athletic Conference in the playoff.

The point is: if the sport is to find any stability regarding its postseason, then some people are just going to have to start living with the results, good or bad, because that's just a part of life. Those who think otherwise probably find presidential debates more entertaining than highly-competitive football games.

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