You encounter karma in peculiar ways. Despite not getting any of the ACC’s TV money, SMU is one of the finest teams in the ACC this season and a real threat for the conference title and playoffs. The Mustangs are in first place to contend for an opening-round bye in the CFB Playoffs with a 5-0 ACC record and an overall record of 8-1. Considering that, experts believe SMU should rank higher than Miami in the CFP rankings. However, Miami is given preference this time around because of its overall performance this year. This caused an uproar among college football insiders.
Andy Staples voiced his indignation with SMU and Miami’s playoff rankings on NBC Sports’ podcast on November 14th, saying, “I don’t really understand why Miami and SMU are five spots apart when they’re basically the same resume, and that’s a helmet logo thing which as someone who feels like that SMU Pony logo is the best helmet logo. I don’t feel like that helmet logo should be degraded like that by just saying, oh, Miami is a bigger brand. Let’s put them. There, they’re the same; they should be one spot apart.”
If you are not aware, Miami, the top-ranked ACC team, dropped five positions to ninth place in the 2024 CFP rankings, which were made public on Tuesday, November 12. According to committee head Warde Manuel, the committee was thrilled by Miami’s offensive dominance during most of the 2024 season. On top of this, the committee conducts individual evaluations every week, as Manuel stated. Last Saturday, Miami was losing 23-28 at Georgia Tech, and SMU was on a bye. Miami led the country with 544.8 yards per game and continued to lead with an average of 45.0 points per game.
That being said, despite having the same resume, SMU is currently placed number 14 in the college football playoffs, which appears to be an injustice committed by the committee to favor Miami. However, there is still the question of why the committee chose Miami over SMU.
An explanation of Miami’s playoff ranking from CFB insiders
Both SMU and Miami are in charge of their routes to the conference championship game. If Miami defeats Wake Forest and Syracuse in the remaining two games, they will secure a spot for the game. SMU’s season-ending games are against California, Boston College, and Virginia. Nonetheless, these teams’ overall results have some bearing on where they finish in the NCAA football playoffs. However, the CFP committee provided a thorough justification for their choice.
“We obviously have factored in who they played and who they’ve beat throughout the season, so we just felt that in looking at Miami and SMU, Miami’s offense is very dominant in terms of how they’ve been winning. Haven’t been as consistent defensively. We’ve been impressed by both. Just based on their body of work, the committee had the discussions. The feeling was that Miami was ahead of SMU in terms of their performance this year,” said Warde Manuel.
There are still a couple of college football games left, though, so rankings are subject to change. We can only wait to see what happens at the end of this season.
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