Alabama vs. Miami? Clemson is actually a chaos agent in the CFP group

Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney often raves about his time as a former walk-on national champion and his alma mater, the Alabama Crimson Tide. It’s a rags-to-riches story that’s a good reminder of what’s still possible with a little hard work and a few good breaks.

However, ahead of Saturday night’s ACC Championship game against the SMU Mustangs, Swinney has a chance to pay back his former program by doing the funniest thing ever: send the Tide out of the College Football Playoff and trigger a crisis of confidence that was already growing as his league grows even further.

Here’s what it looks like heading into the weekend of the conference title game, according to the CFP selection committee’s penultimate rankings. As much as fans wanted to focus on potential hosts for opening-round playoff games or see if the Boise State Broncos bus could cruise to a first-round bye, the real turning point was really a slim margin of two Bubble teams where The The debate this season boils down to this.

That would be No. 11 Alabama versus the No. 12 Miami Hurricanes for the final spot in the group. A team that was declared dead just a few weeks ago is included. The team most believed to be safe seven days ago appears on the ground for the count.

“Look, they’re both very good,” Warde Manuel, chairman of the committee and athletic director of the Michigan Wolverines, explained the order of the two. “The committee ranked Alabama one spot above Miami, but that doesn’t detract from our assessment of Miami, even though they suffered two losses in the last three weeks. We still think Miami is a very strong team.

“When we evaluated Alabama and Miami, it came down to a difference in their work, not just wins, not just losses, but the overall season and the performance of those teams.”

In the 12-team CFP era, the question of four seeds versus five seeds is not a debate – last year’s Florida State Seminoles controversy is a thing of the past. Since the expansion brings clear guidelines on how teams compete and how they are seeded, the question of whether the first team is eliminated or the last team in is where the debate begins. This is where the committee is supposed to earn its non-existent salary.

If you were to ask the members of the ACC, you would probably get the answer that these committee members who vote on teams aren’t even worth that kind of paycheck right now. Conference Commissioner Jim Phillips released a terse statement citing much the same case.

“Miami absolutely deserves better from the committee,” the statement read in part. “As we look at the final rankings, we hope the committee will reconsider and put a deserving Miami in the running.”

But will they? As things stand, that looks more like wishful thinking than the reality of the playoffs until Saturday’s results make it clear.

The Hurricanes have one of the best offenses in the country and are led by Cam Ward, a dynamic Heisman Trophy-eligible quarterback. The only two blemishes on their resume are two road losses by a total of nine points – against the Syracuse Orange and a Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets team that just pushed the No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs to eight overtimes. They had a good win over the Florida Gators in the Swamp, although not in the Top 25, and defeated the South Florida Bulls, who barely held off the Tide for three quarters. They defeated a nine-win Duke Blue Devils team and also won a shootout over a strong Louisville Cardinals team.

“Miami, up until the last three weeks they had a very good season. But they have lost two of the last three weeks,” Manuel said. “Miami, top offense in the country with 44 points and over 500 yards per game. So it’s really close. It’s not just one data point on top of another.”

In the meantime, the Tide may no longer have Nick Saban as head coach, but it may take a few years for brand bias to fully disappear from the system. The committee appears to be defining them solely by their high ceiling, as opposed to the obviously low floor demonstrated by three losses in conference play.

Alabama is 3-1 against top-25 teams (wins against Georgia, the No. 19 Missouri Tigers and No. 14 South Carolina Gamecocks are offset by a loss to the No. 7 Tennessee Volunteers). The Tide also have some inexplicable losses, all on the road, to the Vanderbilt Commodores and Oklahoma Sooners. Losing by a touchdown to the Vols at Neyland Stadium isn’t bad, but it’s one more loss than Miami overall.

There’s little doubt the Tide played a more challenging team, but they also lost to the rest of their schedule. It says more about the November chaos that has gripped the sport that Kalen DeBoer’s team is even in the field instead of firmly suspending Sunday’s selection. This is the current playoff picture, where you have to squint to see the positive aspects of the teams lower in the rankings and find reading glasses to analyze the negative aspects.

Then there’s little Clemson lurking, seemingly just waiting for this moment to destroy its national playoff rival from the last playoffs in Alabama and fellow conference member Miami.

The Tigers may have lost to South Carolina, but the committee is on a high note heading into the game against SMU in Charlotte this weekend. Swinney’s team didn’t beat anyone of note (zero top-25 wins) and lost to three teams whose schedules were high (34-3 vs. Georgia in the opener, 17-14 vs. the Gamecocks and 33-21 vs. Louisville). . ). They’ve eaten up a mediocre middle class in the ACC, but are the big beneficiaries of the new system: Win your (Power 4) conference championship and you’re in the field.

To paraphrase March Madness, the first bid thief of the playoff era will likely be Clemson if it can do what no ACC team has done and beat the Mustangs.

It could give new meaning to Swinney’s catchphrase, “Bring your own courage.” There will certainly be some awkward moments in Grapevine, Texas, as the committee debates where on the field to put ACC champion Clemson should the Tigers win and what might happen to SMU.

“Possibly yes,” Manuel said when asked if SMU could fall behind Alabama. “And they can also transcend teams. Here too, it only depends on the outcome of the game.”

Save a dime for the people of Phillips on Saturday night if this scenario comes true. It’s bad enough that his league is being sued by Clemson. Imagine how he’ll feel when he’s presented with a trophy that could potentially cost the conference another playoff spot as well?

If there’s any consolation for Charlotte residents, at least a Tigers win will also make the Alabama debate moot.

Funny how it worked. However, something suggests that the committee won’t be smiling when it ends up having to cast its final vote.