The SEC/Big Ten/Notre Dame Invitational Committee ranked Virginia 17th this week, and not surprisingly, didn’t rank Duke, the other program in this weekend’s ACC Championship Game.
Oddly, there were no questions of the committee chair, Hunter Yurachek, about the ACC Championship Game situation in his post-reveal presser Tuesday night.
There was a lot about Miami, which was ranked 12th, two spots behind Notre Dame, ranked 10th, both with 10-2 records, which include Miami beating Notre Dame head-to-head in Week 1.
There was also a question about JMU (11-1), the favorite in Friday’s Sun Belt Championship Game, which entered the CFP Top 25 rankings for the first time this week, at 25 – behind two other Group of 5 schools, #20 Tulane (10-2) and #24 North Texas (11-1).
Tulane and North Texas meet on Friday in the American Conference title game, so, one of them will survive, and would seem to have the pole position for an automatic bid to the CFP.
Meaning: JMU, with a win over Troy (8-4) – the Dukes are a 23.5-point favorite – will be rooting for Duke (7-5) to upset Virginia (10-2) Saturday night in Charlotte.
Otherwise, they’re stuck in the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl against the winner of the Jacksonville State-Kennesaw State Conference USA title game.
Man, that would be a comedown – from being the 12 seed in the CFP and playing in an SEC stadium to … that.
“JMU has been a very consistent team throughout, a team we have talked about for the past couple of weeks, and they’ve been creeping and creeping,” said Yurachek, the athletics director at Arkansas, who is probably happy to have something else to talk about.
Yurachek hired as his new head football coach Ryan Silverfield, who was 50-24 in six seasons at Memphis, including an 8-4 mark this season, with a win over Arkansas included there.
Fans at SEC schools tend to think their next football coach should be Nick Saban, or someone close.
“Finally with their 11 wins, their strength of schedule really hasn’t improved that much, but they’re getting a lot of credit because they have gone through their schedule just with one loss earlier this year, against a Louisville team that was ranked in our poll earlier, and they do have wins against an Old Dominion team that’s 9-3 and a Washington State team that took one of the ranked teams, Ole Miss, played them to a three-point game earlier this year, as well,” Yurachek said.
Now, I’m old enough to remember when Yurachek, answering a question about why Virginia wasn’t ranked higher, noted that Louisville falling out of the rankings was somehow a blemish on the Cavaliers’ resume.
“Louisville, with another loss, fell out of our rankings. That was a significant win at the time for Virginia,” Yurachek said back on Nov. 18. “So, you look at Virginia’s resume, they are 9-2. Their schedule strength lagged behind some of the teams that are in front of them. Then the losses to NC State, and even Wake Forest at 7-3, I think impact where Virginia’s currently ranked.”
JMU losing by two touchdowns to 8-4 Louisville: no problem.
UVA winning at 8-4 Louisville: problem.
Virginia losing to 8-4 Wake Forest and 7-5 NC State: huge problem.
Just pointing out the inconsistency with these chucklebums.
And this isn’t even inconsistency when it comes to the cases of Miami and Notre Dame.
The argument that Yurachek gave us for why the head-to-head Miami win doesn’t factor in is mind-blowing.
“The head-to-head is one datapoint that the committee will use. It’s obviously easier to use that datapoint when the teams are back-to-back as opposed to when they’re separated by a team or two or three, as has been the case,” said Yurachek, going on to note that “you’ve got a BYU team between them that’s 11-1.”
OK, I’ll bite: why is BYU between Notre Dame at Miami in the rankings?
There isn’t anything scientific to that answer; the committee just decided to put BYU between Notre Dame and Miami.
The real answer, and I can’t believe Yurachek said this out loud:
“Then you’ve got Miami, who when we had our first poll, they came into our poll losers of two of three games, and so they were inserted at 18,” Yurachek said, and he seemed satisfied with that making sense.
That an artificial ranking based on the committee members’ feelings way back on Nov. 4 should govern where Miami is now vis-à-vis Notre Dame.
Notre Dame’s advantage here is that the Irish lost its games back in September – the Golden Domers started 0-2, and have won 10 straight – while the ‘Canes made the mistake of losing two of three in the middle of the season.
It’s obvious how utterly stupid this process is.
A reporter tried to press Yurachek on the issue later in the avail; dude clearly is good at regurgitating talking points.
“Miami, again, they entered our first poll losers of two of three games, and they entered in at 18,” Yurachek said.
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Chris Graham
