College Football Playoff committee chair gives confusing explanation for why Alabama jumped Notre Dame in latest rankings

If you’re wondering why Alabama moved ahead of Notre Dame in Tuesday night’s College Football Playoff rankings, the explanation from College Football Playoff selection committee chairman Hunter Yurachek is not going to give you much clarity.

The Crimson Tide moved from No. 10 to No. 9 after beating Auburn on Saturday while Notre Dame dropped a spot despite a 49-20 road win against Stanford. Both were rivalry games. Yet Alabama got more credit from the committee for its 27-20 win over a 5-7 team than Notre Dame did for a 29-point win over a 3-9 team.

And as a result, Notre Dame is provisionally the last at-large team in the 12-team playoff field.

“The debate between Notre Dame and Alabama has been one of the fiercest debates for the last three weeks, and it really has split our committee room,” Yurachek told reporters Tuesday night. “We’ve got people that thought highly of Alabama — we all think highly of both of those teams, but some are very much in Alabama’s camp, some are very much in Notre Dame’s camp.”

As Yurachek continued, things got weird.

“It’s just Alabama in a rivalry game on the road. Auburn has been an extremely tough place to play for many teams this year, such as Georgia and Vanderbilt, and the committee gave Alabama a little respect for winning that game, getting out early 17-0. The game got tied again, and Alabama, a gutsy call there late in the game to go for it on fourth-and-2 and then getting a turnover again late in the game. The committee just felt like that was enough of a win, of a metric, to push Alabama ahead of Notre Dame.”

There’s a lot to unpack there as Yurachek is still getting settled into his role as the CFP chair. He had to replace now-former Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades in November after Rhoades departed the committee — and eventually Baylor — for personal reasons.

Let’s start with the obvious falsehood. Auburn did not play Vanderbilt at home. That game on Nov. 8 came at Vanderbilt. Yes, the game was close; the Commodores won 45-38 in overtime. But it had nothing to do with how tough it is to play at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

In fact, Auburn went 0-4 at home in conference play this year and even lost 10-3 to Kentucky. While all four of those losses were by a single score, the Tigers’ only wins at home came over Ball State, South Alabama and Mercer.

Besides that, it’s also odd that Alabama is getting credit for jumping out to a big lead and Notre Dame isn’t. Notre Dame led 35-3 at halftime and was up 28-0 before Stanford scored. But not only is Alabama getting credit for a 17-0 lead, it’s apparently not getting dinged for Auburn outscoring the Tide 20-3 after that lead was established to tie the game in the fourth quarter.

The easiest way for the committee to explain the swap would have been simply citing Texas A&M’s loss to Texas. The Aggies — who beat Notre Dame in Week 2 — fell four spots from No. 3 to No. 7. Yurachek could have saved a lot of head-scratching and simply said that Notre Dame’s loss didn’t look as good. Though that argument would have also been confusing in its own right. Alabama lost in Week 1 to 5-7 Florida State and the Seminoles got blown out in Week 14 by a 4-8 Florida team.

Miami fans are also trying to figure out what the committee is thinking regarding Notre Dame. The Hurricanes beat Notre Dame in Week 1 and have the same 10-2 record. Yet Miami is two spots below the Fighting Irish and has been three spots below Notre Dame.

Texas, meanwhile, jumped ahead of Vanderbilt on Tuesday night. The three-loss Longhorns are a spot ahead of 10-2 Vanderbilt with a head-to-head win over the Commodores. Vanderbilt got a road rivalry win itself on Saturday with a convincing win over a Tennessee team that was at No. 19 in the previous set of rankings. Yurachek gave Miami more credit for its 31-point win over No. 22 Pitt than Vandy got for its 45-24 victory over the Volunteers.

If you’re looking for consistency in the way teams near each other are evaluated, you’re going to be looking for a while.

“I think it’s what happened around Vanderbilt this week with Texas also getting a win against Texas A&M who’s ranked third, Miami getting a win at a ranked Pittsburgh team, BYU winning against Central Florida,” Yurachek said. “It’s not that we didn’t want to reward Vanderbilt for this win, but there’s some things that happened in and around the teams that they are ranked with that really kept them in that 14th spot.”