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COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 15, 2016Kirby HocuttGrapevine, Texas GINA LEHE: Good evening, and welcome to the weekly Selection Committee teleconference. Once again joining us tonight is Bill Hancock, executive director of the College Football Playoff, along with Kirby Hocutt, College Football Playoff Selection Committee chair. Because of the late night we're going to jump right in and open it up for questions. Q. Kirby, I was just wondering, you just said on television evaluating 2 through 6 was a real conundrum for you guys this week, and I'm just wondering, do you look at them now as like the best quality losses when you start adjudicating those guys, or how did you guys finally arrive with Ohio State No. 2, for example, Michigan No. 3? KIRBY HOCUTT: Great question. We look at the complete résumé, from the beginning of the season until this past weekend in our evaluation. As we looked at Ohio State, we see a very talented team that has three wins over current CFP top-25 teams. The Selection Committee is very impressed with the past two games that we've seen Ohio State play, their performance on the field. The only loss that Ohio State has is to a CFP top-10 team, so in the committee's eyes, Ohio State is deserving of that No. 2 ranking this week. Michigan stayed in the No. 3 spot, even though they lost to an unranked team, but Michigan is the only team with three wins against current CFP top-10 wins. Those are three high-quality wins that the committee places high value in. Q. I know this is early, but you've got to ask this question. There is a good chance Ohio State could win out the next two weeks and not play in the Big Ten Championship game, yet y'all have got them sitting there No. 2 right now. Would it be difficult in the final analysis for them to fall from 2 to out of the top 4 on the final week? KIRBY HOCUTT: We don't look forward. As we saw, anything can happen on any given Saturday, and we do not look forward and anticipate what may happen in the future. Q. West Virginia as a one-loss team has over the last two weeks kind of fallen further and further behind the other one-loss teams, and this week they're even behind a three-loss team. What is the committee seeing with West Virginia that is causing hesitation to move them higher? KIRBY HOCUTT: The committee spent a great deal of time this week talking about West Virginia, and I think at this point in time, West Virginia having only played one game against a current CFP top-25 team, which was a loss for them, and that is what we spent a great deal of time debating, discussing, is the fact that the quality win is not there yet for West Virginia. Their only game against a top-25 team was a loss to Oklahoma State. Q. What is the difference between them and Oklahoma, who's sitting up in the top 10 and has two losses and I don't believe has a top-25 win? KIRBY HOCUTT: Yeah, the difference there is the committee discussed the last couple of days is the head-to-head win over West Virginia. Q. No, not Oklahoma State, Oklahoma. KIRBY HOCUTT: Okay, I'm sorry. You know, Oklahoma is a team that has a tremendous offense. They've continued to bounce back from two early-season losses. They're on a seven-game winning streak. The committee believes that Oklahoma is deserving of that 9 spot, and still looking at West Virginia to get a quality win. Q. I wanted to ask about the switch between Boise State and Western Michigan. What was the thought process and discussion behind that? KIRBY HOCUTT: We spent a great deal of time yesterday as well as today on that particular ranking, No. 20 Boise State, No. 21 Western Michigan. It was debated. It went back and forth in our room. Western Michigan at this point only has one win against an FBS team that has a winning record, and that's against a 6-4 team. Boise State, when you look at the quality win they had over Washington State, a Washington State team that continues to improve week to week, the committee continues to place high value on that quality win and believes that Boise State deserved to jump over Western Michigan into that 20 spot this week. Q. You said two weeks ago you guys don't factor in margin of victory at all. When you're kind of assessing teams, how do you keep that out of the discussion, or how do you handle that issue? KIRBY HOCUTT: I'm sorry, can you repeat the question one more time for me? Q. You said two weeks ago you guys don't factor in margin of victory. How did you do that when you're kind of discussing teams? How do you keep that out of the discussion if that's not a factor? KIRBY HOCUTT: Yeah. You know, we talk about the complete résumé. We talk about all the wins and losses of a particular team. We talk about how that team has performed each and every week. We talk about was that a convincing win. As I said last week, I believe, in certain games a convincing win can be a 14-0 score, and in other games it can be a 35-7 score. I think in the game of college football, a convincing win can vary. But in no way do we incent margin of victory. That's not even something that comes up in our discussions as the committee members evaluate these teams from A to Z. Q. In the committee's eyes, what kept Washington as 6 ahead of Wisconsin, and how close was that discussion? KIRBY HOCUTT: Again, I would say that the margin of separation was small between teams 2 through 6. In a Washington team, the committee is impressed with the quality of wins at Utah, another quality win against a 7-3 Stanford team, and their only loss is to a good Southern California team, and honestly, when you talk to the coaches that are in the Selection Committee room, I don't think any of them if they were coaching today would want to play that Southern California team right now. I would say the strength of schedule for Washington is not as strong as those teams that are currently ranked above them, but the committee did think that Washington is deserving of that 6 spot ahead of No. 7 Wisconsin. Q. Washington State has a loss to Eastern Washington. That's an FCS opponent but it's also a highly ranked FCS opponent. How does the committee view that loss to Eastern Washington? KIRBY HOCUTT: We view it as a loss to an FCS team. Obviously we're aware of the successful season that that particular program is having, but it is a loss to an FCS team. But it is noted within our discussions that that is a good FCS team this season. Q. Just curious how the committee treats Oklahoma State's loss to Central Michigan knowing that the final play in which Oklahoma State lost never really should have happened? KIRBY HOCUTT: We treat it as a loss. It's not within the purview of the Selection Committee to determine wins and losses. We accept their record, which is 8-2. However, the Selection Committee is aware of what transpired in that football game. Oklahoma State's record is 8-2; at the same time, the Selection Committee is aware of what transpired in that football game. Q. What are the committee's thoughts about having two teams from one league in the playoffs? Are teams based strictly on their résumés, or is there some consideration given to not having two teams in one league? KIRBY HOCUTT: It's based upon each particular team's résumé. The Selection Committee has the flexibility if we believe that two of the best four teams are from the same conference to make that decision. If a team is clearly -- two teams are clearly in the top four in the country. So the Selection Committee has that flexibility; however, it's nothing that we have spent any time talking about or anything that's been on the table in front of us. Obviously still three weeks left in this college football season as well as championship game weekend. Q. And there's always this trying to figure out how much the conference championship means; is it just a tiebreaker kind of thing, or is it something that is a big difference maker between two teams? How would you kind of quantify that if you can? KIRBY HOCUTT: Well, I would say that consistent to our protocol that when there is a small separation between teams, when teams are comparable, then the Selection Committee has been instructed by the management committee, the commissioners, as well as the athletics director at Notre Dame, to apply four metrics. One is conference champions; one is strength of schedule; another is head to head match-ups; and the fourth is comparable outcomes against common opponents. Those four metrics are not weighted. They're in no particular order. So it's up to the 12 individuals that make up the College Football Playoff Selection Committee as to what they see value in. So really it's the subjective opinion and analysis of 12 individuals giving those four metrics when teams are comparable. Q. I was wondering as far as the teams, I guess 3 through 5 there, Michigan, Clemson, Louisville, Louisville's loss obviously was to Clemson, but I guess irrespective of the fact that it was Clemson itself, but just that they were a very highly ranked playoff considering themselves versus the other two were to unranked teams that Michigan and Clemson lost to, how do you evaluate the, quote-unquote, quality of a loss or a good loss, or if that was as much of a priority? KIRBY HOCUTT: Well, we evaluate the complete résumé. You know, in Michigan's case, although they lost to an unranked team, they do have three wins against current CFP top-10 teams. As you look at Clemson, they have three wins against current CFP top-25 teams as well as the head-to-head over Louisville. Louisville, very talented team, only one win over a CFP top-25 team, that being a very talented Florida State team. We talked in depth about those quality wins. We talked in depth about those losses and all the other facets that make up each of those teams' résumés. We'll continue to evaluate all of these teams each week based upon their full body of work. Q. The other follow-up I had is obviously Louisville has Lamar Jackson, who's kind of a unanimous Heisman favorite at this point. Does something like that ever come into play, well, this team has the best player so surely that makes them one of the best teams, or we should have them in our playoff because they have such an elite player? Does anything on that level come into the discussion? KIRBY HOCUTT: No, it doesn't. We talk about teams, performances of the team. We don't talk about individual players in that regard. You know, as we talk about the offensive production for a particular team, a particular individual may be mentioned, but not as it having impact on our rankings. Q. When you have two teams like Ohio State and Michigan who seemingly seem very close in terms of the quality of the teams they've beaten, and even Michigan has more top-10 wins right now than Ohio State, how much of a factor is sort of how you're playing in the moment, for instance, Ohio State having back to back 62-3 wins and Michigan just coming off of a loss? Does that give the Buckeyes the little boost it needed to be No. 2 rather than No. 3? KIRBY HOCUTT: Everything comes into our discussions. Everything is important. Again, the margin of separation between teams 2 and 6 was very small. I mentioned that the Selection Committee has been impressed with the performance on the field from Ohio State the last two weeks as well as their only loss is to a current CFS top-10 team being Penn State. Again, margin of separation, very small. We review complete résumé and will continue to do so each week. Q. Tennessee lost three straight, then beat Tennessee Tech and Kentucky, and I was surprised to see them in there at No. 19. Why was that? KIRBY HOCUTT: Tennessee is a team that has played a very strong schedule. They have five wins against teams that have a winning record, including a very talented Florida team. Tennessee is a team that's done a remarkable job this football season of navigating through a string of injuries. Those components were talked about as we evaluated Tennessee, and I think the five wins against teams with winning records, including Florida, again, the strength of schedule and the way that they've had to navigate through a high rate of injuries this year brought Tennessee into that 19th spot for the Selection Committee. Q. You've clearly stated how important head-to-head is to you, so would that give a team like Penn State a better chance to get in the playoffs hypothetically if they won the Big Ten as a two-loss team than let's say Wisconsin because they lost to Ohio State if Ohio State is sitting there at 11-1? And then can past wins grow in importance to you guys, for example, Penn State beating Iowa when they were in a slide and now they beat Michigan, so does that win over Iowa look better for Penn State than when it actually happened? KIRBY HOCUTT: You know, we just do not talk hypotheticals. As we saw this past weekend, so many things can change in a given week of the college football season. The best regular season that there is. Just do not allow ourselves to look forward or consider hypotheticals. We do each week review a résumé, and a win over a particular team is discussed each and every week. We review it based upon the complete body of work. Wins over certain opponents as the course of the season goes along do come forward for the Selection Committee as those teams either strengthen their résumé or subtract from their résumé each and every opportunity they have. GINA LEHE: I'd like to thank everyone for joining us this evening. That concludes tonight's teleconference. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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