COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 21, 2023

Boo Corrigan

CFP Media Conference

BRETT DANIELS: I'd like to welcome everyone to the fourth College Football Playoff Selection Committee teleconference for the 2023 season. Joining us tonight is Bill Hancock, the executive director of the College Football Playoff, along with Boo Corrigan, College Football Playoff Selection Committee chair.

Q. How much does Ohio State and Michigan being strong both offensively and defensively factor into why they remain ahead of Washington even though Washington now has more ranked wins by year rankings especially when compared to Michigan?

BOO CORRIGAN: Again, I think they're both really good teams offensively and defensively. To your point, I think the committee in looking at Washington, there were a couple of weeks with Arizona State in the Stanford game where we wanted to see a little bit more from Washington, and as I alluded to earlier, they've had six consecutive quarters and given up a total of 20 points, including against Oregon State that averages 36 points.

I think it all plays in together, and from watching games to statistics to schedule to everything, and we've got one more week of datapoints.

Q. I wanted to ask more about Jordan Travis' injury at Florida State. I know you guys are not projecting forward, but what was the conversation in the room like and the takeaway on how Florida State performed Saturday after his injury?

BOO CORRIGAN: Well, I thought first of all, there was concern for Jordan, what a great player he's been and an appreciation for what he's done and the job Coach Norvell has done but also the job he did in the last couple of years, particularly this year.

But looking at it, they're down 13-0, they come back and score 58 consecutive points. You know, in talking about it and looking at it and with regards to them going from 4 to 5, as we said earlier, it had a lot to do with Washington. It had everything to do with Washington as we were looking at it.

Again, as we're looking at this, we're going to close the books here in a little bit on week 12 and then move on to week 13 and see how they play against Florida.

Q. Boo, could you go through what you see from both Ohio State and Michigan before they meet this weekend? I know you talked about each of them individually, but just kind of at this point what you see from each team and what you guys like?

BOO CORRIGAN: You know, two really good teams, two teams that are good on both sides of the ball. Michigan to get the blocked punt for a safety last week, to scoop and score; Ohio State to put up in excess of 430 yards against Minnesota, I think both teams continue to get better as they go through this. Michigan has been dominant, and Ohio State has got the win over Notre Dame as well as Penn State. Like every college football fan, we're excited to watch the game and watch two really good teams play in the big house and see what happens from there.

Q. With Liberty being in at No. 25, what was the determining factor in pushing them into the top 25 this week?

BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, they keep winning games, and the value of winning games, they've scored a lot of points, averaged a lot of yards, obviously the strength of schedule has been an issue from the beginning.

But at the end of the day you can only play the people that are on your schedule, and I think as we looked at it more and more and the value of winning and the value that the committee puts on that, it became a determining factor with Liberty coming in at No. 25.

Q. Concerning the AAC title, obviously Tulane is in the front right now. They're at No. 23. What value does the committee place on winning that conference regardless of who it is since UTSA and SMU are still in the running for it, at least as it pertains to the New Year's Six bid?

BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, well, there's three teams that are all 7-0, I believe, right now, and then you've got Tulane, UTSA this weekend. Conference championships do matter, as we talk about it. Head-to-head matters, where games are played matters, and obviously conference championship is a big determining factor.

Q. How much more if more decisive of a No. 1 Georgia was with a four-touchdown road victory over a ranked team, and the value of road wins when you're looking at these teams' resumes.

BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, we're sitting on six total undefeated teams, five in the top five. I think it's a pretty unique time for us.

But as we talked about it in the room, Tennessee scores on their first offensive play, whatever it is, 105, 110,000 people going crazy, and to see Georgia score on six of their first eight possessions was incredibly impressive. It was incredibly impressive.

But I think there's a lot of really good football teams in the country right now, and they're certainly one of them but not only one of them, they're the team that we believe is the best team in the country right now.

Q. Also in regards to Liberty, were other Group of Five teams close to cracking your rankings, and if so, can you tell us who they were?

BOO CORRIGAN: We talk about a number of different teams. We stay with our top 25, and that's kind of where we lock in at that point. But congratulations to Liberty and Coach Chadwell for the job that they've done this year. They've had a heck of a year, and they've earned the right to be in the top 25, and they deserve to be in the top 25.

Q. As far as what stands out about Louisville, how much could an ACC Championship win propel them even higher?

BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, conference championships matter. We've said that from the very beginning. That would be a big factor.

But impressive wins, the win over Notre Dame, the win last weekend at Miami in really kind of a dogfight of a game and their ability to continue to find ways to win, I think it's Jawhar, if I'm pronouncing that correct, their running back Jordan, and I apologize if I didn't, and his ability to play this year and the level that he's playing at and the job that Coach Brohm has done has really been impressive. They're deserving of that No. 10 spot.

Q. Boo, there's been a lot of debate about what exactly is the mindset of the committee. Sometimes it looks like team length or eye test as they call it, sometimes it looks like resume. I know you don't have a charge, but what is the debate about Michigan looks very strong but doesn't have right now a ton of great wins, whereas Washington is just stacking up wins on top of each other. What is kind of the talk between best and most deserving in the room?

BOO CORRIGAN: Well, it's all of those factors. That's kind of the beauty of what it is, and it's 13 people's opinions on where we are. Obviously Ward is not in the room when we talk about Michigan as we go through this, but it's all of those factors. To me that's the beauty of it is we have the statistical analysis of what it is, we've got people watching games, we have 13 different opinions, as I said, about it, and where the games are being played.

You can completely dominate a game and win by 14 points, right, and there's other times where there's a game that's a whole lot closer where it's kind of up for grabs in the fourth quarter in the last couple of minutes.

Again, all those things are taken into effect as opposed to, well, we only like how this team looks. Well, where are they in comparison to, how do they look on a national scale and making sure that we're taking everything into account and not relying on one single metric.

The other side is each week we have more and more information. It's a blinding statement of the obvious, but we have more information in week 12 than we do at week 8 or week 9, and we make sure we're taking all that into account and come in with a clean sheet every week and make sure we're really paying attention to everything that happened.

Q. What was the thought process of putting Tennessee at 21 right now, especially with their conference record and their losses overall in the season?

BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, they've been a really good team early in the year. When you look at their losses to Alabama, to Missouri, to Georgia, they've played really, as a lot of people have, a tough schedule, but their ability to rush the ball. They've got some guys up front defensively, as we look at it, that they continue to impress the committee, and as I said before, there's 13 people on the committee. We're making sure we're getting every angle and making sure we're making the right decision every week.