12-08-2025, 12:55 PM
(12-08-2025, 12:55 AM)magnus Wrote: The committee said it was because BYU lost, which dropped them below Miami and moved Miami right behind ND. Which apparently triggered their head to head matchup tiebreaker (they didn't consider it earlier in the season because I guess 2 spots in the standings is too far away)
Thank you. You are correct of course, Magnus, but I didn't ask the question properly. I meant to include the fact that ND dropped to #10 in Week 14 after beating Stanford by 29 (and Stanford scored a garbage-time TD). They dropped because Alabama moved from #10 to #9 after beating Auburn by 7. And then on top of that, Alabama stayed at #9 after being curb-stomped by Georgia in the SEC championship game.
If ND had stayed at #9 they would have been in the CFP. My understanding is that it was only by dropping ND to #10 in Week 14 that the head-to-head could have come into play that would keep ND out of the CFP.
I'm not saying that ND is necessarily more deserving than Alabama or Miami. But the process of getting to that conclusion was, IMO, very illogical.
If there's one thing people have learned in Berkeley, it's that you can't put "Cal football" and "Rose Bowl" in the same sentence. The words just don't fit. You'd be better off linking "covered wagons" with "Mars travel." (Bruce Jenkins, Cal '70, SF Chronicle, Nov. 11, 2017)