Clemson coach Dabo Swinney made full use of his “College Football Pregame Show” appearance Saturday morning on CBS Sports HQ as he laid out his team’s case for the College Football Playoff. When asked why the Tigers aren’t in the same at-large conversation as other Power Four schools, notably two-loss SEC teams, Swinney was quick to point out his team’s success in previous College Football Playoffs and its 8-2 record this season.
He also took a quick swipe at a potentially loaded field of SEC and Big Ten teams.
“We’ve scheduled tough,” Swinney said. “All you can do is play the schedule that you have. It is what it is. We basically have an SEC-Big Ten Invitational. That’s really what we’ve got in college football. So you just got to focus on what you got.”
Clemson landed at No. 17 in the latest round of College Football Playoff Rankings. The Tigers are firmly on the bubble and still have a shot at the ACC Championship Game, though they’d have to rely on Miami and SMU suffering at least one loss down the stretch to clinch a berth.
Swinney’s comments do reflect the selection committee’s current ranking philosophy. Four of the top five teams in the College Football Playoff Rankings play in the Big Ten. The SEC had four teams in the top 10, three of which have two losses.
If a bracket were generated from the latest set of rankings, the only ACC team to make the cut would be Miami as that league’s hypothetical champion. The Big Ten and the SEC would each snag three at-large spots.
That’s without mentioning teams like Tennessee and Texas A&M, which are within shouting distance of the 12-team group. Outside of Miami at No. 8, the next-highest ranked ACC team was SMU at No. 13. The Hurricanes and the Mustangs, with a combined record of 18-2, were the only ACC teams in the top 15.
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