- Lane Kiffin works the spin room, furiously trying to position Ole Miss for a playoff bid. It’s a tough road, but he’s got a case.
- South Carolina possesses the hot hand, but it lost to Alabama and got smashed by Ole Miss.
- Miami owns the weakest case of the CFP bubble teams. At that point, just dial up BYU.
The propaganda campaigns started even before rivalry weekend began. Then, after Miami lost its grip on a College Football Playoff spot, so many coaches, players and pundits crammed into the spin room that surely some fire code is being broken.
We wouldn’t be having this debate if enough teams built their case on the field, but we knew playoff expansion risked watering down the bracket, so we’re left with a handful of teams with flawed résumés arguing for the final spot in a 12-team playoff.
No coach works the spin room more vociferously than Mississippi’s Lane Kiffin. He turned his social media feed into a running pitch for his 9-3 Rebels, and he fired a direct shot at South Carolina, another 9-3 team under consideration.
“It wasn’t even close,” Kiffin said Sunday, in reference to his team’s 27-3 win on Oct. 5 at South Carolina.
‘We could still be playing the game, (and) they still might not have scored a touchdown.”
Direct hit from the spin room!
OK, but what of Alabama, another 9-3 SEC team?
The committee ranked Alabama ahead of Ole Miss last week. Both teams won rivalry games against bad opponents by two touchdowns last weekend. That suggests Alabama, at least, blocks Ole Miss’ path, but should it?
Let’s unpack this.
BOWL PROJECTIONS: Alabama back into the playoff as Texas, SMU move up
RE-RANK: Texas moves up, Ohio State tumbles in NCAA 1-134 ranking
Bubble watch: Alabama, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Miami
Four teams populate the debate for the final playoff spot: Alabama, South Carolina, Ole Miss and Miami.
A fifth team, SMU, would join the mix if Clemson beats the Mustangs in the ACC championship. For the sake of this exercise, assume SMU wins the ACC and eliminates the Tigers.
CFP bracket debate depends on what committee values most
How you rank this quartet of bubble teams depends on how you value playoff credentials:
∎ Fewest losses earns the bid?
If you favor the loss-counting contest, then Miami qualifies over three-loss SEC teams, but here’s where I struggle with the Hurricanes: Miami’s résumé ranks worse than that of Brigham Young, another two-loss that placed third in the Big 12.
The committee consistently undervalued BYU, to the point that the Cougars aren’t in the playoff conversation. This despite BYU beating the ACC’s best team, SMU, on the road and owning a better strength of schedule than Miami.
In the fewest-loss metric, BYU should earn the bid, but the committee shows no interest in that.
∎ Team with best wins earns the bid?
Alabama owns the best collection of victories, counting pelts against three ranked teams – Georgia, South Carolina and Missouri – plus a trouncing of LSU in Tiger Stadium.
Ole Miss also beat Georgia and blew out South Carolina. It lacks a third signature triumph.
South Carolina headlines its résumé with wins against Clemson, Missouri and Texas A&M.
Miami lags behind in this category, with best wins against Duke, Louisville and Florida.
In the best collection of wins metric, Alabama should earn the bid.
∎ Reward the hot hand?
This becomes South Carolina’s best argument. The Gamecocks won their last six games behind a stiff defense and an improving freshman quarterback, LaNorris Sellers.
Miami lost two of its last three. (Can we just eliminate Miami already? Consider it done.) Ole Miss lost on Nov. 23 at Florida, the same day Alabama got blown out at Oklahoma.
Nobody in this mix outplayed South Carolina in the second half of the season. In this metric, South Carolina should earn the bid.
∎ Value head-to-head results?
Here’s where Kiffin shouts, “Scoreboard!” and where I struggle with the Gamecocks. Alabama beat South Carolina 27-25 on Oct. 12 in Tuscaloosa. The Tide used a fourth-quarter rally to win a game that wasn’t decided until the final play.
That close result shouldn’t cripple the Gamecocks, but consider what occurred a week earlier, when Ole Miss stormed into South Carolina’s stadium and flat whipped the Gamecocks.
Selecting South Carolina over a team from the same conference with an equal record that disemboweled the Gamecocks would diminish the idea that head-to-head results matter. And the committee says they do matter.
Head-to-head results are one of the few measures stated explicitly among the CFP’s selection criteria. In a strict evaluation of head-to-head results, Ole Miss should earn the bid.
∎ Who has the ‘best’ losses?
South Carolina’s three losses came against opponents who are either 8-4 or 9-3. Not bad, right? Well, two of those losses occurred at home.
Alabama’s three losses all occurred on the road, but that includes a brutal 24-3 faceplant just two weeks ago to Oklahoma, a team that beat only one other SEC opponent. Alabama also lost to Vanderbilt.
Ole Miss lost three games by a total of 13 points. However, its home loss in September to Kentucky (now 4-8) aged like milk left on a pool deck.
I struggle to declare a “winner” in this category. Ole Miss lost to the worst team. Alabama lost to two 6-6 teams. South Carolina lost twice at home.
∎ How about the eye test?
The committee says its duty is to select the best teams, with the caveat that five bids must go to conference champions. If some straightforward method could determine the best teams, we wouldn’t need a committee.
Different sets of eyeballs value different teams. My eyes tell me that when each of these bubble teams fires its best fastball, Ole Miss slings the most heat, with a reliable defense and a (usually) competent offense.
The Rebels dominated Georgia and smashed South Carolina. No other bubble team looked that good against such a caliber of opponent. By this metric, Ole Miss should earn the bid.
Final verdict
Unless the committee gets drunk on hurricanes, Miami has no case. If the committee values a two-loss team for the final spot, then pick BYU. That’s not happening, though.
In the debate between Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina, each touts an argument, but holes mangle every résumé.
Each team failed to earn its way on the field and that leaves them trying to talk their way in through the spin room’s back door.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. The ‘Topp Rope’ is his football column published throughout the USA TODAY Network. Subscribe to read all of his columns.
