A season filled with pulsating finishes has been stripped of any lingering drama for Brigham Young, at least in one regard.
Based on the College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday evening, it’s clear the Cougars have no chance to participate in the 12-team event without an automatic bid.
Unless they win the Big 12 title, the Cougars will be headed to a standard bowl game even if they lose a close game in the conference championship and finish with an 11-2 record.
They have no path into the CFP as one of the seven at-large teams.
For that reason, a second matter of clarity has emerged, and it’s an unseemly situation for the Cougars: They need Utah to win.
That’s right, BYU must become its arch-rival’s No. 1 fan.
Victories over Arizona State and Houston would guarantee the Cougars, who are 6-1 in conference play, a berth in the Big 12 championship.
But if they lose in Tempe — or to Houston in the regular-season finale — the Cougars could need Iowa State (5-2) to absorb a third league loss in order to avoid a messy two-team tiebreaker with the Cyclones.
If Utah beats Iowa State on Saturday at Rice-Eccles Stadium, the Cyclones would be effectively cleared from BYU’s path.
The fascinating twist became evident the moment ESPN revealed the latest selection committee rankings on Tuesday.
The Cougars dropped eight spots, to No. 14, after losing at home to unranked Kansas.
We had expected them to slide four or five positions. Not eight. Certainly not eight.
They are the lowest-ranked one-loss team from a power conference, which reflects the committee’s tepid opinion of the Cougars specifically and the Big 12 generally.
But all those first-rate escapes against second-class opponents seemingly caught up with the Cougars, who needed last-minute drives to beat Oklahoma State and Utah and had close calls against Baylor and SMU. (We’ll get to the SMU situation momentarily.)
“They escaped so many times this year,” ESPN studio host Rece Davis noted upon seeing BYU’s fall to No. 14, “that once you finally lose, the cumulative effect can get to you.”
Warde Manuel, the selection committee chair, seemed to confirm that belief on a teleconference with reporters a few minutes later.
“We don’t penalize teams for winning close or winning too big in other words, but we do value wins, so that’s where we saw BYU,” Manuel explained. “But given some of those games that they played and the close wins that they had, it just was an indicator that some of the teams that were below them in the rankings last week should move ahead of them.”
That approach might work in a vacuum, but the rankings are a relative measure of performance.
And in that regard, the committee slotted No. 14 BYU too low relative to three teams:
No. 6 Notre Dame. Why are the Irish eight spots higher? Brand bias is undoubtedly a factor, because the resumes are comparable.
Like BYU, the Irish lost at home to an unranked opponent.
Also, both teams have one victory over a ranked opponent: BYU won at No. 13 SMU, and Notre Dame survived at No. 15 Texas A&M.
But that’s where things diverge.
BYU’s strength-of-schedule is 53rd while Notre Dame’s is 82nd, according to ESPN’s metrics.
And in strength-of-record, which measures a team’s performance against its schedule compared to how an average top-25 team would fare against the same schedule, the Cougars are five spots higher than Notre Dame (No. 8 vs. No. 13).
The only advantages the Irish possess are the number of dominant victories and the name on their uniform.
No. 8 Miami. There is no way to justify placing the Hurricanes six spots above BYU.
Both teams have lost to unranked opponents, but Miami has zero wins over teams currently ranked by the committee while the Cougars have that Week 2 victory at SMU.
Meanwhile, BYU is one spot above Miami in both strength-of-schedule and strength-of-record.
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So they are essentially even in those areas, and both have one loss. But the Cougars have beaten a ranked opponent, and Miami has not. Yet the Canes are six spots higher.
And if the committee is holding the Cougars’ great escapes against them, well, no team has needed more miracles than the Hurricanes.
BYU’s position relative to Miami does not compute anywhere except in the minds of the committee members.
No. 13 SMU. This is perhaps the most perplexing, confounding situation of all given that the Cougars won the head-to-head matchup in Dallas.
And they rate significantly higher than the Mustangs in strength-of-schedule.
And their strength-of-record is markedly better.
And they hold an advantage in wins over ranked opponents: BYU has one (SMU); the Mustangs have zero.
We chuckled at the sight of the Cougars being slotted behind SMU — the situation is pure comedy.
But at least it has clarified their situation entering the season’s final fortnight.
Big 12 champs or bust.
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