CHARLOTTE — Dabo Swinney glared into an ESPN digicam to ship a warning to the College Football Playoff choice committee, not about his workforce however the one his workforce simply beat.
“Listen,” he mentioned, “that is a playoff soccer workforce. SMU higher be within the dang playoffs.”
It is just not usually {that a} coach, instantly after a heart-pounding victory, not simply praises however lobbies on behalf of his opponent. But on Saturday evening, on this new, odd playoff enlargement world, that’s what occurred right here simply earlier than the clock struck midnight on the east coast.
The story on this evening needs to be how Clemson received the ACC championship sport: in a wild, livid last few seconds, on the foot of freshman kicker Nolan Hauser, a Charlotte metro-area native whose title game-record 56-yard discipline objective as time expired break up the uprights and sparked an orange-coated eruption at Bank of America Stadium.
But there’s one other story right here, maybe one that’s extra necessary: With its 34-31 win over SMU, Clemson grew to become the first-ever College Football Playoff bid stealer. For some workforce — SMU or Alabama — the bubble has popped. And for the ACC’s soccer dynasty — the Clemson Tigers — a playoff spot, inconceivable only a week in the past, is secured.
Bludgeoned by Georgia to open the season, whipped by Louisville halfway by and crushed at residence by South Carolina simply final week, Dabo’s Tigers couldn’t presumably make the playoff, proper?
Here they’re. Swinney is again in soccer’s newly expanded huge dance. The Tigers (10-3) will seize the ultimate of the 5 automated bids designated for the 5 highest-ranked convention champions. We assume. We received’t know for certain till round Noon ET on Sunday when the alternatives are unveiled on ESPN.
There’s a superb likelihood that Swinney’s group would be the No. 11 or 12 seed with a first-round sport on the highway in opposition to a number of potentialities, together with Notre Dame, Penn State and Texas.
Things are a bit extra suspenseful for SMU. Are the Mustangs nonetheless within the discipline? Ranked No. 8 getting into this sport, they wanted to keep away from one factor on Saturday: getting the doorways kicked in. Down 24-7 at halftime, it appeared as if the doorways have been on their option to being kicked in. Alas, coach Rhett Lashlee’s Ponies stormed again with a wild second-half effort, most of it resting on the shoulder of quarterback Kevin Jennings and his 31 completions and 304 yards.
They roared again to tie the sport with 16 seconds left and, seemingly, ship it to additional time earlier than a wild set of occasions: Clemson’s Adam Randall picked an ideal time for his largest kick return of the 12 months, 41 yards, that arrange a 17-yard completion to place the Tigers, as seconds ticked down, for the 56-yard boot.
Heart pounding. Heart wrenching.
Rollicking. Rewarding.
And now, again in Dallas, not removed from the SMU campus truly, the choice committee’s Saturday evening and Sunday morning — after they make their last picks — received much more fascinating.
They’ve received two groups for one spot:
– an 11-2 ACC runner-up with zero top-25 wins and a Seventy fifth-ranked energy of schedule, with its two losses in opposition to top-20 groups.
– a 9-3 SEC fourth-place finisher with two top-15 wins, an 18th-ranked energy of schedule, with two of its losses to unranked foes.
Ranked No. 8 and already within the projected discipline earlier than the title sport, SMU sits at a precarious and precedent-inducing spot: Will the committee transfer out of the playoff discipline a championship sport loser?
Such a transfer might pave the best way for the elimination of convention title video games on this expanded playoff world, one thing ACC commissioner Jim Phillips (and others) have prompt.
He re-emphasized that on Saturday evening: “It would create harmful repercussions to the game to reward groups that don’t should play a further sport,” he mentioned in an announcement.
The SMU argument has loads of benefit. While a number of playoff contenders sat residence on Saturday — Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Alabama — SMU performed an additional sport. Why ought to or not it’s penalized? And, oh, there’s that sport two weeks in the past when Alabama misplaced 24-3 at 6-6 Oklahoma, one of many ugliest defeats for any playoff contender.
Then once more, there’s the opposite facet from the oldsters in Tuscaloosa: The Mustangs received beat on a impartial discipline by a three-loss workforce that received hammered by SEC champion Georgia and beat by SEC fifth-place finisher South Carolina.
SMU can look to themselves for Saturday. In the primary half alone, the Mustangs turned it over twice, dropped three passes and dedicated three important 15-yard penalties that put them in that 17-point gap.
But their comeback can’t be ignored, mentioned Lashlee, who gave an impassioned protection of his membership and its playoff possibilities.
“I believe they confirmed the championship make-up they’ve the best way they battled again,” he mentioned.
“It could be prison if we’re not in. It could be incorrect not simply to our workforce however to what faculty soccer stands for,” he mentioned. “We might haven’t confirmed up [for the ACC championship game] and in response to what we noticed Tuesday evening [in the rankings], we’d be in. We confirmed it. We needs to be in. They know we needs to be in.”
As he spoke on the postgame information convention, Lashlee mentioned his workforce was within the locker room not simply battling the loss however the opportunity of being unnoticed of the playoff: “Their religion within the system is shaken.”
In some ways, the SMU-Bama debate comes all the way down to an SEC vs. ACC debate. Last 12 months, the SEC received that debate in one of the vital controversial choices (Alabama over Florida State) in CFP historical past.
On Saturday evening and into the wee hours of Sunday morning, the 13-member choice committee will collect to determine such issues of their spacious convention room within the Gaylord Texan, a resort in suburban Dallas.
Six athletic administrators, 4 former coaches, two former gamers and an ex-media member will decide the destiny of the Ponies and the Tide. But there’s far more to debate, too, a number of key choices that’ll have committee members squirming as they slurp down their free ice cream:
– How will they seed the opposite championship sport losers, Penn State and Texas, relative to Notre Dame and Ohio State? Remember, Penn State misplaced at residence to Ohio State, and Texas has zero top-25 wins this season.
– Does Arizona State bounce in entrance of Boise State for the No. 3 seed?
– Does Clemson bounce in entrance of Arizona State for the No. 4 seed and a first-round bye? The Tigers have been seventeenth and Sun Devils fifteenth getting into this weekend.
Decisions, choices.
But a very powerful of them might set a precedent for years to return associated to convention championship video games.
Does SMU fall out of the sector fully?
In October, the CFP’s new govt director, Rich Clark, was requested how the committee may deal with convention championship sport losers.
“Well,” he mentioned, “it is dependent upon what the loss seems to be like.”
Here’s the way it regarded: The game-winning 56-yard discipline objective wouldn’t have been good from 58.
