LAS VEGAS — College Football Playoff government director Rich Clark mentioned he was “infuriated” by a leak that exposed SMU had made the sphere earlier than the official CFP announcement on Sunday.
A minute earlier than the Selection Sunday present started on ESPN, Brett McMurphy of the Action Network tweeted, “SMU is in @CFBPlayoff and Alabama is out …”
It wasn’t till half-hour into the present that ESPN revealed the bracket. McMurphy is a veteran sportswriter who has labored at ESPN and CBSSports.com, amongst different locations.
That is believed to be the primary time within the 11-year historical past of the CFP {that a} portion of the bracket was revealed earlier than the official announcement.
“We addressed that,” Clark mentioned Tuesday after talking on the Sports Business Journal Intercollegiate Athletics Forum. “We do not know the way it occurred. We addressed it with our employees, we [spoke] with the committee members to remind all people of their dedication to conserving the rankings shut maintain [secret] till they’re really revealed.”
Clark was requested if he was looking for out particularly the place the leak originated.
“We requested some questions, however, no,” he mentioned.
“There’s a few completely different teams the place it might come from,” Clark added. “ESPN, it might have been. It might have been one among our committee members. It might have been one among our employees members. The solely one that I do know it wasn’t, was me.”
SMU was a favourite to make the CFP over Alabama because the solar rose Sunday and odds solely accelerated in SMU’s course within the hours earlier than the choice present.
Clark, a former Air Force lieutenant normal, is in his first 12 months of main the CFP. The SMU-Alabama resolution was thought-about one of many hardest Eleventh-hour choices in CFP historical past. Eleven years in the past, within the first CFP, the committee dropped TCU from third to sixth within the remaining rankings after it beat Iowa State by 52 factors. Instead, Ohio State moved into the sphere after upsetting Wisconsin within the Big Ten Championship Game. The Buckeyes then gained the primary championship of the CFP period.
Last 12 months, Florida State was excluded from the four-team subject regardless of going 13-0 as ACC champion. A range committee member informed CBS Sports then that FSU was excluded as a result of the committee concluded the Seminoles could not win the nationwide championship with out injured quarterback Jordan Travis. The CFP protocol would not embrace language concerning the capacity to win a nationwide championship.
“Don’t know who did it, however whoever did it, you realize who you might be, however you had been fallacious,” Clark mentioned. “And you betrayed the entire group within the course of. It was a tough dialog, however I did that with everybody.”
Clark came upon concerning the leak from his son Milo, at the moment within the Air Force and stationed in San Angelo, Texas.
“He mentioned, ‘Dad, Dad, did you see this? … Is this true? Did somebody leak?’ And I used to be similar to, ‘Oh my God,'” Clark mentioned.
MORE: CFP redesign might come quickly and will embrace play-in video games for auto-bids
