ORLANDO, Fla. — Miami athletics director Dan Radakovich said Sunday the College Football Playoff selection committee might need to revisit whether it releases a ranking the week of conference championship games.
Speaking to ESPN at a Pop-Tarts Bowl media event ahead of the Hurricanes’ matchup against Iowa State, Radakovich noted how difficult it was for his players in the days after the Dec. 3 rankings, which had Miami (10-2) behind Alabama (9-3) at No. 12 and on the outside looking in. The situation was compounded when committee chair Warde Manuel said teams that were not playing in conference title games were “locked in” and would not be reevaluated.
“It was a really, really difficult four or five days for the players, both at Alabama, at our place,” Radakovich said. “SMU loses, what are they in the middle of at that point in time? The NCAA basketball tournament, there’s some parallels to it, but you’re either going to be in or you’re going to be out when it’s all unveiled, right? Sometimes, that’s a better way.”
Lt. Gen. Richard Clark, the CFP executive director, said during a Sports Business Journal Intercollegiate Athletics Forum panel last week in Las Vegas that he did not think six rankings were too many — echoing comments Manuel made after the final rankings release.
“I think it’s good for the game. I think it gives people a sense of how we see teams from that eighth week on,” Manuel said.
Radakovich, who served on the first CFP selection committee in 2014 while AD at Clemson, said he has talked to others about revising the rankings release schedule just for the penultimate week.
“They’ll do a ranking before Thanksgiving. You probably just let that stand, and then you have the championship games, and then the committee gets together that weekend and they make their final rankings,” Radakovich said. “Because if you’re close and you aren’t playing, you can’t do anything and if there are other people that you’ve played along the way that are playing, maybe that changes your strength of schedule, it changes some other things. So I think as you get closer to the end, I think that would just be a good idea to say, ‘Maybe we’ll just leave that one off to the side.’”
Radakovich said it was “unusual” that Manuel said teams were locked in after the penultimate rankings release but, “If that’s what they were looking at, that’s why I come back with, ‘Don’t do a ranking.’”
Miami finished No. 13 in the final ranking, behind Alabama and Big 12 champion Arizona State. The Hurricanes will play Iowa State on Dec. 28 in the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando, Fla., with a chance to get to 11 wins for the first time since 2003.
In addition to potentially revisiting the rankings release schedule, Radakovich said he is in favor of expanding the playoff to 16 teams, and that there needed to be further discussions with ACC commissioner Jim Phillips and others within the league on whether it makes sense to play without divisions.
“It needs to be something that we look at,” Radakovich said. “This is our first year we didn’t have divisions. Is it a really good idea? I don’t know. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But I think whether you have divisions or not, brands playing brands is very important. We can’t stay static. Jim and the people associated with the scheduling in the conference are looking to see if there’s other opportunities to make it better.”
Phillips said one key component as it relates to divisions is how the committee will value conference championship games moving forward. SMU (11-2) made it into the playoff ahead of Alabama and Miami despite losing in the ACC championship game to Clemson.
“We have data from one year, but will that be a criteria moving forward?” Phillips said. “Will it not be a criteria? Will the teams that play in a championship game have some kind of protection? I don’t want to read into that. I’d like to hear from the committee after it’s over, about what some of those conversations were, and I think I’m not the only one.”
Though the season ended in disappointment, Radakovich said the Hurricanes feel like they have something left to prove in their final game. That goes for quarterback Cam Ward, who finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting Saturday. Ward has given every indication he will play in the game.
“Our players, we talked about the leadership council, the young men who were on that have said, ‘We want to be able to play and finish this season, there’s still things to play for,” Radakovich said. “That 11th win hasn’t happened in a long time. They’re all disappointed we didn’t get the chance to play for a championship in the ACC so this could be an opportunity to do that.”
ESPN’s Heather Dinich contributed to this report.
