The changes that led to a year Boise State won’t forget
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Paolo Uggetti, ESPN
EVERY SUNDAY DURING the football season, Spencer Danielson logs onto a Zoom call.
Danielson, like many coaches, has crafted a life built around routines. It is the way the 36-year-old Boise State head coach is able to make sense of his job and still find time for himself, his family and important individuals in his life. This call, however, holds a special place in Danielson’s busy week. It has become an essential part of his routine and journey in his first season as the Broncos’ head football coach.
As Danielson enters the virtual meeting room, on the other end, Chris Petersen does the same.
“We Zoom for an hour, no matter what,” Danielson said. “He’s my mentor.”
Life changed quickly for Danielson last year. One minute he was the defensive coordinator, and the next he was being ushered into a room with Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey and named the Broncos’ interim head coach after they fired Andy Avalos.
One of the first people Danielson turned to was Petersen, the former Broncos head coach who went 92-12 from 2006 to 2013 and had two undefeated seasons. Having started his career at Azusa Pacific University in Southern California and joined Boise as a graduate assistant in 2017, Danielson knew he needed help and wanted to get it from the individual responsible for the program’s greatest years.
“I called him and was like, ‘Coach, I want your help. I want to make this something consistent,'” Danielson said. “I knew that when I became a head coach, this is how I want it to be.”
After reenergizing the team and leading it to its fourth Mountain West title last season, Danielson officially got the job, but he knew that the task at hand went beyond a single season. One of the Mountain West’s premier programs had lost some of its luster and failed to secure a major bowl victory since beating Oregon in 2017. Danielson wanted to build something that would last, and Petersen became the ideal sounding board.
“I don’t see my role as solving his problems. My role is helping him think about his problems, maybe even in a different way and asking him questions so he can get to the solutions.” Petersen said. “It works pretty good because he’s so wide open to really everything and getting the best answers for his team and his program.”
The thread between Petersen and Danielson is a reflection of what Dickey and those now leading the program knew it needed: a return to the kind of cohesion Petersen fostered that made Boise State great, with an eye toward what will position it to be even better in the future.
Danielson, who is now 15-2 as head coach, has continued the program’s winning tradition while taking the team beyond where it has been before. This season, the Broncos produced a Heisman Trophy finalist in running back Ashton Jeanty, won the Mountain West for a fifth time and earned a spot in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. They lost only once — to Oregon, the undefeated No. 1 team in the country — and grabbed an improbable first-round bye in the process.
“We were going to be prepared for that success when it happened,” Dickey said. “Now, there’s a momentum that’s contagious.”
But even though the Cinderella of the late aughts is ready to embrace the underdog role yet again against No. 3 Penn State in another Fiesta Bowl appearance Tuesday, the Broncos don’t want to be satisfied with just having a long-awaited seat at the table.
THERE IS SOMETHING in the Arizona air that seems to attract Boise blue.
Over the past 17 years, the Fiesta Bowl has become as much a part of the school’s lore as the bright blue field on which its football team practices and plays. It has been the site of some of the program’s greatest moments, a place where legends have been made and trick plays have been embossed in the sport’s history.
Despite hundreds of players and a handful of coaches cycling through Boise over the years, the destination in the desert keeps beckoning the Broncos back for more.
“There’s definitely some good energy there,” Jared Zabransky, Boise State’s quarterback during its 2006 season, said.
Even after all these years, it doesn’t take much to unearth the chip on Zabransky’s shoulder. He recalls how the rhetoric surrounding Boise State was that its undefeated season was a farce and a product of a weak schedule.
“No one gave us a shot in that game against Oklahoma,” Zabransky said of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl against the Sooners. “But we knew what we had.”
The Broncos shocked the world, taking down Big 12 champion Oklahoma despite being 7.5-point underdogs. Petersen and then-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin called three crucial trick plays: a hook-and-ladder touchdown that tied the game in regulation, a direct snap touchdown thrown by a wide receiver in overtime and the famous “Statue of Liberty” play where Zabransky faked a pass and handed the ball to running back Ian Johnson behind his back for the winning two-point conversion.
“Every year, they start playing clips of that play,” Zabransky said. “If it’s not the most memorable game of all time, it’s definitely in the top three.”
Three years later, Boise State made it back to the Fiesta Bowl and beat No. 3 TCU by a touchdown. Five years later, it returned to the bowl game and did it again, taking down No. 12 Arizona by eight points.
As Zabransky watched the final College Football Playoff ranking come out a few weeks ago, he could only smile and accept a familiar fate. It was fitting that the inaugural 12-team playoff would not just include Boise State, but that it would send it, improbably, to yet another Fiesta Bowl as the underdog with a chance to do something the Broncos could not back in the BCS days: play for a national title.
“I never got hung up in the old days about not getting an opportunity. To me, the opportunity was could we get into BCS games,” Petersen said. “But now that the system’s changed a little bit, I think it’s great that they have struck when they’re hot. It’s tremendous.”
Zabransky knows what they did in 2007 helped showcase the foundation the program had built, centered around an identity of relentless work ethic and a quest for perfection that Petersen preached.
“It was a special time,” he said. “And I see some of that in this [year’s] squad. There’s a connection and a complete unity going in the right direction.”
Tonight, Zabransky will walk back into State Farm Stadium, this time as a fan. With Boise State set to wear the same uniform combination of white jerseys, orange pants and blue helmets it has in each Fiesta Bowl appearance, Zabransky will allow his mind to wander into the past, in hopes of trying to will the future to bend in favor of the Broncos again.
JERAMIAH DICKEY KNEW that Boise State had plateaued. It was 2021, and he had just taken the job as the Broncos’ athletic director. As he surveyed both what the Broncos had internally and the landscape of the sport beyond Idaho, Dickey knew he had to push the program forward.
The Petersen era was well in the rearview mirror. The game was changing with name, image and likeness. The Broncos’ last Fiesta Bowl win and appearance had been 10 years ago. And the sport’s most storied programs were shape-shifting via conference realignment.
“We set the bar really high with three Fiesta Bowls, and maybe the perception is we hadn’t done enough from the last Fiesta Bowl to present day,” Dickey said. “But Boise State is, in the grand scheme of things, in the infant stages of being a university and being an FBS program. So what I saw was opportunity.”
Dickey quickly identified what he referred to as “low-hanging fruit” and implemented a plan to address the issues and move the program forward. Boise had to pay its coaches and coordinators more, and it had to improve the fan experience, the stadium and the team’s facilities, too. It had to set up an infrastructure for large donations and create a vision that Broncos fans could buy in to, literally and figuratively.
“We were living too much in the past and not enough in the present and future,” Dickey said. “And this is an industry, as soon as you stop, you die a slow death. So we had to mature as a program and grow up really quickly.”
The former Baylor administrator quickly instituted a new mentality among his staff and turned it into the department’s mantra: “What’s next?” It’s also the name of the fundraising initiative Dickey started.
“The job that has been done by Jeremiah has been amazing,” Petersen said. “I think sometimes people don’t understand really how hard that is to do at a place like Boise, to be able to then compete on a national stage.”
For Dickey, this has been a year of reaping. Not only are the Broncos headed back to another Fiesta Bowl, but they are set to break ground Saturday on a north end zone renovation. They have added new video boards as well as a ticket sales team that has broken program revenue and attendance records. The capital campaign is ongoing with a $150 million goal for athletics, and in October, Boise State became part of the six programs that announced they would be moving to the new Pac-12 Conference in 2026.
“If I can make a decision that is going to drastically impact my resources and revenues that I can then invest back into the department, to me it was a no-brainer,” Dickey said of the move. “Now, time will tell and ultimately I’ll be judged off that, but I’m always going to bet on myself. I’m always going to bet on our team and I’m going to bet on our community.”
Since the move to the Pac-12 was announced, Dickey has seen the response materialize in sold-out season tickets for basketball and six sold-out football games this season. It helps, of course, that the Broncos are in the playoff, but Dickey is adamant that the results are secondary.
“A lot of the success you’re seeing in the present day started four years ago,” Dickey said. “It all started before we knew what this season would be. So whether the CFP changed or not, we were always looking forward to how to better position ourselves. And sometimes you get lucky.”
DANIELSON HAD 45 minutes to prepare his speech. He had just been named the Broncos’ interim coach and had to deliver a message to the team. He knew that Avalos’ firing meant players could enter the portal at will. He knew coaches on the staff were thinking about where they’d end up once a new coach was hired.
So, he simply asked for two weeks.
“At that point, everything is telling you to look out for yourself,” Danielson said. “So I told them, I don’t know what’s after these two weeks. I don’t know what my future looks like, your future, but I do know we got a great group of seniors that have been through a lot: COVID, multiple head coaches, tough seasons. We owe it to each other, and we owe it to our team to finish these next two weeks.”
With the football team staring at its first losing season since 1997 (a year after the program moved up to Division I), former players such as Zabransky could tell, even from the outside, that something was wrong.
“I love Andy, but when you get to a place where things just aren’t working and you press and press again, there has to be a change,” Zabransky said.
Dickey took the temperature of the situation and made what he believed was a necessary move, firing Avalos and installing Danielson as interim coach. In retrospect, Dickey’s move now looks like a stroke of genius, but even he admits that he didn’t go into the process expecting to make Danielson the permanent head coach.
But players and coaches bought into Danielson’s message, won their remaining two games and turned what was a slim chance into another conference title. Over the course of those two weeks, Dickey saw how Danielson’s approach had, even in such short order, reinjected Boise with the kind of energy the program had been missing.
“The guy just didn’t have bad days,” Dickey said of Danielson. “I just saw [him] embrace the challenge and show up differently than I had seen a coach show up, and I saw a team respond at a level I had not seen.”
Initially, Petersen delivered a blunt message to Danielson: “You’re not going to get the job.” But Petersen noticed that instead of focusing on securing the position, Danielson turned the focus toward the players. Once he secured the job, Danielson, with Petersen’s help, knew he wanted his approach to be unique. He knew Boise State’s competitive advantage couldn’t be found inside a playbook or a checkbook.
“We’ve got to be different, we’ve got to be efficient and specific,” Danielson said. “Maybe we can’t pay this or that. Let’s capitalize on what we do better than anybody else, which is development, which is taking care of our players. We’re involved in every part of our players’ lives.”
In some ways, it’s hard to view this season as a proof of concept. The Broncos had a once-in-a-lifetime player in Jeanty who had a once-in-a-lifetime season. But Dickey and Danielson are focused on ensuring that Boise is able to not just recruit and develop the next Jeanty, but that it’s able to keep him. Danielson isn’t naive; he wants players who want to be at Boise State, or as Petersen used to call them, “OKGs — our kind of guys.” but he knows the right infrastructure has to be in place, too.
“Jeramiah asks me, ‘What do you need to be one of the best teams in the country consistently and not just a flash in the pan? How do we do this consistently?'” Danielson said. “And that’s funding. There is support here. This is one of the top growing cities in the country. There is money here bringing it in to support our players, not only financially, but in all facets of their life as college football becomes even more professionalized.”
Over the past 12 months, Danielson’s message to his staff has been a consistent one that has bore out in the 12 wins the team has compiled this season.
“We have more than enough to succeed here,” Danielson tells them. “We have enough at Boise State.”
On Dec. 6, Boise’s blue field was swarmed by a tsunami of fans wearing blue. The chants of “Heisman” for Jeanty filled the stadium. A portion of the goal posts even ended up in the nearby Boise River.
As the clock hit zero and the program won its second straight Mountain West Championship over UNLV, punching its ticket to the College Football Playoff, a smiling Petersen, wearing a Broncos hat, stood on the field and soaked it all in. He doesn’t get to many college football games these days, working as an in-studio analyst for Fox Sports, and he doesn’t remember the last time he was in Boise for a game on “the blue” either.
“In some ways it felt like, boy, that was a long time ago that I was there, but on the other hand, it felt like it was just yesterday,” Petersen said. “Just being in that stadium with those awesome fans … that place is underrated.”
Few know that sentiment better than Dirk Koetter. The current offensive coordinator for the Broncos left Oregon in 1998 to become Boise’s head coach before Petersen. It was the beginning of what would be the program’s golden era, but Koetter remembers how he felt one particular day during that year as he stood inside a room at the local hotel and watched snow blanket the city while handling an off-the-field situation in which one of his players stole books from a bookstore.
“I was thinking to myself, why did I leave Eugene, Oregon, to come to this?” Koetter said. “That press box wasn’t there. This theater wasn’t here. That indoor [field] wasn’t there. Boise State was probably averaging about 19,000 fans a game.”
Koetter kept at it. The next season, the Broncos went 9-3, won their conference title and beat Louisville in their bowl game. They went on to win four bowl games in a row and lose no more than three times in a season through the 2004 season under Dan Hawkins (53-11), a year before Petersen became the head coach and took the team to another level. When Petersen left for Washington, his offensive coordinator, Bryan Harsin, ensured the winning continued, going 69-19 over the next seven seasons.
“I’m very proud of where this program has gone and how we’ve been able to keep the chain of coaches and of the culture in this program,” Koetter said. “To be in this playoff, I think it speaks volumes about the administration here, the fans here, the players here and the coaches here.”
Koetter has come full circle by ushering this season’s offense to success. After 42 years of coaching at the college level and in the NFL, this might be Koetter’s last run. At his pre-Fiesta Bowl news conference last week, Koetter acknowledged that it could be his last news conference ever.
“I hope it’s not,” Koetter said. “I hope we keep playing.”
Boise State’s season isn’t over; another Fiesta Bowl where the odds (Penn State is favored by 10.5 points on ESPN BET) are against its favor awaits. And as Koetter and every other coach and player who has worn the Boise blue since the turn of the century knows, it would be foolish to count the Broncos out in the desert.
Miami is inching closer but still needs some help.
With the Hurricanes creeping up to No. 12 on Tuesday night in the College Football Playoff selection committee’s fourth of six rankings, the ACC’s hope of having two teams qualify for the 12-team field is still alive. Time is running out, though, to convince the selection committee they’re better than Notre Dame — and right now a gap remains in spite of the head-to-head win. The ACC champion — even if it’s No. 18 Virginia — is almost certainly guaranteed a spot as one of the five-highest ranked conference champions. That’s evidenced by the fact that five ACC teams are still ranked above No. 24 Tulane, the only representative from a Group of 5 conference. The question is whether Miami can do enough to join the ACC champion as an at-large team with one game remaining, on Saturday at No. 22 Pitt.
Though the Canes have no margin for error and could still use some help above them, they might get it if Ole Miss doesn’t win the Egg Bowl against Mississippi State. No. 6 Oregon jumped one spot above No. 7 Ole Miss, indicating that the Rebels might not recover from a second stumble.
With Rivalry Week on the horizon, there are still plenty of scenarios that can unfold — and hope is still oozing from the bubble.
Bubble Watch accounts for what we have learned from the committee so far — and historical knowledge of what it means for teams clinging to hope. Teams with Would be in status below are in this week’s bracket based on the committee’s fourth ranking. For each Power 4 conference, we’ve also listed Last team in and First team out. These are the true bubble teams hovering around inclusion. Teams labeled Still in the mix haven’t been eliminated but have work to do or need help. A team that is Out will have to wait until next year.
The conferences below are listed in order of the number of bids they would receive, ranked from the most to least, based on the committee’s fourth ranking.
Jump to a conference:
ACC | Big 12 | Big Ten
SEC | Independent | Group of 5
Bracket
SEC
Would be in: Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Last team in: Alabama. The Tide can either lock up a spot in the SEC championship game with a win against Auburn in the Iron Bowl — or can miss the playoff entirely with a loss to its rival. The debate will come if Alabama finishes as a three-loss SEC runner-up. The Tide have played the ninth-hardest schedule in the country, according to ESPN Analytics, and their résumé would only be enhanced by facing a top-five opponent in the SEC championship game. A third loss, though, even in a close game to a top-five team, could drop Alabama into a dangerous spot in the top 12 where it might face elimination to make room for a guaranteed conference champion — or a second Big 12 team.
First team out: Vanderbilt. The Commodores could stay status quo this week, which means at No. 14 they remain a long shot for an at-large bid. Punctuating their résumé with a win against a ranked Tennessee would be the first step, but they’d also need multiple upsets ahead of them to get serious consideration. It’s conceivable, as Miami can lose at Pitt, Oklahoma can suffer a third loss to LSU, and Alabama can lose the Iron Bowl. None of that would matter, though, without a win in Knoxville.
Still in the mix: None.
Out: Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas
Big Ten
Would be in: Indiana, Ohio State, Oregon
Last team in: Oregon. With the win against USC, Oregon eliminated the biggest threat to its playoff spot in the Big Ten and further solidified its place in the top 10. The win against USC boosted the Ducks’ résumé enough to jump Ole Miss, and the complete performance against another ranked contender answered some questions in the committee meeting room. Oregon now has a 16.5% chance to reach the Big Ten title game, according to ESPN Analytics, but it must beat Washington and it needs Michigan to defeat Ohio State.
First team out: Michigan. The No. 15 Wolverines are here because they can reach the Big Ten championship game with a win against Ohio State and a loss by Indiana or Oregon. Michigan no longer has to worry about the head-to-head defeat to USC because the Trojans have three losses and dropped behind the Wolverines to No. 17 in the latest ranking. The loss to No. 8 Oklahoma, though, will probably keep them behind the Sooners for an at-large bid if they both finish with the same record. Nobody in the country, though, will have a better win than Michigan if it beats the Buckeyes for a fifth straight season.
Still in the mix: None.
Out: Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers, UCLA, USC, Washington, Wisconsin
Big 12
Would be in: Texas Tech
Last team in: Texas Tech. The Red Raiders can clinch a spot in the Big 12 title game with a win at West Virginia. As long as Texas Tech does that, it should be a lock for the CFP — win or lose in the Big 12 championship. It would be both stunning and difficult for the committee to justify dropping Texas Tech if its second loss is to a top-11 BYU team that it beat handily during the regular season. The Red Raiders would be the only team that could claim a regular-season win over the eventual Big 12 champs in that scenario.
First team out: BYU. The Cougars can clinch a spot in the Big 12 title game with a home win against UCF on Saturday. They’d be a CFP lock with the Big 12 title, but a loss would likely knock them out of the bracket because they’re already in a precarious position and would have lost to the same team twice. They would need multiple upsets to happen above them to stay in consideration as the two-loss Big 12 runner-up.
Still in the mix: Arizona State, Utah. ASU can earn a spot in the Big 12 title game with a win against Arizona and a BYU loss or a win and losses by both Texas Tech and Utah. The Utes will reach the Big 12 title game if they beat Kansas and both BYU and Arizona State win and Texas Tech loses.
Out: Arizona, Baylor, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, UCF, West Virginia
ACC
Would be in: Miami
Last team in: Miami. Miami’s chances of reaching the ACC title game are now 14.2% — third best in the league behind SMU and Virginia, which are both above 80%. That means their best chance to reach the CFP remains through an at-large bid. They must win at Pitt on Saturday, and it helped that the committee ranked the Panthers No. 22 on Tuesday night. Miami’s loss to SMU no longer looks as bad as it initially did after the Mustangs cracked the CFP top 25 at No. 21. Miami is getting some help, but it has also helped itself by winning three straight games by at least 17 points. Saturday at Virginia Tech brought Miami’s first road win outside of its home state, which is something the committee has been awaiting. Miami’s win against Notre Dame remains one of the best in the country, and the Canes are within range of the committee revisiting the head-to-head tiebreaker. They’re both in the same conversation as Alabama and BYU. If Miami can win at Pitt, the committee will certainly factor that into its discussion during the fifth ranking. It’s important to remember, though, that head-to-head isn’t the only factor in the room. The entire body of work is considered, and right now, the committee is more impressed by the Irish.
First team out: Virginia. Of all the convoluted scenarios still left in the ACC, this isn’t one of them: If Virginia beats rival Virginia Tech on Saturday, the Cavaliers will clinch a spot in the conference title game. And with No. 21 SMU now one of five ranked teams from the conference, the ACC title game is likely to feature two ranked opponents. The Mustangs have the best chance to reach the ACC championship game (86%) followed by Virginia (81%) after Week 13, but SMU lost to Baylor, TCU and Wake Forest — the latter two of which are above .500. If SMU wins at Cal on Saturday, the Mustangs will clinch a spot in the ACC title game. Virginia was the committee’s second-highest-ranked ACC team behind Miami in its fourth ranking, and the Cavaliers had a bye.
Still in the mix: Duke, Georgia Tech, Pitt, SMU. Here’s where you can find your convoluted scenarios. Pitt can get into the ACC championship game with a win and a loss by SMU or UVA. Duke can get in with a win plus losses by two of the following three teams: Pitt, SMU and Virginia. Georgia Tech needs so many things to happen it might want to find a church instead of playing Georgia.
Out: Boston College, Cal, Clemson, Florida State, Louisville, North Carolina, NC State, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Independent
Would be in: Notre Dame. The Irish are doing everything right — they’re winning and looking good doing it. If they can seal the deal with what should be a relatively easy win against Stanford, Notre Dame will be in the familiar position of waiting and watching while the conference championship games unfold and possibly alter the picture. Notre Dame fans should be keeping a close eye on the SEC and Big 12 title games. If Miami beats Pitt, the committee will compare that common opponent with Notre Dame, which also beat Pitt. They would continue to talk about the head-to-head tiebreaker, but that’s not the final determinant. Both Miami and Notre Dame can earn at-large bids, but if there are two Big 12 teams in, someone currently in the top 10 will have to be excluded.
Group of 5
Would be in: Tulane. This is where the committee will probably continue to differ from the computers, which say James Madison (57%) and North Texas (54.4%) have the best chances to reach the playoff. JMU’s schedule is currently ranked No. 123, while North Texas is No. 127, and that has held both of them back in the committee meeting room. Tulane is No. 73 with wins against Duke and Northwestern. The No. 24-ranked Green Wave maintained their spot this week as the committee’s highest-ranked Group of 5 team following the 37-13 win at Temple, their largest margin of victory this season.
Still in the mix: East Carolina, James Madison, Navy, North Texas, South Florida. JMU has clinched the East Division and a spot in the Sun Belt Conference championship game. It will face the winner of Southern Miss vs. Troy. Five teams from the American are still eligible to play in the conference title game, and multiple tiebreaker scenarios are still looming. Tulane has one of the most direct paths. It would clinch with a win if it is the highest-ranked team from the American in the CFP ranking. North Texas would clinch a spot with a win — because Navy was not ahead of Tulane and North Texas in the CFP ranking Tuesday. Navy could clinch a spot with a win and a loss by Tulane or North Texas.
Bracket
Based on the committee’s fourth ranking, the seeding would be:
First-round byes
No. 1 Ohio State (Big Ten champ)
No. 2 Indiana
No. 3 Texas A&M (SEC champ)
No. 4 Georgia
First-round games
On campus, Dec. 19 and 20
No. 12 Tulane (American champ) at No. 5 Texas Tech (Big 12 champ)
No. 11 Miami (ACC champ) at No. 6 Oregon
No. 10 Alabama at No. 7 Ole Miss
No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma
Quarterfinal games
At the Goodyear Cotton Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl Presented by Prudential and Allstate Sugar Bowl on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.
No. 12 Tulane/No. 5 Texas Tech winner vs. No. 4 Georgia
No. 11 Miami/No. 6 Oregon winner vs. No. 3 Texas A&M
No. 10 Alabama/No. 7 Ole Miss winner vs. No. 2 Indiana
No. 9 Notre Dame/No. 8 Oklahoma winner vs. No. 1 Ohio State
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David Hale
We don’t talk nearly enough about luck in sports.
It’s only reasonable to want to believe the best team always wins, that the outcome of a game is the reward for a better process, that, in the end, we all get what we deserve.
But then you watch 10 minutes of Florida State football and it’s impossible to deny that there are football gods at work and they can be awfully vengeful.
And so it is that, at this late point in the season, the College Football Playoff rankings still hinge, in no small part, on a botched extra point at the end of Notre Dame-Texas A&M.
We can look back at Miami‘s game against SMU on Nov. 1 — a game that, with 2 minutes to go the Canes had a 90% chance of winning, according to ESPN’s metrics — and consider it a bad loss, then a week later, see Oregon — with less than a 40% chance of beating Iowa with 2 minutes remaining — pull off a comeback and have it constitute a critical point on the Ducks’ résumé.
Alabama nearly doubled Oklahoma‘s yardage but lost, Ole Miss gave up 526 yards to Arkansas and won, Georgia has trailed in the second half five times this year but has just one loss to show for it.
These things happen, and while there’s clearly valuable data involved — Georgia wins those games, because the Dawgs are really good — any time we’re discussing a one-game sample size, there’s room for ample debate over what matters and what doesn’t.
The committee’s job is to counterbalance the fickleness of luck with a calculated, rational, repeatable process of evaluation that, if applied again and again by dozens of different people, would largely yield the same results; something akin to scientific testing, a way to filter out the noise and get to what matters most. “The process,” as everyone from Nick Saban to Michael Lombardi have called it.
And yet, it’s hard to say exactly what the committee’s process really is. Even when it’s explained — Miami isn’t in the same bucket as Notre Dame, so they can’t be compared directly, for example — the logic often crumbles under the slightest bit of scrutiny.
Instead, the committee has mostly relied on its own luck, and each year, by the time the final rankings are revealed, the 13 games played on the field provide enough clarity that most reasonable people will proclaim the committee got things right, save for the occasional reminder to Florida State that, yes, the football gods are not Seminoles fans.
This year though, it’s increasingly likely the committee’s luck could run out.
We have one full weekend of games left. There are reasonably 16 teams who’ll make a case as to why they should earn one of the seven coveted at-large spots. Without a little luck in Week 14, the committee’s going to have some incredibly hard choices to make.
And that means we’ve got plenty of outrage left to send the committee’s way.
This past week seemed to be the apex of the biggest rankings debate: Notre Dame or Miami?
The argument here is easy to understand. The committee has consistently had the Irish well ahead of the Hurricanes, despite both teams having the same record and Miami holding a head-to-head win.
But you know what’s even easier to understand? BYU has a better record than both.
In fact, let’s look at some résumés.
Team A: Best win vs. SP+ No. 19, next best vs. No. 21. Loss to SP+ No. 2. Two wins vs. teams 7-4 or better. No. 5 strength of record.
Team B: Best win vs. SP+ No. 9, next best vs. No. 25. Loss to SP+ No. 3. Six wins vs. teams 7-4 or better. No. 6 strength of record.
Both look like pretty obvious playoff teams, right?
Well Team A just moved up a spot in the rankings, seems assured not just of making the playoff, but of hosting a home game, and no one seems to be arguing about its spot in the rankings. That’s Oregon at No. 6.
Team B would currently be our first team out, a team with a résumé that shows equally impressive wins, an equally understandable loss and a far more impressive breadth of quality opponents. And yet, no one seems to be arguing much about BYU’s spot in the rankings either.
Why is it that the Cougars — the forgotten one-loss team with a higher ranked win than Oregon or Notre Dame and a better loss than Alabama or Oklahoma — sit at No. 11 and no one seems to care?
We get the frustration over Miami’s placement. There’s plenty of anger to go around. But don’t let BYU get lost in the shuffle. The Cougars’ résumé holds up against all the two-loss teams and is on par with Oregon and Ole Miss. Somehow, the committee — and nearly everyone else outside of Provo — seems to be ignoring it.
Wait, are we really defending Notre Dame here? Hey, somebody’s got to do it.
Let’s take a closer look at the Irish, who’ve become the punching bag for every fan frustrated with the committee’s rankings.
Right now, Notre Dame is effectively the golfer who wrapped up his round early and is waiting in the clubhouse, hoping no one else makes too many birdies. The Irish are safely in the field, and only a road trip to lowly Stanford is left on the docket.
But as the committee’s rankings hold steady week after week, there has been more and more time to debate the merits of Notre Dame’s résumé, and when we reach the end of championship week, it’s hard to ignore that one team aiming for a playoff bid doesn’t actually play in a conference.
So, does Notre Dame really deserve the benefit of the doubt?
In short: Heck yeah.
The Irish have five wins against bowl-eligible opponents — more than Georgia, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt or Texas Tech.
Both of Notre Dame’s losses were one-possession affairs against top-12 opponents. The loss to Texas A&M came down to a fluke occurrence, as the Irish flubbed a point after try.
Notre Dame’s game control — about as good an estimation as we have for the eye test — puts the Irish ahead of everyone but Ohio State, Indiana, Texas Tech and Oregon.
In four games since Nov. 1, Notre Dame has beaten its opposition by a combined score of 181-42, lambasting Syracuse so badly in Week 13 that Fran Brown might not shower for a month.
Look at any of the underlying metrics — explosive play rates, defensive stop rates, Jeremiyah Love being awesome rates — and Notre Dame is as good as anyone in the country.
So yes, we get the more logical debates about Miami’s Week 1 win or Alabama’s superior schedule, but the bottom line is, outside of Ohio State, there’s probably no team in the country playing better, more balanced football than the Irish. That probably shouldn’t be the only consideration, but as we debate which teams ought to be docked a few points in the rankings, Notre Dame probably shouldn’t be at the front of the line either.
Yes, Miami has a good argument against the committee’s treatment of the Hurricanes. The committee, too, seems to acknowledge under-appreciating Miami early on, and is adjusting by slowly moving the Canes up one spot each week, hoping that’ll be enough to appease the masses.
But here’s a question: What if Miami’s real beef should be with the ACC, not with the committee?
For each of the past two years, there has been widespread consensus that the ACC’s best team is Miami. But, barring some truly high-level chaos in Week 14 — something the ACC is apt to provide — the Canes won’t be playing for a conference championship again.
When leagues were smaller and had two divisions, the idea of pitting one division champ against the other made intuitive sense. But with expansion and the end of division play, what we’ve gotten is wildly diverse scheduling and the potential for confounding tiebreakers to ultimately decide which two teams get to play for a conference title.
In the Big Ten and SEC, where winning the league isn’t a do-or-die proposition, that’s fine. In the ACC, where only the champion might get a playoff bid and there’s a real chance that six different teams will tie atop the conference with a 6-2 league record — well, that’s a big issue.
So, why not just tweak the rules of how a conference championship game is seeded? What if one spot goes to the team with the best conference record and the other spot goes to the next highest ranked team? Doing so would ensure both the most deserving team (best record) and best team (highest ranked) got a shot, and it would’ve ended any concerns about the ACC being passed by multiple Group of 5 leagues, because a mediocre team like Duke would’ve had no shot at winning the league.
The ACC has bent over backward to try to find unique solutions to potentially existential problems in recent years. This is a change that would be forward thinking, easy and beneficial to the league’s playoff prospects.
It just won’t come in time to save Miami in 2025.
Remember last week when Tulane was also No. 24, just ahead of Arizona State, and behind Illinois, Houston and Missouri, who all lost? It might seem reasonable, given that precondition, that Tulane would then move up, say, three spots or so, while remaining a tick ahead of Arizona State.
But no, a week later, the Green Wave still check in at No. 24, a spot the committee seems to have set aside as “Where we put a Group of 5 team,” like the junk drawer in your kitchen that holds packing tape and birthday candles and those weird scented oils your mother-in-law ordered for you off TV — a placeholder for all the stuff you don’t know what else to do with.
In the big picture, it probably doesn’t matter. As long as Tulane stays ahead of its compatriots in the Group of 5 — winning the American, out-ranking James Madison — the Green Wave will make the playoff. And perhaps that’s all that matters.
But of the teams that jumped Tulane in the rankings this week are Arizona State — still with a chance to win the Big 12 — and Pitt and SMU, who have decent odds of making the ACC title game. Georgia Tech, despite a miserable loss to Pitt, also held firm ahead of the Green Wave.
A year ago, the ACC’s championship game implosion earned Clemson a bid into the playoff, but also shifted the ACC behind Boise State, the best Group of 5 champion, allowing the Broncos to land a bye. The stakes have changed for 2025-26 — the top four conference champs are no longer guaranteed an off week — but that doesn’t mean Tulane should be fine settling for the 12-seed either.
Tulane’s strength of record is ahead of Georgia Tech, Virginia and Pitt. If one of those teams claims the ACC’s playoff berth, what’s the rationale for putting them ahead of the Green Wave? And the difference between the No. 11 seed and the No. 12 seed might be about traveling to the SEC or the Big 12 for a playoff game.
The Group of 5 has largely been set to the side by this committee all year, so none of this comes as a surprise. But Tulane — or JMU or Navy or North Texas or San Diego State — all deserve to be judged on the merits of their résumés, not by which conference they’re affiliated with.
The bottom of the top 25 seems to be prime real estate for the ACC, but the one ACC team who might most deserve one of those coveted spots between 20 and 25 is nowhere to be found.
Wake Forest has the same record as SMU, and it beat the Mustangs head-to-head.
Wake Forest has a better overall résumé than Georgia Tech, and it only lost to the Yellow Jackets (in overtime) as a result of an officiating call the ACC later apologized for.
Wake Forest is a game behind Virginia in the standings, and the Deacons have a head-to-head win over the No. 18 Cavaliers, too.
Look, Wake Forest doesn’t ask for much. The Deacons are like the friend who’s always willing to pick you up from the airport, only better because they’ll probably bring along a box of Krispy Kreme. So if some ACC team that no one respects is going to be ranked 23rd regardless, why not Wake? Because the next time a committee member’s connection gets delayed out of CLT, it won’t be Pitt offering to pick them up and give them an air mattress to crash on. That’s strictly a Wake Forest thing.
Also angry this week: James Madison Dukes (10-1, unranked), North Texas Mean Green (10-1, unranked and now losing their coach), Navy Midshipmen (8-2, unranked), Utah Utes (9-2, No. 13 after being this week’s team that somehow isn’t as good as Miami anymore), Alabama Crimson Tide (9-2, No. 10 and far too close to the edge of the playoff for comfort)
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Andrea Adelson
Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A&M, Georgia and Texas Tech remained the top five teams in the latest College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday, while Oregon jumped ahead of Ole Miss after its win over USC.
The Ducks are now No. 6, with Ole Miss at No. 7 — the only change to the top 10 from a week ago. Oklahoma remains at No. 8, followed by Notre Dame at No. 9, Alabama at No. 10 and BYU at No. 11.
“We’ve been waiting for them to have that signature win to really put them where they need to be,” CFP committee chair Hunter Yurachek said of Oregon.
Miami moved ahead of Utah to No. 12, while the Utes dropped to No. 13 following a come-from-behind 51-47 win over 5-6 Kansas State. Despite the head-to-head win over the Irish, the Hurricanes remain three spots behind in the latest rankings as they push for an at-large spot. Vanderbilt stayed at No. 14 while Michigan moved up three spots to No. 15.
Yurachek said Miami and Notre Dame were close enough in the rankings this week to be compared head-to-head, and in the same pool as Alabama and one-loss BYU.
Still, the committee feels Notre Dame “is a complete team,” according to Yurachek, and “deserves to be ranked where they are.”
Texas is No. 16, USC is No. 17, Virginia is No. 18, Tennessee is No. 19 and Arizona State is No. 20.
SMU enters the rankings at No. 21, followed by Pitt, Georgia Tech, Tulane and Arizona.
With Rivalry Week set to begin, there could be major ramifications to the rankings. All eyes will be on the Egg Bowl first, when Ole Miss plays Mississippi State on Friday with a possible CFP berth on the line for the Rebels. Coach Lane Kiffin is expected to announce a decision about his future the following day.
If he opts to leave Ole Miss, making him unavailable to coach the team in the CFP, the selection committee could take his departure into account when ranking the Rebels.
According to CFP protocol, the committee can consider the loss of key players or coaches when ranking teams. In 2023, the committee left Florida State out of the four-team playoff in part because starting quarterback Jordan Travis was out for the season.
“It is in the protocol, but I’m not sure we will have a data point to use that as part of the protocol,” Yurachek said during the ESPN broadcast, referring to the potential departure of Kiffin.
When asked to elaborate by ESPN’s Rece Davis, Yurachek said the committee “will not have seen [Ole Miss] play without a coach,” in reference to Kiffin.
There are other big rivalry games with possible CFP ramifications: No. 3 Texas A&M travels to No. 16 Texas on Friday night. A win for the Aggies clinches a spot in the SEC championship game. Alabama is at Auburn in the Iron Bowl on Saturday, with an SEC championship game appearance at stake.
No. 15 Michigan hosts No. 1 Ohio State as the Wolverines push for a possible spot in the Big Ten title game or as an at-large team. Ohio State has lost four straight to its rival, but a win Saturday would put the Buckeyes into the Big Ten title game.
Meanwhile in the ACC, No. 18 Virginia hosts rival Virginia Tech. A win for the Cavaliers puts them in the ACC championship game.
The five highest-ranked conference champions will make the 12-team field, but there is a tweak to the format this year, as the committee is using a straight seeding model. The top four teams in the final ranking, regardless of conference championship, will receive a first-round bye.
If the playoffs were held today, these would be the first-round matchups: Tulane at Texas Tech, Miami at Oregon, Alabama at Ole Miss and Notre Dame at Oklahoma. Though Miami is slotted in as the highest-ranked ACC team, the Hurricanes have long odds to win the conference title (9%, according to ESPN FPI).
SMU is the current ESPN FPI favorite to win the ACC, at 55%. A win over Cal on Saturday puts the Mustangs into the ACC title game for the second straight season.
There are multiple scenarios for Miami to make the ACC title game, and they all involve a win at No. 22 Pitt plus a combination of losses among the other ACC teams that are currently 6-1 in conference play.
The SEC continues to lead the way with eight ranked teams, while the Big Ten, ACC and Big 12 each have five. Tulane remains the lone Group of 5 representative at No. 24.
The final CFP rankings will be announced Dec. 7, the day after the conference championships. The four first-round games will be played at the home campuses of the higher-seeded teams on Dec. 19 and 20. The four quarterfinal games will be played at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl (Dec. 31), the Capital One Orange Bowl (Jan. 1), the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential (Jan. 1) and the Allstate Sugar Bowl (Jan. 1).
The two semifinal games will take place at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on Jan. 8 and 9, respectively.
The CFP National Championship game is Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
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