The curse of the returning Heisman Trophy winner
-
Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer
It was Dec. 13, 2008, in New York City and time for the three Heisman Trophy finalists to take their place at the front of the room, awaiting the announcement of who would win college football’s most coveted individual award. But one member of the trio was missing. The one who had been there before.
“I was in the bathroom throwing up,” Tim Tebow confessed nearly 16 years later. The Florida quarterback was there not simply as a Heisman finalist, but as the reigning Heisman winner, seeking to become the second two-time Heisman honoree and first in 33 years.
“Honestly, I didn’t think I was going to win it. I wanted to. Of course, I did. But when you watch the ceremony, what do you see? There’s us on the front row, and then there are all the people sitting behind us. Coaches and staff from your school, the president of the university, everyone. My entire family was there. My sister had flown in from a mission trip to Bangladesh, just for this. I knew there was a party after, with all those people, win or lose, and if I’d lost, I’d felt like I had let them all down. That’s why I got sick.”
Tebow didn’t win. He finished third behind a pair of quarterbacks — Oklahoma‘s Sam Bradford and Texas‘s Colt McCoy — despite earning more first-place votes than either of them.
“Winning the Heisman changes your life, there is no doubt about it,” Tebow said. “And people think, ‘Well, you won one, so the pressure’s off on the second.’ But it’s not. It’s a position every college football player wants to be in, but no one knows what that is like until they experience it.”
Caleb Williams is experiencing it now. The fame, hype, expectations, assumptions, all of it. And he’s the first to do so in this still-new NIL era, his Saturday performances — good and bad — punctuated by television commercials starring him. After a hot start to 2023, Williams and USC have scuffled midseason and his Heisman odds have plummeted.
The one person who has hated seeing that more than anyone not dressed in Trojans colors is the only man to have pulled off what increasingly feels impossible. Archie Griffin does not have any desire to be the only member of the two-time Heisman Trophy winner club. Honestly, he’d enjoy the company. It’s been pretty lonely in his corner of the room for the past 48 years.
“I don’t have to be the only two-time winner and I don’t really want to be,” the 69-year-old Ohio State legend said earlier this fall during a conversation about Williams. “I was the first. That’s plenty enough of an honor for me. I can’t wait to welcome the second.”
No. 45 let out a giant laugh with a shake of the head.
“But I’ve been waiting for a long time, haven’t I?”
Griffin, who stood at the front of the room at Downtown Athletic Club in 1974 and 1975, is and has long been, the living, smiling, complete opposite of that awards show scenario. He still returns to New York every December. And he still makes sure to shake the hand of every fellow Heisman Trophy winner in attendance, especially the person who has just become the newest designee as “the outstanding college football player in the United States…”
“In 1978, three years after I won it for the second time, I shook the hand of Billy Sims, who has become a dear friend,” Griffin said. “I thought, ‘Well, he’s a junior just like I was and he has a great team coming back at Oklahoma just like I did at Ohio State, so he will definitely be back here winning this again next year!’ But he didn’t. And there have been so many guys that I was so excited thinking about them maybe getting to experience that thrill a second time, especially now, when so many amazing young talented underclassmen win it. It’s crazy to think about, really.”
Yet, here we are. It would take a miraculous turn for Williams to repeat. Since Jason White finished behind Matt Leinart, this century alone, those who have returned to college for another shot at bronzed glory have gone 0-for-10, eight who went 0-for-1 and Tebow, who went 0-for-2.
But the possibility of claiming two stiff-arming statues didn’t begin with Griffin or begin to be scrutinized with a recent run of elite quarterbacks.
Times change, failure to repeat does not
The first winner of the Heisman Trophy in 1935, one year before the award was named for John Heisman, was Chicago running back Jay Berwanger. He was a senior. And so were the first 10 winners of the award. The junior who snapped that streak in 1945 was Army‘s Doc Blanchard, who in turn became the first candidate for a Heisman repeat. Unfortunately for the fullback known as “Mr. Inside” there was also a “Mr. Outside,” as in teammate Glenn Davis, who took the award in 1946 while Blanchard finished fourth.
Over the Heisman’s first four decades, from Berwanger through Griffin’s second win, those who had hoisted the stiff-armed trophy at season’s end had tallied 35 seniors and only five juniors, the first four failing to repeat, including the great Roger Staubach, who won the award in 1963 and then failed to even crack the top 10 the following year.
Sims came up one spot short in 1979, behind USC’s Charles White. And while the other failed Heisman defenses had been handled with gentlemanly grace, Sims growled his disappointment, saying when asked about his chances of a repeat after a disappointing midseason performance against Texas, “I don’t care. I have one already!” And after White’s Heisman win, Oklahoma head coach Barry Switzer angrily stumped at a news conference, suggesting that NFL scouts vote on the award, not the media, and adding, “Billy’s two years were better than Archie Griffin’s two years that he won the thing!”
“I think when you look back on that stuff now, you realize the pressure that came with it,” Sims recalled during a 2016 chat in his Tulsa barbecue joint sitting beneath a framed Sports Illustrated cover of himself and White playing tug of war with the trophy with the headline: “Hey Man, That’s My Heisman!”
“The year I won it I was kind of an unknown guy who kind of came out of nowhere. I was a great story. The next year, man, every question after every game was, ‘Well, do you think you can win the Heisman again? Charles White just did this and the quarterback at BYU [Marc Wilson] just did that. Did you do enough, Billy?’ I don’t care who you are or how tough you are, you are still a college kid. It’s a lot.”
Sims was just the sixth junior to win the award over 43 years. Of the 43 awarded since, 21 have gone to underclassmen. Of the first seven of those, from Herschel Walker in 1981 through Charles Woodson in 1997, all but one left early for the NFL. The lone holdout was BYU quarterback Ty Detmer, who returned after his record-setting 1990 campaign and battled through injuries to finish third in 1991. As he arrived in New York for the ceremony, he confessed, “I’m here to watch Desmond Howard win it.”
After Woodson, seniors ruled again. White, the Oklahoma quarterback who won in 2003 was a senior, but received an injury waiver to return and defend his Heisman the next year. He lost to Leinart, beginning the current era when a stunning 14 of 18 winners were juniors or younger. That “or younger” is no small development, as a longtime unwritten ageism agreement between Heisman voters was finally put to pasture by voters smitten with Tebow in 2007, the start of a three-year sophomoric streak. Then, in 2012, Texas A&M‘s Johnny Manziel won it as a — deep breath — freshman!
How did none of them win again? Those who came up short of sitting alongside Griffin give us a not-short list of reasons.
The circus
Heisman pressure is very real. So is temptation. Exactly what forms that takes is something that changes and evolves along with every other aspect of being an athlete at a high level college football program, as does how those athletes react to it. Griffin didn’t have to deal with social media or even cable television, but even still, Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes assigned a staff member to help Griffin manage the flood of requests from media and Ohio State supporters because, as Hayes explained at the time, “The kid is too nice. He has to learn how to say no.”
After Manziel became the first freshman winner in 2012, the following offseason, then-Texas A&M athletic director Eric Hyman assigned two staffers to the kid who had just been pinned with the now-infamous Johnny Football moniker — one to manage his schedule and the other to field autograph requests. Alan Cannon, who has overseen A&M’s sports information office since 1999, called his friends at Florida to see how they’d handled Tebow’s repeat performances. “They warned us that this wasn’t going to be about ESPN and CBS anymore,” Cannon recalled. “It would also be about the National Enquirer and TMZ.”
Hyman sat down with Manziel and his family, stating flatly: “Johnny is not a freshman. He’s not a sophomore, junior or senior. He’s a Heisman. We can’t act like this is normal because it’s not.”
As we know now, Hyman was a prophet. Manziel spent his entire Heisman defense becoming notorious, from exploding cigar-smoking party Twitpics to a pay-for-autographs scandal that nearly cost him his eligibility for the season. By the time he threw for 3,732 yards and 27 touchdowns — a 313-yard, three-touchdown improvement over his Heisman year — he lost by a whopping 1,501 points to another redshirt freshman, Florida State‘s Jameis Winston.
Winston stated at ACC preseason media days in the summer of 2014: “If I get Manziel disease, I want all of you to smack me in the head with your microphones.”
The reality is that he already had. He won the 2013 award despite 13% of voters left him off their ballots completely, due to a sexual assault investigation that ended with no charges filed only nine days before he became the youngest Heisman winner. Winston would also lead FSU to the 2013 national title. Then he proceeded to crash through a 2014 Heisman follow-up campaign that is still remembered less for football and more for questions about the handling of the sexual assault allegations, crab legs allegedly stolen from a grocery store in April 2014, and a bizarre midseason student center tabletop screaming incident that resulted in a half-game suspension for the biggest game of the season against Clemson.
It all resulted in a sixth-place showing behind Oregon‘s Marcus Mariota, the worst Heisman finish for a uninjured returning winner.
“I think in the decade since then, we have learned a lot about how to handle these things better, whether it’s a coach or a player or an entire athletic department,” Jimbo Fisher, Winston’s coach at FSU and now at A&M, said when asked about then versus now. “I know that the players handle the spotlight better, because now the great ones, they have been in the spotlight since they were kids, when you really think about it. But I don’t care who you are or your background or whatever, fame is fame. And being famous is hard.”
As Hyman recalled it in relation to Manziel: “At the end of the day, it’s a kid who’s trying to become a grown-up. They all are. You can’t babysit them night and day. All you can do is try and educate them on what they are now, a celebrity, and the world they are now living in. Even as that world seems to be constantly changing.”
Unreasonable expectations
Manziel wasn’t the only active Heisman winner to post better or at least just as impressive numbers the following year but was still unable to impress voters like he did the year before. Not even close.
The all-time example of that was Detmer. In 1991, the BYU quarterback went against the norm and returned to Provo for his senior year, the first Heisman winner to come back since Sims. His 1990 statistics were ridiculous, setting 21 NCAA passing records and tying five more as the Cougars finished 10-3 with a signature win over No. 1 Miami in Week 2. BYU marketers devised what is considered the first true Heisman campaign, mailing out paper neckties to hundreds of voters to remind them of, you know, Ty.
As the 1991 season started, Detmer was warned by LaVell Edwards, his Hall of Fame head coach, to not become too obsessed with topping the year before, and to remain in the here and now. It didn’t work. Detmer suffered injuries and BYU opened the season 0-3 against a slate of ranked teams. He was already in his own head before October.
“We are taught as football players and athletes that your goal is to always be improving, and how do you do that?” Detmer recalled last year. “You do it by being better than your last game. But if your last game was a dream game and your last season was the dream season, that’s a measuring stick that can be difficult to manage.”
He says now that the 0-3 start was an unintended blessing. It sent the spotlight elsewhere, for a while. But when BYU didn’t lose again (there were two ties) and he finished the year with another 4,000-yard season, it was enough to earn the Davey O’Brien and Sammy Baugh awards and another first-team All-American selection. But he finished third in the Heisman vote.
“I think that’s probably the greatest challenge, to top what you did, but for me it wasn’t so much about what others expected, though that definitely is on your mind,” said Bryce Young, who won the Heisman in 2021 as he led Alabama to a national championship. Young fought through a season of physical dings to “only” a 10-2 record and didn’t just finish sixth in the Heisman vote behind Williams, but was third among SEC quarterbacks. “For me, the expectations I had for myself were much greater. That’s where my pressure came from. Not to be unfair to myself.”
Injuries
Bradford, as Gators fans love to remind us, lost to Tebow in a grinder of a 2009 BCS National Championship Game, but was returning the following fall with an Oklahoma team that looked even better than the one that had just set a slew Big 12 offensive records.
In the season opener against BYU, he had just thrown a pass that topped fellow Heisman winner White’s Oklahoma career passing yardage mark but was blasted by a hit on the next play. He struggled with a severe shoulder sprain all season and became the first returning Heisman winner since Staubach in 1964 to finish outside the top 10 in voting.
Running back Mark Ingram won instead, becoming Alabama’s first Heisman winner. Days before the 2010 season opener, Ingram injured his knee and ended up having surgery. By the time he returned to action, he was forced to share carries with another future Heisman finalist, Trent Richardson. Ingram also finished outside the top 10.
“The one aspect of football you can’t control is getting hurt,” Bradford recalled in 2014, when an ACL tear cost him the entire 2014 NFL season with the Rams. “But what drives you to get back is to do right by your teammates. Every injury is frustrating, but it’s especially frustrating when you know you had a team that had a chance to do something special if you hadn’t let them down.”
Their team was too good
Sometimes, that team around a would-be Heisman repeater is also loaded with other stars.
It’s always been a crucial component to a candidate’s portfolio that they be on a team that makes a postseason run. But to do that, there has to be more than one great player on a roster. Sometimes that Heisman winner has to share stats, stage and votes with one of those teammates.
“Oh, I knew when I came back in 2004 that if someone on my team was going to win the Heisman it was going to be Adrian,” said White, who returned to Oklahoma after his 2003 Heisman win to share a backfield with Adrian Peterson. A self-described Heisman history buff, White knew about Army’s back-to-back Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside winners and wanted to do the same with himself and Peterson, who would set several NCAA freshman rushing records in 2004. Instead, they both went to New York as finalists, but lost to Leinart. Oklahoma fans still say that the split between Sooners cost one or the other the trophy. White’s response to that: “Great problem to have.”
Leinart, in turn, was back in New York the following year, having thrown for nearly 500 more yards than his Heisman season. He finished third behind USC teammate Reggie Bush and the player they faced a few weeks later in the BCS championship, Texas QB Vince Young.
“I wasn’t upset at all to lose to Reggie,” the former USC quarterback said. “You know, every Heisman winner gets a ballot. I had him No. 1 on my ballot. I was worried that I was going to take votes away from him and cost him the Heisman, not the other way around.”
Their team wasn’t good enough
Just call this the “Lamar Jackson Rule” — that unwritten rule about one’s team needing to compete for titles to remain Heisman relevant.
The Louisville quarterback won the 2016 Heisman, electrifying college football with a stat line of 3,543 yards passing with 30 touchdowns, 9 interceptions and a rating of 148.8, along with 1,571 yards and 21 touchdowns with his feet. The following season his stats were a nearly identical 3,660/27/10/146.6 in the air and 1,601/18 on the ground.
Yet, he went from runaway winner to distant third-place finisher behind Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield and Bryce Love of Stanford. The difference? Jackson’s 2016 Louisville team spent the entire season on the big stage, ranked as high as third and ending the year 15th, even after a three-game skid that landed them at 9-4. The 2017 Cardinals never cracked the top 10, and after four pre-November losses, dropped out of the top 25 and out of mind.
“You can’t do it all by yourself,” groused then-Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino after Jackson accounted for 491 yards of offense and four touchdowns against Wake Forest … and lost 42-32 to drop to 5-4. “He’s had to. I think what he’s done has been more impressive than last year, but the voters won’t see it that way. They’ll want another guy.”
Voter fatigue
Petrino’s complaint isn’t uncommon. And he’s not wrong. Mayfield, who threw for 4,627 yards and 43 scores and took OU to the College Football Playoff, deserved the 2017 award. Even Jackson, whose family became close with the Mayfields during that awards season, has said that. But he has also recognized the reality of voter fatigue.
“I think once you’ve had an incredible season and it’s been a great story, everyone loves it, but maybe they want to learn about a new story, a new guy, something they’ve not seen before,” the Baltimore Ravens quarterback said last month. The 2019 NFL MVP started laughing as he said, “I’m not saying that people get tired of you when you’ve been around for a while, but then again maybe I am.”
Let’s go back to Tebow. He had comparable stats on the field in 2008 compared to his Heisman year and did it while winning the SEC and the BCS titles. And he did garner more first-place votes in 2008 but finished third because 153 of 902 voters left him off their ballots completely.
“Do they get sick of you? Well, I think some definitely got sick of me,” said the only player to attend three ceremonies as a Heisman finalist after he finished fifth his senior year (and helped winner Mark Ingram and runner-up Ndamukong Suh work off nerves in the hotel weight room). “But I will tell you this, and I think every guy who has won it and comes back for another year will tell you. I’d rather be blessed with success and they get sick of me and my team than them not think about us at all.”
Someday someone will finally win their second Heisman. It’s inevitable. At least it should be. Everyone believes that, from all of those winners who didn’t pull it off to the one guy who did. Though, yeah, if they’re being honest, even they are beginning to wonder.
“Yes, one day someone will do it. At least I think so,” Griffin said, again chuckling. “I just hope that when it does, I am still here to congratulate them in person.”
-
David Hale
The first College Football Playoff rankings came out five weeks ago. They looked a lot like tonight’s rankings.
We’ve had precious little movement at the top, with a few teams jockeying up or down a slot, but effectively no seismic shifts in the landscape. BYU and Texas are the only two teams that were projected in the field in the committee’s first ranking that aren’t now — and they’re just barely on the outside with reasonable arguments for inclusion.
Teams ranked in the top 18 by the committee this year are a combined 55-9, with six of those losses coming to other teams ranked in the top 18. All three outliers are courtesy of — you guessed it — the ACC (Louisville to Cal, Virginia to Wake and Georgia Tech to Pitt).
That’s a massive anomaly. Last year, top-18 teams at this point had lost 19 games, including 14 to teams outside their own grouping. Top-10 teams are 33-4 this year. In the first 11 years of the playoff, top-10 teams had lost an average of nine games by this point in the season.
The two words that best describe this year’s playoff push are “status quo.”
That, of course, has been bad news for all the teams on the outside looking in — from those with valid cases such as Miami, BYU and Vanderbilt, to underdogs such as USC, Utah or Arizona that might’ve had a shot in a more chaotic year.
But the real loser in this copy and paste rankings season is all the fans who just want to see things get weird. It’s a sad state of affairs when we’re left to rely on MACtion and the ACC to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to college football drama. The power players need to step up — or, perhaps, ratchet down — their game to add a bit more drama.
The good news is, the committee’s ad hoc reasoning, mushmouthed explanations and mind-boggling about-faces still leave plenty to argue about, even if the big picture hasn’t changed all that much.
Here’s this week’s biggest slights, snubs and shenanigans.
It’s not entirely clear how this committee values wins. For the past month, the priority has certainly appeared to be about which team has the better losses (unless, of course, you’re Alabama).
That seems a foolish way to prioritize playoff teams, since the goal of the playoff isn’t to lose to good teams but to win games.
Does Texas have a bad loss? Yes. A 29-21 defeat to woeful Florida — even if the Gators also played Georgia and Ole Miss close and just walloped a team that beat Alabama head-to-head — is problematic.
But look who Texas has beaten: No. 7 Texas A&M by 10, No. 8 Oklahoma by 17 and No. 14 Vandy by three (in a game they led by 24 in the fourth quarter). That’s the résumé of a team capable of winning a national championship — even if the Horns were also capable of losing to a second-rate SEC team.
Are we trying to find teams with the most upside or give participation trophies to the ones which have not lost an ugly one? (Except, again, Alabama.)
And it’s not as if the committee believes an extra loss is disqualifying. Oklahoma, Alabama, Notre Dame and Miami all have two losses and are ranked ahead of one-loss BYU (more on that in a moment), so what’s the harm of moving a three-loss Texas ahead of a two-loss team that has accomplished less?
This all comes back to the most frequent and justified criticism of the committee: The same rules aren’t applied evenly. In some cases, record matters. In some cases, best wins matter. In some cases, better losses matter. The standard varies based on the team being considered. But if the committee is going to err in favor of any team, it should probably do so for one that’s proved — not once, not twice, but three times — that it can beat an elite opponent.
Oh, and moving Texas up ahead of, say, Notre Dame would also have the added bonus of allowing the committee to sidestep another tricky situation. Which leads us to…
We’re putting these two teams together because we’ve already lamented the committee’s utterly disingenuous evaluation of them repeatedly, so it feels redundant to keep going down the same rabbit hole. But, for the sake of two programs being astonishingly misevaluated, let’s do one more round.
For Miami, the logic is obvious: The Canes beat Notre Dame head-to-head.
But let’s keep going. Miami’s two losses — SMU and Louisville — would rank as the fourth- and fifth-toughest games on Notre Dame’s schedule, had the Irish played them. Instead, Notre Dame has cruised through an essentially listless slate. Six of Notre Dame’s 10 wins came against teams that beat zero or one other Power 4 opponent. Stanford — seriously, Stanford! — is Notre Dame’s fourth-best win (by record). Yes, Notre Dame played well enough in losses to two very good teams, but one of those teams has the same record and is somehow ranked lower! Even if this is strictly about the “eye test,” there’s little argument for ignoring the head-to-head outcome. Notre Dame’s strength of record is 13th. Miami’s is 14th. Notre Dame’s game control is fifth. Miami’s is sixth. If all else is the same, how is head-to-head not the deciding factor?
Yet, here’s a little more salt in the wound for the Canes: Had Florida State finished 6-2 instead of 2-6 in ACC play, Miami would’ve won the (fifth) tiebreaker for a spot in the ACC title game and could’ve locked up its place in the playoff by simply beating Virginia. Instead, the Canes will sit at home and watch and hope and, at this point, probably get left out. Chess, not checkers, by rival FSU.
As for BYU, the committee’s desire to overlook the Cougars makes no sense. Let’s take a look at a blind résumé, shall we? (Note: Best wins and composite top 40 based on an average of SP+, FPI and Sagarin ratings.)
Team A: No. 6 strength of record, No. 14 game control, best win vs. No. 11, next vs. No. 28, loss to No. 5, four wins vs. composite top 40, five wins vs. teams that finished 7-5 or better
Team B: No. 7 strength of record, No. 10 game control, best win vs. No. 13, next vs. No. 27, loss to No. 7, three wins vs. composite top-40, two wins vs. teams that finished 7-5 or better
Now, just based on that information, Team A would seem the obvious choice. Now what if I told you Team B just lost its head coach, too?
That’s right, Team A is BYU and Team B is Ole Miss. Every bit of data here suggests the Cougars are, at worst, on even footing with the Rebels or ahead, and yet the committee has Ole Miss ranked five spots higher.
This is, arguably, the second year in a row in which BYU was clearly the most overlooked team in the country.
A week ago, Notre Dame was ranked one spot ahead of Alabama.
Then on Saturday, the Irish beat 4-8 Stanford by 29 (in a game they at one point led 42-3), while Alabama beat 5-7 Auburn by seven (in a game the Tigers had a chance to tie before fumbling in Tide territory late).
The committee looked at those two results and said, “You know what, we like what we saw from the Tide! Move ’em up!”
What could possibly be the logic for shifting opinions on these two teams? The only other team that jumped another winning team was Texas, and the Longhorns beat the No. 3 team in the country emphatically, not a second-tier team that fired its head coach a month ago.
Oh, and hasn’t the committee made it pretty clear losses are supposed to matter? Well, Notre Dame has two losses to teams ranked in the top 12. Alabama got beat by a Florida State team that finished 5-7.
Even by the eye test, this makes little sense. Notre Dame has proved to be one of the most complete, dominant teams in the country, with a secondary that’s near impossible to throw on, a rookie quarterback who has been nearly flawless and a running back who might well be the best player in the country. Alabama, on the other hand, has a one-note offense that can’t run the football.
We’re not believers in using advanced metrics as a ranking of accomplishment, but if this is simply a “who’s better” debate…
-
SP+ ranks Notre Dame fifth and Alabama 12th.
-
FPI ranks Notre Dame third and Alabama sixth.
-
Sagarin ranks Notre Dame second and Alabama seventh.
-
FEI ranks Notre Dame fourth and Alabama ninth.
So, again, we ask: Why would the committee possibly make this change?
We’d wager you know the answer. That sticky Canes vs. Irish head-to-head debate is a real headache for the committee. But if Notre Dame’s currently the last team in and something unexpected happens this weekend (hello, BYU over Texas Tech), then the committee can do as it did in 2014 and wash its hands of a tough choice and keep both Notre Dame and Miami out.
(It’s also interesting that a seven-point win over a team with a losing record is enough to jump Notre Dame, but a 31-point win over a ranked Pitt did nothing for Miami’s relative placement with the Irish despite — and we’re not sure anyone has mentioned this yet — a head-to-head win!)
But, speaking of Alabama…
4. Championship game participants
Step into the time machine with us for a moment, all the way back to championship week 2024. Here’s the state of play: Alabama, at 9-3, is ranked No. 11, the first team out of the playoff and also out of the SEC title game. Still, the Tide and the SEC hope there’s a pathway to salvation because SMU — 11-1 and ranked eighth — still has a game to play against Clemson in the ACC championship. If the Mustangs were to lose, couldn’t the committee then justify slotting SMU behind Alabama based on another data point, even though the Tide were simply sitting at home watching the action?
This was the case being made throughout the run up to the ACC championship last season. SMU, which should’ve been celebrating a miraculously successful first season in the Power 4, spent hours upon hours defending itself against criticism that it didn’t belong in the same conversation with big, bad Bama. Rhett Lashlee hinted he thought the committee’s vote was rigged, SMU players lamented their status on the chopping block despite a ranking that should’ve put them safely in the playoff field, and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey made the rounds arguing that Alabama’s (and Ole Miss’ and South Carolina’s) strength of schedule ought to put them ahead of SMU (and others).
OK, back to the present day. Here we are with Alabama sitting perilously on the dividing line between in the field and out — a week ago, it would have been the last team in, but of course the committee had other ideas this time around — with a game to play against Georgia in the SEC championship. An ACC team (Miami) sits just a tick behind the Tide in the rankings, but it will be off this week.
So, what happens if Alabama loses?
The comparison to last year’s SMU isn’t even a particularly fair one. The Mustangs were at No. 8 before the ACC title game. Alabama is at No. 9 (and probably should be a spot or two lower). SMU’s game against Clemson was new territory. A loss to Georgia will actually undermine Alabama’s best argument for inclusion — the three-point win in Athens in September. And while SMU did make the playoff field last year, a last-second loss on a 56-yard field goal still dropped the Mustangs from No. 8 to No. 10 in the rankings.
Play this scenario out now: Alabama, ranked at No. 9, plays a team that currently counts as the Tide’s best win. Imagine if Georgia wins the rematch and does so convincingly. The committee docked SMU two spots for a last-second loss, so surely it will do at least that much to Alabama for a more convincing defeat, right? And here’s the other thing: Even with the ACC title game loss last year, SMU was 11-2 — one less loss than Alabama had. A Tide loss in the SEC title game will be defeat No. 3 — one more than Notre Dame or Miami or (presumably) BYU.
It’s hard not to see a conspiracy here given the committee’s inexplicable flip-flop between Alabama and Notre Dame. It’s hard not to see brand bias in how the Tide’s championship week narrative diverges from SMU’s a year ago. It’s not at all hard to envision a scenario where Alabama loses to Georgia, gets in as the last team anyway, and it’s all explained away as a completely reasonable decision.
Well, the committee finally weighed in on more than one team outside the Power 4 — mostly because it was just impossible to find enough Power 4 teams worth ranking — and the news isn’t good for JMU. With the committee deciding already that North Texas is the higher ranked team, the Dukes’ only hope for the playoff would seem to be a Duke win in the ACC title game.
But what exactly has the committee seen to warrant that decision? Check out the numbers.
Best win (by average FPI, SP+ and Sagarin ranking)
JMU: No. 54 Old Dominion
UNT: No. 62 Washington State
Next best
JMU: No. 62 Washington State
UNT: No. 68 Navy
Loss
JMU: No. 29 Louisville
UNT: No. 24 USF
Wins vs. bowl-eligible
JMU: six
UNT: five
Strength of record
JMU: 18th
UNT: 22nd
FPI
JMU: 28th
UNT: 37th
There are certainly some check marks in North Texas’ favor, including a more impressive win over common opponent Washington State and a slightly better SP+ ranking, but on the whole, James Madison has had the tougher path here. That can change should UNT beat Tulane, but the committee should’ve waited for that to happen. Instead, it has made it clear JMU isn’t sniffing the playoff unless it comes at the expense of the ACC.
Also angry this week: Vanderbilt Commodores (10-2, No. 14); The ACC leadership who voted on its tiebreaker policies; Manny Diaz, who has to try to make a coherent argument for his five-loss Duke Blue Devils getting in ahead of a one-loss JMU; Every 8-4 team with a markedly better résumé than 9-3 Houston, which isn’t ranked this week; and Lane Kiffin’s yoga instructor and Juice Kiffin’s dog walker.
Welcome to the party, James Madison.
With the inclusion of JMU at No. 25 in the selection committee’s penultimate ranking — its first appearance all season — the possibility of the ACC being excluded from the playoff entirely just got real. Five-loss Duke is nowhere to be found in the ranking.
If Duke beats Virginia in the ACC championship game, it’s not guaranteed a spot in the 12-team field. It could open the door for two Group of 5 conference champions to compete for a national title, and if the playoff were today, it would be Tulane out of the American and JMU from the Sun Belt. The ACC’s best team, Miami, is still on the outside.
At No. 12, the Hurricanes still need some help, but Alabama increased its chances of earning a spot as the SEC runner-up with a small promotion to No. 9. The conference championship games can still alter the picture, but hope on the bubble is dwindling.
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 looking good after the committee’s fifth ranking. For each Power 4 conference, we’ve also listed Still in the mix. Teams that are 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 selection committee’s latest 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. Right now, the Crimson Tide are the last SEC at-large team in the field. Alabama will face Georgia in the SEC championship game, but the committee could have a difficult decision if Alabama loses and finishes as a three-loss runner-up. The Tide would have defeated Georgia during the regular season but lost to the Bulldogs in the championship game. Even in moving up a spot to No. 9 this week — ahead of Notre Dame — it still seems as if they have a little more margin for error, but how the SEC title game unfolds could matter. And how far Alabama drops could determine if the SEC gets four or five teams in the field. Alabama could finish as the committee’s highest-ranked three-loss team and still be excluded from the playoff to make room for a conference champion — as they were last year.
A Georgia win should lock up a first-round bye and a top-four finish for the Bulldogs, while a loss should still put them in position to host a first-round game. Georgia beat Ole Miss, so it would be surprising to see the Bulldogs drop below the Rebels with a loss, even though the Bulldogs would have one more defeat. With a 35-10 drubbing of Texas also on its résumé, Georgia would still have a strong enough case to finish as the committee’s top two-loss team.
At No. 6, the selection committee moved the Rebels up one spot, so clearly the departure of coach Lane Kiffin to LSU didn’t hurt Ole Miss or its chances of hosting a first-round home game. The bigger reasoning was a promotion after winning the Egg Bowl combined with Texas A&M losing to Texas.
Still in the mix: Texas. The Longhorns moved up to No. 13, but the win against Texas A&M wasn’t enough to put them into the field after the fifth ranking. Texas is stuck behind Miami in part because of its loss to Florida, which Miami beat. Even if BYU and Alabama were knocked out with title game losses, that still probably won’t be enough for Texas to get into the field because the bracket has to make room for conference champions.
Out: Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Big Ten
Would be in: Indiana, Ohio State, Oregon. Both Indiana and Ohio State are CFP locks — even if they lose in the conference title game — and the runner-up will still have a strong case for a top-four finish and a first-round bye. The loser’s only loss will be to a top-two team, but it could fall behind Georgia in the top four if the Bulldogs win the SEC, and/or Texas Tech if it wins the Big 12.
The Ducks punctuated their résumé with a respectable win at Washington and should be secure in their playoff position, probably hosting a first-round game. Oregon received a small boost to No. 5 after Texas A&M lost to Texas.
Still in the mix: None.
Out: Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers, UCLA, USC, Washington, Wisconsin
Big 12
Would be in: Texas Tech. The Red Raiders will play BYU in the Big 12 title game and have a great case to be in the playoff regardless of the outcome. It’s highly unlikely the selection committee would drop the Red Raiders out of the field as a two-loss Big 12 runner-up — especially considering they would have a regular-season win against the eventual conference champion. It’s also possible Texas Tech earns a first-round bye as a top-four seed if the Red Raiders win the Big 12. The committee moved them into the top four Tuesday night following Texas A&M’s loss during Rivalry Week.
Still in the mix: BYU. If BYU doesn’t win the Big 12, it’s unlikely to earn an at-large bid as the conference runner-up because the Cougars are already on the bubble and would be eliminated during the seeding process if the playoff were today. It’s not impossible, though. If Alabama finishes as a three-loss SEC runner-up, it could at least open the door for debate. BYU would have lost to Texas Tech twice, and Alabama would have defeated Georgia, the eventual SEC champ once — and it was on the road. If BYU wins the Big 12, it’s the ideal scenario for the conference because it would have two teams in the playoff.
Out: Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, UCF, Utah, West Virginia
ACC
Would be in: TBD. The ACC championship game will feature Virginia and Duke, and if five-loss Duke wins, it’s possible the ACC is excluded from the playoff since Duke is not part of the CFP rankings. If Virginia wins, it will represent the league in the playoff, as the two-loss Cavaliers are ranked in the top 20. And no, Miami did not play Duke or Virginia during the regular season. Duke lost to Tulane, which is the top Group of 5 playoff contender and will reach the playoff if it wins the American. Duke also lost to UConn. And it has already lost to Virginia 34-17 on Nov. 15.
Still in the mix: Miami. The Canes are still the committee’s highest-ranked ACC team, but they would be excluded if the playoff were today to make room for a conference champion. That means the ACC winner could knock the league’s best team out of the playoff. The committee isn’t ignoring Miami’s head-to-head win against Notre Dame, but it also isn’t comparing the Canes only to the Irish. Miami also needs to earn an edge against BYU — which the committee has deemed better than Miami to this point. Miami inched closer to Notre Dame because Bama moved up Tuesday, but with neither team playing in a conference championship game, would the committee flip them on Selection Day with a BYU loss?
Out: Boston College, Cal, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, North Carolina, NC State, Pitt, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Independent
Would be in: Notre Dame. The Irish have done everything right since their 0-2 start, running the table and doing it with consistent dominance regardless of opponent. At No.10, Notre Dame is in a precarious position. If BYU wins the Big 12 and enters the field, that could bump out the Irish. If BYU wins the Big 12, both BYU and Texas Tech are highly likely to make the playoff, which means someone currently in the top 10 would have to be excluded.
Group of 5
Would be in: Tulane. If the Green Wave win the American, they will represent the Group of 5 in the playoff. Tulane is currently the highest ranked Group of 5 team, but if North Texas beats Tulane on Friday, the Mean Green would be the most likely team to reach the CFP, given the overall strength of the American Conference this season.
Still in the mix: James Madison, North Texas. JMU (11-1) has clinched the East Division and a spot in the Sun Belt Conference championship game, where it will face Troy (8-4) on Friday. North Texas will face Tulane in the American, and if it wins, it’s more likely to represent the Group of 5 in the playoff than JMU because of its schedule strength. JMU could still be considered, though, if Duke wins the ACC, giving the Group of 5 two playoff teams in the 12-team field. With JMU earning a spot in the top 25 this week, the situation became more probable.
Bracket
Based on the committee’s fifth ranking, the seeding would be:
First-round byes
No. 1 Ohio State (Big Ten champ)
No. 2 Indiana
No. 3 Georgia (SEC champ)
No. 4 Texas Tech (Big 12 champ)
First-round games
On campus, Dec. 19 and 20
No. 12 Tulane (American champ) at No. 5 Oregon
No. 11 Virginia (ACC champ) at No. 6 Ole Miss
No. 10 Notre Dame at No. 7 Texas A&M
No. 9 Alabama 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 Oregon winner vs. No. 4 Texas Tech
No. 11 Virginia/No. 6 Ole Miss winner vs. No. 3 Georgia
No. 10 Notre Dame/No. 7 Texas A&M winner vs. No. 2 Indiana
No. 9 Alabama/No. 8 Oklahoma winner vs. No. 1 Ohio State
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment3 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024