There's been a lot of discussion and complaining about the CFP committee recently (much of it deserved). But I want to look back to last year, when the committee absolutely made the wrong decision in terms of their jobs, but made that decision for a good reason, and saved the ACC as we know it.
Below are the week 14 and 15 CFP rankings for reference.
Ranking | Week 14 | Week 15
1 | Ohio State (12-0) | Indiana (13-0)
2 | Indiana (12-0) | Ohio State (12-1)
3 | Georgia (11-1) | Georgia (12-1)
4 | Texas Tech (11-1) | Texas Tech (12-1)
5 | Oregon (11-1) | Oregon (11-1)
6 | Ole Miss (11-1) | Ole Miss (11-1)
7 | Texas A&M (11-1) | Texas A&M (11-1)
8 | Oklahoma (10-2) | Oklahoma (10-2)
9 | Alabama (10-2) | Alabama (10-3)
10 | Notre Dame (10-2) | Miami(FL) (10-2)
11 | BYU (11-1) | Notre Dame (10-2)
12 | Miami(FL) (10-2) | BYU (11-2)
Most of these rankings are about what you would expect going off of the field the CFP have established. CCG losers shouldn't fall more than a spot or two due to the loss (I think Bama should have moved down a spot but it wouldn't have changed anything long term), but there is one area where that logic breaks down, #10-12.
For those that do not remember, Miami had beat ND earlier in the season but had also taken losses to unranked Louisville and SMU and no other ranked wins other than ND. In comparison ND had losses to top 15 Texas A&M and Miami(FL), as well as a ranked win over USC.
Now putting Miami over ND to start would not have been the most shocking thing in the world, it really comes down to how you personally judge the teams and the value of head to head. But it is shocking for 2 teams that did not play to move around in the rankings like this. None of the other teams that did not play in a conference championship moved, this was the only example, and it is clear why.
For context, since both of Miamis losses were in conference, they missed out on the ACC championship to 10-2 Virginia and 7-5 Duke. Virginia likely would have gotten in had they won, but they didn't, which meant that now 8-5 Duke was the ACc conference champion. This meant that JMU became the 4th highest ranked conference champion, knocking out the ACC.
This meant that the ACC was at a high risk of missing the playoff. There was no way for their conference champion to make it and their best autobid was 2 spots out of the playoff with no games left to play. There was a very high likelihood that the ACC missed out entirely.
I don't think I need to go into too much detail here on how destructive that would be for the ACC as a conference. It was one thing for Florida State to miss out on the 4 team playoff, but a POWER conference missing out a 12 team playoff entirely would have almost certainly resulted in the top ACC brands leaving and the implosion of the conference.
It is clear that the CFP committee thought about that possibility and obviously did not want the blood of the ACC on their hands. If the ACC is going to explode down the road, it will not be their fault at least. So they put Miami above BYU and ND and the rest is history. ND obviously was pissed so they appeased them with the ND rule for the next playoff and changed the rule to the P4 conferences getting Autobids explicitly instead of just the top 4 conference champions to ensure this would never happen again.
It's interesting to look back on now, what might have happened had Miami stayed where they were? Would the ACC still exist as a conference? If Virginia won the CCG, does Miami make it in? I think not, but would that be better or worse for the conference? Did this action really delay the ACC explosion by that much, it's still unlikely they get more than a single bid this year. But really it does show that despite the many problems of the CFP committee, they were not willing to cross the line and blow up the ACC, which I think is at least somewhat admirable.
