We’re just hours from the announcement of the College Football Playoff field. There’s plenty of drama left to play out on the field.
The committee is gathered at its headquarters in the Gaylord Texan resort in Grapevine, Texas, to watch conference championship games that will impact their final ranking on Selection Day. It was only the beginning of conference championship weekend, but how these games unfolded with the committee watching will determine their five highest-ranked conference champions — and how that order will impact the contenders around them.
It doesn’t matter for BYU if the committee keeps it at No. 11 or drops them to No. 12 (or beyond). Either way BYU would be bumped out during the seeding process to include a conference champion. Where BYU lands, though, will impact Miami.
The selection committee is most likely to do one of two things: drop No. 11 BYU to No. 12 behind Miami, or keep them exactly where they are. If BYU falls below the Canes, the committee could reconsider the tiebreaker between Miami and Notre Dame.
With Friday’s win against Troy, JMU’s path to the playoff is straightforward: Duke needs to beat Virginia and win the ACC. If that happens, the committee will reward JMU with the No. 12 seed as its fifth and final conference champion — and it would come at the expense of the ACC champion, which would be excluded. The question is if the conference will be excluded entirely, though — or if No. 12 Miami will still sneak in, even without playing this weekend. That could happen if BYU loses to Texas Tech in the Big 12 title game and drops behind Miami — putting the Canes right below No. 10 Notre Dame. In that scenario, the committee could look at Miami’s season-opening win against the Irish as one of several tiebreakers it uses to separate comparable teams.
We’re tracking all the conference title games and the impact on the CFP field.