10/31/2023 football Edit

Quote book: CFP representatives weigh in on FSU, top four teams

Curt Weiler • TheOsceola

Senior Writer

If the College Football Playoff began today, Florida State would be included.

The Seminoles came in at No. 4 in the first College Football Playoff ranking of the season which was released Tuesday evening. They are behind only No. 1 Ohio State, No. 2 Georgia and No. 3 Michigan and ahead of No. 5 Washington, the lone remaining unbeaten.

After the release of the first CFP ranking Tuesday evening, CFP committee chair Boo Corrigan and CFP executive director Bill Hancock joined a teleconference with media members from across the country to discuss the committee's rankings and answer questions.

Here are some selected questions and answers from the session relevant to the top teams and FSU's place among them.

Q. Boo, Ohio State has the wins over Penn State and Notre Dame and their defense is obviously very good, but their offense has been a bit clunky at times. They're not scoring the way they traditionally have. In some ways people would say they haven't really passed the eye test. I know that's a loaded term. If you could address that in terms of whether the committee just watches the games, and yes, there are all these metrics, but is there a certain point where you have say I think I have a grasp on what these teams are?

BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, to your point, and thank you for asking, the win against Penn State, to win at Notre Dame, the win at Wisconsin, they've proven they can do it at home, they've proven they can do it on the road. They have explosive plays. Down a receiver, Marvin Harrison, Jr., who's clearly one of the top players in the country.

As we look at it, as we evaluate it, it is part of the overall evaluation, but a top 5 defense that's given up about 10 points a game really does play into it, as well.

To pick completely on one side when the other side is so dominant, and the offense is really, really good, so we've got to take all that into account as we're looking at it, and we came to the conclusion as a committee that they deserved the No. 1 ranking.

Q. Boo, I heard you on television saying that the Michigan sign stealing didn't come up in the room and that it's an NCAA issue. You also said at the top of the call here that the committee was impressed with how Michigan has dominated their opponents. Given the level of detail that I know the committee likes to use to evaluate all these teams, I'm curious how you can properly determine that Michigan is the No. 3 team in the country if you didn't discuss whether part of their dominance is using information they shouldn't have had?

BILL HANCOCK: Michigan has played well all season. The fact of the matter is no one knows what happened. We're dealing right now – the NCAA is dealing right now with allegations only. The committee makes its judgments based on what happened on the field, and clearly Michigan has been a dominant team.

Q. I know there's a lot of metrics that you mentioned you looked at. In many of them, Georgia's strength of schedule did not compare favorably with some of the other top teams. Did the committee overlook that to some extent putting the Bulldogs No. 2? Could you go over some of the attributes that led to you elevating Georgia that high in the rankings despite the strength of schedule rank?

BOO CORRIGAN: Well, I think you look at the rivalry game with Florida and the way they played the game against Kentucky, and to win that 51-13, added to the fact that Brock Bowers did not play against Florida, their overall team makeup, team speed, defense allowing about 14 points a game, in total body of work, you've got to be able to make these decisions as you're looking at it, and again, the beauty of it is to have Coach Taylor, Coach Ault, Jim Grobe and have Coach Grobe in there as former coaches and their ability to talk about what they see as well really enhances kind of the overall experience of everyone in the room to make sure that we're getting this right.

Q. You mentioned Michigan's dominance. How much of a factor has been their strength of schedule in ranking them third?

BOO CORRIGAN: It's a factor in what we're looking at. Again, when you can point to from a Georgia standpoint Florida and Kentucky, with Ohio State when you can point to Penn State, the win at Notre Dame, the win at Wisconsin, while UNLV, Rutgers, Nebraska, Minnesota are good wins, I think looking at it in total, even with the dominance offensively and defensively, defensively giving up about six points a game, it really turned the committee's head from that standpoint, but that was the reason they came in at third.

Q. You guys brought it up with Brock Bowers being out with Georgia, them being down some players, how big of that was a factor, especially offensively with Ohio State with TreVeyon Henderson being in and out of the lineup and Emeka Egbuka being in and out of the lineup, how much of that did you take into account when thinking about Ohio State No. 1, especially when the offense hasn't necessarily looked as explosive as we've seen in the past? Did that matter at all for you guys?

BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, no, it certainly is a factor. We look at all conditions around games and make sure that we have the latest information, whether that's coming from the conference, as we talk to the conferences.

But again, we still viewed Ohio State as the top team in the country based on their wins, based on their defense, and again, their offense is doing well enough to win games and be 8-0.

Q. I know in the past you guys have talked about drawing lines, so to speak, or grouping teams as you rank them. I'm curious from the top if you could go and discuss where maybe that top group was and kind of where the line is and how big the gap is between those groups.

BILL HANCOCK: I can talk about that. It's not appropriate, however, for us to talk about differences among teams and rankings. But I would say that the top four were in a group together. Washington because of their play in the last couple of weeks was a notch behind that group. I hope that's helpful.

Q. You talked a good bit about Ohio State being No. 1 ahead of Michigan and Georgia because of its resume, the wins it has so far. I'm wondering if you can kind of explain maybe why Ohio State is there but Florida State and Washington with the big wins they have haven't done enough to also be ahead of Michigan and Georgia on resumes at this point?

BOO CORRIGAN: Again, I think as you look at the full body of work, Florida State being No. 4, the win over LSU, the win against Duke, kind of a front-loaded schedule, if you will, they've looked really good. Offensively putting up 41 points a game. Their defense is ranked in the top 20. But again, as we looked at it overall and went through the process, we came out with Ohio State 1, Georgia 2, Michigan 3, Florida State 4.

With regards to Washington, huge win over Oregon, who we have at No. 6, but in looking at that, the game most recently, two most recent games at home against Arizona State and on the road at Stanford from a committee standpoint gave us some pause and put them in at No. 5.