CFP committee considers recency bias in Texas-Alabama debate, head-to-head meaningful 'no matter when the game is played'

It might’ve been months ago when Texas rolled into Bryant-Denny Stadium and beat Alabama by 10 points. But the College Football Playoff selection committee isn’t forgetting what the Longhorns did in early September.

And with Texas ranked No. 7 and Alabama ranked No. 8, that head-to-head result looms large as both teams play in conference championship games this weekend. But CFP selection committee chair Boo Corrigan emphasized that the head-to-head matchup doesn’t lose value over time.

“Head-to-head is head-to-head, no matter when the game is played, and that’s how we look at it,” Corrigan said.

And with the Crimson Tide and Longhorns both at one loss and potentially careening toward selection Sunday with relatively similar resumes, that win for Texas could be a massive separator.

“Yeah, same thing. Again, it is close. As we look at it, you can look at any part of what we’re doing when you get here in the different groupings and everything that we do, but two really good teams that have had really good years, done a great job by Sark [Steve Sarkisian] and by Coach [Nick] Saban, and we’ll just continue to evaluate,” Corrigan said.

The fight against recency bias is also real, as Corrigan explained the committee does try to consider how more current results shape their impressions.

But at the end of the process, it’s about considering the full 12 or 13 game sample for which teams make the CFP.

“Yeah, we make sure that we do talk about that. That’s something that is brought up and made sure. Specifically I remember the conversation of some teams lost early, some teams lost in the middle, some teams lost late, and making sure that we’re checking all that at the door as we go through this and looking at everything and looking at — 13 weeks is what’s important. And from the very beginning of the committee, the first, second, third week matters as much as it does at the end, but you’ve got to look at overall where they are after 13 weeks,” Corrigan said.

There are no specific tiebreakers the CFP selection committee might use

What, exactly, the College Football Playoff selection committee might consider when trying to delineate between any number of teams in the Top 25 is not an exact science. Nor is there a precision to what the CFP selection committee would strictly consider in trying to break a tie between a pair of teams for a ranking.

On a conference call with reporters after the penultimate ranking release on Tuesday, executive director Bill Hancock said there isn’t some order of priority for tiebreakers between teams, like there might be to determine a conference championship game berth. As he described it, it’s really under the purview of the committee what they ultimately consider.

“Thank you for asking. Those tiebreaker criteria are not prioritized, so it’ll be up to the judgment of each committee member which of the tiebreakers are more important to him or her. There’s just no established priority for the tiebreakers,” Hancock said.

And how the committee susses out some of the finer margins will certainly be of note. There are currently four undefeated teams — Georgia, Michigan, Washington and Florida State — plus four one-loss teams — Oregon, Ohio State, Texas and Alabama — all vying for the four slots.

Seven of the eight teams, Ohio State excluded, will have the chance to be conference champions by next Sunday when the committee meets again, a big point of emphasis for the group. And if the four undefeated teams win their respective conference championship games, the decisions could get quite easy for the committee.

But if the likes of Alabama and Oregon win, the committee could have a knotty situation to sort out, and one where there isn’t a clear precedence for certain tiebreakers among teams.