CFP Selection Committee chair discusses importance of big wins vs questionable losses

After revealing the penultimate College Football Rankings on ESPN Tuesday night, CFP Selection Committee chairman Boo Corrigan sat down with host Rece Davis to discuss the decisions made by the 13-member panel to place each team in the Top 25. As the regular season comes to a close, the conversation is focused at the top more than ever as the CFP selection show approaches.

Throughout the year, the things that matter most to the CFP Selection Committee have become more clear, backed up by what Boo Corrigan tells Rece Davis and the viewers each week. With the final show coming up, the chairman confirmed what he and others care about most in the room.

“I think at the end of the day, we talk a lot about wins in this committee,” said Corrigan. “And we talked about that earlier this year with TCU. And they kept winning games and they kept finding ways to win games. That’s a team that – over the last four weeks – is, I think, giving up about 19 points per game. So obviously winning these games does matter. It’s something we look at, it’s something we talk about more than anything else.”

TCU became a case study in how the committee felt about different things earlier this season, when their defense struggled to get stops and the offense often fell behind early before using some late-game heroics to remain unbeaten. As Corrigan says, at the end of the day a win is a win and cannot be counted as a negative.

This explanation also helps explain other moves, including the decision to keep Georgia ahead of Michigan, given that the Bulldogs also took care of business against their opponent.

More from Boo Corrigan

Following their convincing win over Ohio State, many called for Michigan to vault mainstay Georgia atop the CFP rankings, but in the end they move up just one spot to No. 2 after the program-defining road victory. Boo Corrigan discusses what went into that decision at length.

“A lot of conversations, obviously, about the top four the whole time as we go through this,” said Corrigan. “As we looked at it, Georgia, there was nothing they did last weekend against Georgia Tech to diminish it. They’re 4-0 against ranked teams in our Top 25.

“Michigan, huge win, particularly in the second half against Ohio State. 2-0 against teams in the Top 25. And again, we didn’t see any reason to move Georgia out of the top spot.

Of course, it was nothing Michigan did which kept them out of the No. 1 spot, but Georgia’s long-standing hold on the position simply could not be overcome with one result, especially given the Bulldogs’ own convincing rivalry win over Georgia Tech.

Both programs will play one more game before the final rankings come out and the CFP field is set, so perhaps another week’s worth of data will sway the committee one way or the other.