Report: College Football Playoff investigating leak of SMU in, Alabama out prior to reveal

For the first time in College Football Playoff history, there was a leak prior to the reveal of the complete 12-team bracket. And that has not sat well with the executives in charge.

Brett McMurphy of the Action Network posted on Twitter minutes before the live rankings reveal began on ESPN that SMU would edge out Alabama for the final spot in the field. That ended up panning out, much to the dismay of the Crimson Tide faithful.

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Worse, it left CFP executives fuming, according to a report from USA Today Sports.

“I was furious,” College Football Playoff director Rich Clark said Tuesday to USA TODAY Sports. “I told all involved, you’ve betrayed the process.”

Clark has already promised there will be an investigation to determine how the leak occurred. According to Clark, only a certain number of people know.

The CFP director provided three buckets of people who could have had access to the information and leaked it: the selection committee itself, ESPN and the CFP staff.

Figuring out who would have passed the information on to someone else, like McMurphy, may not be easy. But the College Football Playoff will try anyway, likely in the hopes of dissuading future leaks.

College Football Playoff committee explains decision

College Football Playoff selection committee chair Warde Manuel explained why it was SMU over Alabama.

“We looked at the number of wins that Alabama had against ranked opponents,” Manuel said on ESPN. “We looked at SMU’s schedule, and they were undefeated in conference. Their losses were to ranked teams. But we also looked at Alabama’s loss to unranked teams, and it was quite a debate.

“I mean, we value strength of schedule. That’s why Alabama, as a three-loss team, is ranked ahead of other teams that have two losses. It is something that we talk about quite a bit. But in the balance of it, in the way SMU played in that game, losing on the last-second field goal, great win by Clemson, great game. We just felt that in this particular case, SMU still had the nod at 10 above Alabama.

“But it’s no disrespect to Alabama’s strength of schedule. It’s merely looking at the entire body of work for both teams.”