Paul Finebaum again calls out CFP committee for 12-team field: 'They made so many mistakes'

While he may have felt this way after the playoff field was set, Paul Finebaum really thinks the committee got it wrong now the day after the opening round.

On SportsCenter on Sunday, Finebaum criticized the selection committee after four games won by an average of 19.3 points in wins by each of the higher seeds within the College Football Playoff. He said, although now in hindsight, that they made too many mistakes, specifically with No. 10 Indiana and No. 11 SMU, with proof for him now that record isn’t everything in contrast with strength of schedule or quality wins.

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“Oh my goodness, I’m so in on (the committee getting the teams wrong),” said Finebaum. “It’s easy to say this the day after but few people were saying it the day after they made this field.

“They made so many mistakes. Let’s start with some of the most obvious like Indiana and SMU. They looked at the gaudy record and they forgot to look at have they beaten anyone? No. Neither school beat anyone. Meanwhile, schools like Miami – yes, Miami – and Alabama and Ole Miss and South Carolina were sitting at home while we had to be subjected to unwatchable games.”

Again, no winning team in the first round did so by a margin any less than 10.

Notre Dame vs. Indiana was technically the closest but was a 27-3 deficit for the Hoosiers before 14 points scored in the final two minutes to make it look much better than it was. From there, Penn State blew out SMU by 28 and Ohio State handled Tennessee by 25 after starting up at 21-0 and being up as much as 32. Texas also defeated Clemson by two scores after being up as much as 21 but it doesn’t apply the same way with it being against a conference champion who earned their bid as well as the fact that it was within reach to start the fourth quarter.

“Seriously, Friday night was laughable, Saturday morning was laughable. And, you know, last night wasn’t much better but Tennessee at least beat someone for all the critics out there who want to say they didn’t belong too,” Finebaum said.

Subjective vs. objective is always going to be a part of the selection process. It’s just that, after the first-ever opening round of the expanded playoff, subjective won pretty handily in the end, especially when it came to the final scores for the three losing at-larges.