SMU lands 11-seed in College Football Playoff field, draws Penn State in 1st round
The SMU Mustangs will take on Penn State in the College Football Playoff, it was announced on ESPN Sunday. Rhett Lashlee’s team is the 11-seed in the playoff bracket, the Nittany Lions are the six-seed.
Saturday night, SMU fell on a last-second field goal to Clemson in the ACC Championship, but the committee kept SMU above the Tigers in the Top 25, giving the team the 11-seed. Penn State fell in the Big Ten Championship to No. 1 Oregon.
If the Mustangs beat Penn State, they’ll face Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl.
The College Football Playoff committee bucked the AP Top 25 and the Coaches Poll, which had Alabama ahead of SMU. It gives the Mustangs a chance to play on a huge stage together again.
“Yeah, it definitely means a lot to get together with this group again and play another game,” quarterback Kevin Jennings said after the loss to Clemson. “It would mean a lot for us, and I mean, we wouldn’t approach it any differently. I mean, we had a successful year doing what we’ve been doing. It’s about maintaining and keep doing it.”
SMU has a strength of record at 15th, a game control ranking of 12th, FPI ranking of 13th and strength of schedule of 60th. The College Football Playoff committee saw the ACC runner-up’s two losses by just six points to Top 20 teams, BYU and Clemson.
The Mustangs got in over Alabama, which had the ninth-best strength of record, sixth-best game control, sixth-best FPI ranking and 16th-best strength of schedule. Alabama lost to Top 10 Tennessee, but fell to Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, both of which are unranked.
Lashlee made it clear that his SMU team should be in the College Football Playoff field. He stumped for his team on numerous occasions and the message got through in the final ranking.
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“They don’t care what I say. I don’t have a message. It would be criminal if we’re not in. It would be wrong. It would be wrong on so many levels, not just to our team,” Lashlee said. “It would be wrong to what college football stands for, to what it is. We just played a playoff game basically out there and played pretty danged good. That was a pretty good game. I think for the last three quarters everybody saw what they’ve seen all year.
“Our team deserves a chance to be in. It doesn’t matter what I say, but it would be incredibly wrong. I think it would be unprecedented. It would set a really bad precedent. It would break all the principles of what we’ve been told.”
The 1st round of the College Football Playoff is set for Dec. 20-21 with the quarterfinals set for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
The first round byes went to 1-seed Oregon, 2-seed Georgia, 3-seed Boise State and 4-seed Arizona State. Clemson missed out on the first round bye, ranking 16th in the Top 25. Penn State is the 4th-ranked team in America.
