Warde Manuel raves about 'dominant football' from SMU, backs up College Football Playoff ranking
The SMU Mustangs sit at No. 9 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, making folks wonder if a win vs. Cal on Saturday means the first-year ACC team is in the 12-team playoff regardless of the ACC Championship game.
College Football Playoff committee chair Warde Manuel shared why SMU moved ahead of Indiana, which got blown out by Ohio State last week. He pointed to the impressive play by SMU, led by quarterback Kevin Jennings.
“Yeah, like I said on the ESPN interview, Indiana played well at times against Ohio State, and obviously Ohio State pulled away in the second half,” Manuel said Tuesday night. “We felt also SMU has been playing really dominant football as of late, with the way they played against Virginia at Virginia, they’ve had some great wins, only one loss. Kevin Jennings is one of the dynamic quarterbacks in the country at the present time.
“So we just felt that SMU and their play on the field, they moved ahead of Indiana this week, and we’ll continue to monitor it as we move forward.”
Indiana had been among the nation’s top programs albeit with a week strength of schedule. The consistent play of SMU though stood out in a big way to the committee. The Mustangs will play another bowl eligible team on Saturday when Cal comes to Ford Stadium.
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“Well, at this time I would just say the strength of schedule for Indiana improved greatly when they played Ohio State,” Manuel said, “but SMU just has been consistent in the last few weeks in terms of their performance and the committee as we looked at it ranked SMU ahead of Indiana.”
Three spots behind SMU is Clemson, who was another beneficiary of the SEC beating up on each other. Miami is the sixth-best team in America, according to the committee. That could make for an interesting discussion if Clemson beats South Carolina and the loser of the ACC Championship has to battle it out for a spot in the College Football Playoff.
“Well, Clemson slid up with some losses ahead of them by Alabama and Mississippi, and they had a win against Citadel, obviously, but that wasn’t the big reason,” Manuel said. “Obviously they’re at 9-2, with only two losses. The teams right behind them have three losses. We just felt as a committee as we looked at their body of work, with three straight wins after their loss to Louisville, including back-to-back wins against Virginia Tech and Pitt, that they deserved to move up into that 12th position.”
It all makes for an interesting next two weeks as Clemson, Miami and SMU are all in contention to capture the ACC Championship and make the College Football Playoff.
