UNIVERSITY PARK — SMU is familiar with the fight to prove it belongs among the best. It’s one the Mustangs battled through for three decades to return to power-conference status and sit atop the ACC standings entering the last three weeks of the regular season. So when head coach Rhett Lashlee addressed the media Tuesday morning after practice, the fight he entered on behalf of the conference is one he’s no stranger to.
“To look at our league and say, ‘Well, we may be a one-bid league,’ but you look at another league that we have a winning record against and say, ‘Oh, they’re going to get four in,’ it doesn’t make sense to me,” Lashlee said. “Make it make sense.” Lashlee entered a critical game week against Boston College with a powerful message in defense of his new conference, just one week after the first College Football Playoff rankings left SMU one spot out of the top 12.
But SMU’s ranking wasn’t Lashlee’s primary concern. Then-undefeated Miami was the only ACC team to earn a spot in the preliminary bracket. The Big 12 also had just one team with undefeated BYU, meanwhile the Big Ten and SEC had four each, including a two-loss Alabama team.
The rankings showed where the committee’s biases lie, with a one-loss Penn State earning the sixth ranking above undefeated Indiana (No. 8) and BYU (No. 9).
In an unprecedented year where the committee will select 12 teams to make the newly expanded playoff, every decision is critical — and the ear.