SEC Unbiased: Texas A&M has no business being in the College Football Playoff

The College Football Playoff committee released its first set of rankings on Tuesday evening, and in typical CFP committee fashion, it dropped the ball.

Granted, these rankings might not mean much with weeks of football left to be played, but it’s still worth dissecting because it shows what the committee’s mindset is.

The top selection was simple. Alabama is a juggernaut that towers over the helpless college football landscape. Its resumé is stacked with impressive victory after impressive victory. The Crimson Tide rolled over USC by 46 points in the season opener, won a string of challenging SEC games over Ole Miss, Arkansas, Tennessee and finally Texas A&M, the conference’s second-best team, by nineteen points.

Clemson and Michigan took the next two spots. Both belong in the top three, but both also present interesting cases for the No. 2 spot. The Wolverines have certainly looked better than the Tigers, but Clemson’s resumé is stronger. The Tigers have notched wins over Auburn, Louisville and Florida State compared to Michigan’s weaker schedule.

Where the committee really made a complete fool of itself, however, was by slotting Texas A&M in the No. 4 slot ahead of Washington.

It’s honestly embarrassing that the committee, comprised of alleged “experts,” continues to make such dumbfounding selections. It not only screams of complete bias toward the SEC, but the message toward Chris Petersen’s bunch is clear; “You have to go undefeated.” If the Huskies lose one game, the committee is sending a message that is has no problem rewarding a potential 11-1 Texas A&M team with the final playoff spot.

Even then, I’m not convinced Washington is a playoff lock if it runs the table and wins the Pac-12. The Huskies greatest opponent isn’t any team remaining on their schedule, it’s a time zone. Because Washington plays in the Pacific Northwest, the Huskies are automatically victims to #Pac12AfterDark and SEC or East Coast bias.

Some of the committee’s logic makes sense.

Being skeptical of a team whose finished the last two seasons with a combined record of 15-12 is understandable.

Being skeptical of a team with a weak non-conference schedule is understandable.

Being skeptical of a team with only one victory over a team currently ranked is understandable.

However, any soul with a pair of eyes knows how legitimate Washington is. Jake Browning is the best quarterback in the country, but this isn’t a one-dimensional offense. Running back Myles Gaskin is approaching 1,000 yards rushing on the season, and Lavon Coleman is nearing the 500-yard mark while averaging over eight yards per carry.

While the Aggies feature a prominent rushing attack, quarterback Trevor Knight is essentially the white Joshua Dobbs: An athletic signal caller who struggles to complete basic passes. Seriously, he skips five-yard passes into the dirt as if he’s John Stockton delivering a bounce pass.

Defensively, the Huskies strike the perfect balance between physical play and high-flying aggressiveness in the open field. Texas A&M surrendered nearly 700 yards of offense to a Volunteer team with so many injuries that a coordinator recently joked with reporters that they were holding open tryouts.

The special teams unit is also solid — the Huskies essentially topped Utah last Saturday on a walk-off punt return touchdown. This is a complete football team that also happens to have one of the country’s elite coaches roaming the sideline. A man who happened to turn a team with a blue football field from Boise, Idaho, into a giant killer.

Meanwhile, Kevin Sumlin only has a job in College Station because Johnny “Money” Manziel won the Heisman and delivered wins over Alabama and Oklahoma back in 2012.

Texas A&M is one of the nation’s more inconsistent teams despite its 7-1 record. On the surface, the Aggies’ resumé is impressive. They have wins over UCLA, Auburn, Arkansas and Tennessee, and played Alabama tough on the road.

However, diving further into each one of those games reveals a team that isn’t as impressive as the wins suggest.

Against the Bruins, the Aggies blew a 15-point fourth quarter lead and needed overtime to defeat a team that currently sits at 3-5.

The committee blessed Auburn with a No. 9 ranking on Tuesday, but the Tigers who faced Texas A&M earlier in the season weren’t the same team that ran for over 500 yards in a 56-3 drubbing over Arkansas or topped Ole Miss in Oxford by eleven points the following weekend. Instead, Auburn was still in search of its offensive identity.

Against Tennessee, the Aggies blew a 28-7 fourth-quarter lead to a team devoid of starters at multiple key positions that also turned the ball over seven times. It took double overtime to beat that team… at home.

In what universe does that qualify as playoff worthy?

The Aggies’ most impressive victory to date is a win over the Razorbacks, but is that more impressive than Washington’s win over Utah?

Absolutely not.

The Utes are an underrated program. Playing in Salt Lake City is no small task. In addition, the Huskies transported Stanford and Oregon — the winners of the past seven Pac-12 championships — into alternate dimensions after dismantling both teams by a combined score of 114-27.

I said it in 2014 when the committee elected to side with Florida State over Baylor and TCU and again last season when Michigan State earned a playoff bid over Stanford. The playoff committee has failed its mission of selecting the nation’s four best teams.

On Tuesday night, they were guilty of the same crime.

Edited by Nathan Odom

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