The new executive director of the College Football Playoff as it triples in size this season to 12 teams has confirmed what many already knew.
While wins and the age-old “eye test” will play roles in determining who makes the bracket, strength of schedule could be a deciding factor in some deliberations by the CFP selection committee.
Rich Clark held a call with reporters Wednesday to go over the details of how the 12-team bracket will be decided. The first list of the committee’s weekly top 25 rankings comes out Tuesday, with the brackets to be locked in using the list revealed on Sunday, Dec. 8.
“Record matters, but we’re not trying to pick the most deserving teams, we’re trying to pick the best teams,” Clark said, a statement likely to be parsed for weeks. “This committee’s got to look at their entire body of work. They’re going to consider record, of course. … But they’re going to look at strength of schedule, they’re going to look at head-to-head competition, how teams perform against each other” and a handful of other factors.
Last year, when the bracket included only four teams — just as it had in every edition since the event began in the 2014 season — there was an uproar over the committee’s decision to take Southeastern Conference champion Alabama with one loss over Atlantic Coast Conference champion Florida State, which was undefeated. Even with an expanded bracket that gives automatic spots to the five best conference champions, it’s hard to imagine the committee’s decisions won’t be criticized in some way.