The College Football Playoff selection committee announced Wednesday it will place more emphasis on strength of schedule this year when determining which contenders make the 12-team field that competes in the postseason for the national championship at NCAA Division I’s highest level.
The committee said in a release that the schedule strength metric has been adjusted to apply greater weight to games against strong opponents. An additional metric, record strength, has been added to go beyond a team’s schedule strength to assess how a team performed against that schedule.
“This metric rewards teams defeating high-quality opponents while minimizing the penalty for losing to such a team,” the committee said. “Conversely, these changes will provide minimal reward for defeating a lower-quality opponent while imposing a greater penalty for losing to such a team.”
The adjustment to the evaluation process comes after some in the Southeastern Conference complained about last season’s inclusion of — at the time of selections — an 11-2 SMU of the Atlantic Coast Conference over a 9-3 Alabama or even a 9-3 South Carolina or 9-3 Ole Miss.
SMU’s losses were to unranked BYU of the Big 12 during the regular season and ranked Clemson in the ACC championship game. Alabama had bad losses against Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, both .500 at the time, but also had wins over second-ranked Georgia, No. 21 Missouri and No. 14 LSU.