Brett Yormark opened his remarks Wednesday with a rant that was four minutes in length and rooted in reason.
The target of his ire: the College Football Playoff selection committee.
“The committee continues to show time and time again that they are paying attention to logos versus resumes,” Yormark said on a media teleconference ahead of the Big 12 championship game Saturday, which matches No. 15 Arizona State against No. 16 Iowa State.
“Strength of schedule should matter and wins against Power Four opponents should matter.”
Yormark is right, of course, but here’s the twist:
The Big 12 contender with the best strength-of-schedule and the best strength-of-record and the best victory over a Power Four opponent and the best overall resume in the conference isn’t even playing for the Big 12 championship.
Brigham Young is sitting home this weekend, boxed out of the title game after losing a four-team tiebreaker with ASU and Iowa State. (Colorado was the fourth tied team.)
In addition to their superiority in the analytics used by the committee, the Cougars have the single best win in the Big 12 — and one of the best wins by any team in any conference all season: They beat No. 8 SMU on the road.
We’d argue the No. 18 Cougars should be ranked ahead of Iowa State, not two spots behind the Cyclones.
And you could make the case BYU should be in contention for an at-large berth given that its No. 12 strength-of-record, which measures a team’s performance against its schedule, is higher than four teams ranked above the Cougars (Boise State, Miami, Mississippi and Clemson).
Now, to be clear: We are not criticizing the Big 12’s tiebreaker formula specifically, because the version unveiled by the conference before the season seemed sound at the time and leaned into the same criteria used by the SEC and Big Ten. Head-to-head results were prioritized, followed by records against common opponents.
Essentially, the Cougars were eliminated in the tie-breaking process because of happenstance: the games they lost and the teams they did not play.
In the Big 12 schedule rotation, Brigham Young missed two of the tied teams, the Cyclones and Buffaloes, and it played the Sun Devils on the road.
Had the schedule unfolded differently, the Cougars might have produced victories that changed the outcome of the tiebreaker.
But that’s life in the age of 16-team conferences that play nine league games and invariably have scheduling misses that impact the fate of contenders.
Is there a better process?
That’s for the Big 12 to determine this offseason. And it should consider anything and everything that places as many teams as possible in position to make the CFP field.
Related Articles
WBB power rankings: Betts, Watkins star as UCLA, USC top Best of West
MBB power rankings: Zags and Ducks on top as ASU climbs, Arizona falls
CFP rankings: Oregon, Texas, Penn St. on top as Alabama passes Miami
Arizona retains Brent Brennan: Why it’s the smart move
Pac-12 bowl projections: Oregon to Rose, Colorado to Alamo, USC to Sun
Yormark and his staff should take a deep dive into the non-conference scheduling strategy, the number of conference games, the placement of conference games within the competition calendar and the implementation of a flex scheduling component.
Should the Big 12 block off one or two weekends in November for the conference to create the best matchups for CFP access?
After all, the selection committee signaled weeks ago, through its placement of the Big 12 teams, that the conference wasn’t deemed worthy of an at-large berth.
And that second-tier existence has carried into these fateful final days.
Two of its two-loss teams, Brigham Young and Colorado, are behind four teams with three losses: Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi and, remarkably, Clemson, which has a No. 26 strength-of-record — 14 spots below the Cougars’ position.
If logos matter more than schedule strength, if the number of losses carries more weight than quality wins, the Big 12 should evaluate the whole shebang.
What happened to the Cougars specifically, and the conference generally, must be avoided in the future at all costs.
*** Send suggestions, comments and tips (confidentiality guaranteed) to wilnerhotline@bayareanewsgroup.com or call 408-920-5716
*** Follow me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline
