Playoff 'invitational' strikes again 🛑, Holler's homecoming and Mac attack
We sure know how you're feeling, Cincinnati. The G5 disrespect from the College Football Playoff committee continues as the Bearcats get snubbed in debut rankings.
We’ll have lots of playoff talk to come, but this nugget was absolutely bonkers to me. The four head coaches for the top four playoff teams were all on Alabama’s staff in 2015:
Georgia’s Kirby Smart (Defensive Coordinator)
Alabama’s Nick Saban
Michigan State’s Mel Tucker (Secondary Coach)
Oregon’s Mario Cristobal (Offensive Line Coach).
Long live the Nick Saban coaching tree.
Today’s read is 4 minutes ⏲️
Trending in the Kingdom: The disrespect continues 😤
Deja vu for the Group of 5, but what else did we expect? It’s the annual release of the initial College Football Playoff rankings and, once again, the committee finds a way to disrespect the best G5 club. Why am I even surprised anymore?
Here’s the scoop: Undefeated Cincinnati, who’s ranked No. 2 in the AP poll, debuts at No. 6 in the CFP rankings, essentially guaranteeing they need absolute chaos to ensue to earn a spot in the four-team playoff.
Their path to the Playoff feels all but blocked, despite being 8-0 and boasting a road win over No. 10 Notre Dame.
Here’s the Top 10 (full rankings here):
Georgia (8-0)
Alabama (7-1)
Michigan State (8-0)
Oregon (7-1)
Ohio State (7-1)
Cincinnati (8-0)
Michigan (7-1)
Oklahoma (9-0)
Wake Forest (8-0)
Notre Dame (7-1)
Welcome to the club 🤝: UCF won 25 straight games and couldn’t sniff the top six of the rankings, despite finishing undefeated in back-to-back regular seasons. Cincinnati now understands the wrath of the CFP cartel, which has always shunned Group of 5 teams for their “weak” schedule, despite consistently upsetting Power 5 programs.
"The committee has great respect for Cincinnati,” committee chairman Gary Barta said on ESPN. “The win at Notre Dame was a really impressive win, but who else did they beat?”
Falling back on the age-old strength-of-schedule excuse is classic. A Group of 5 team has never appeared in the four-team playoff rankings, which launched in 2014, and they may never under this model.
The argument for Cincinnati 👍: Their road win over No. 10 Notre Dame, which is No. 7 in the Sagarin rankings, is incredibly impressive and it ended the Irish’s 26-game home win streak. Teams like Oregon and Ohio State, who are ranked ahead of them, don’t have massively impressive wins outside of the obvious on their resume.
The argument against Cincinnati 👎: Their strength of schedule is currently ranked No. 100 in the country and doesn’t have much room for improvement with one-loss SMU left out of the rankings, Houston unranked and their a combined opponents record of 27-29.
Look, does Cincinnati deserve to be among the four best teams in the country? I’d argue Georgia, Alabama and Michigan State are solidly in the Top 3, even though Bama’s argument has holes, but that fourth spot is debatable. Oregon lost to a putrid 3-5 Stanford team in overtime and Ohio State’s best win is over No. 20 Penn State. I guess quality losses do matter more than quality wins.
As David Ubben wrote in The Athletic (subscription), Cincinnati isn’t the only ones getting snubbed here.
Undefeated UTSA (8-0) with a road win over Big Ten opponent Illinois and a win over Memphis isn’t ranked by the CFP. They’re 16th in the AP poll.
No. 17 Mississippi State and No. 21 Wisconsin have three losses and are in the CFP Top 25.
No. 20 Minnesota, at 6-3, lost to Bowling Green, who hasn’t won against another FBS team since 2019, and they’re ranked.
The media and coaches polls ranked seven Group of 5 teams. The committee ranked three.
What The Ringer wrote in 2018 after UCF was relegated to the Fiesta Bowl remains true a few years later:
“Despite Group of Five teams nominally being in the same competition as their richer Power Five cousins, there is a cap on how high the CFP committee is willing to rank a Group of Five team,” Michael Baumann wrote. “This was true under the BCS, when in 2007 undefeated Hawaii went to the Sugar Bowl while two-loss LSU went to the national championship game, but any hope that a four-team playoff would open the door for a Group of Five national championship bid has evaporated.”
“College football has always managed to keep non-power-conference teams just outside the national championship picture: When the BCS allowed two teams to play for the national title, undefeated TCU finished fourth and undefeated Boise State finished sixth in 2009. Undefeated TCU finished third in 2010, and one-loss Boise State finished seventh in 2011.”
Give me a Knugget 🐴: Over the last four seasons, 75-percent of the teams ranked in the initial top-four advanced to the playoff and 17 of 28 teams in the first set of the top-four (60.7%) have reached the playoff in the history of the four-team field, per 247Sports’ Brandon Marcello.
Where was this vocal Mike Aresco a few years ago? 🤔 The American Athletic Conference commissioner seems to enjoy standing up for his conference when it’s convenient for him to do so. He was notably luke-warm on UCF’s national championship claim a few years ago, despite how much the Knights elevated the conference’s brand.
Now, with his conference again taking a back seat, he’s taking shots at the playoff format - and the committee.
"These rankings, the more you look at them, they're indefensible," Aresco told ESPN. "It's clearly a [Power] 5 Invitational. We'll see what happens the rest of the year. Let's hope that something changes in the way this thing is being viewed."
I wouldn’t get too hopeful, commish.
What to keep an eye on 👀: The CFP management committee is scheduled to discuss the 12-team playoff model today and tomorrow.
Holler’s homecoming is special ❤️
#BuiltByUCF has become a mantra for Knights in the pros, but Alec Holler might be the true embodiment of that love-able hashtag.
Fill me in: Holler is coming off a breakout game against Temple, catching two touchdowns and leading UCF with 87 yards receiving. He leads all UCF tight ends with three touchdown grabs this season.
Holler grew up a UCF fan. He remembers attending games at the Citrus Bowl and the more recently at the Bounce House.
His aunt, uncle, older brother and sister are all UCF alums. Black and gold is in his blood. His brother, Max, is on the team as well.
Holler’s high school head coach at Trinity was Mike Kruczek, UCF’s former head coach, so there was a natural connection there as well.
"It's always been a dream to play Division I college football and especially for the hometown team, UCF,” Holler said this week. “Growing up always going to games…I remember going to the UCF-Texas game, the first game that was in the Bounce House, that game was electric. Just knowing that we have the best fans in college football and to be able to play in front of them…is really special.”
Holler was put on scholarship this past June, which was such a precious moment. He’s had to fight and claw his way up UCF’s roster, battling injuries in the past, but forced his way into playing time. It’s paying off.
The unstoppable Mac attack 🏐💥
UCF Volleyball has swept six-straight opponents and leading the way for the Knights is McKenna Melville, who continues to dominate, earning her fourth offensive player of the week honor this season. She has 11 career conference honors to her name.
Tell me more: Melville, a senior, has a chance to finish her career as the best attacker in program history, especially with an added year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This season, Melville’s stats are absurd.
495 points (No. 2 in the nation)
437 kills (No. 2 in the nation)
5.62 points per set (No. 3 in the nation)
4.97 kills per set (No. 6 in the nation)
12.35 attacks per set (10th in the nation)
Melville came into the 2021 season Top 10 in UCF history in career attempts (7th), kills (6th) and kills per set (3rd).
She now has 1,864 career kills, vaulting her into third place on UCF’s all-time list, the most career kills for a Knight since 1997. She’s 287 kills away from breaking Renata Menchikova’s record of 2,151 kills, which she’ll undoubtedly pass.
UCF is 18-6 overall, 11-1 in conference play, but is unranked in the Top 25. They are 21st in RPI, which points to them earning a spot in the NCAA Tournament, if they continue to take care of business.
Next up 📆: Friday, Nov. 5 at Cincinnati, 6:30 p.m. on ESPN+