On playing top teams multiple weeks in a row and how that impacts the rankings:
Question from the media: At the end of the year you guys have all the
resumes in totality and you can stack them up against each other one by one, X many wins against top-25 opponents and all that stuff. But I was wondering when you look at a schedule and how it lays out, do you guys weigh in in any way if a team has to play top-15 opponents in consecutive weeks or three weeks in a row, and how does that factor into a resume? Is it just here’s how many wins they have against top-25 opponents or does the fact that a team wins those games consecutively and they’re probably pretty
tough circumstances, like that impacts the way you view them?
ROB MULLENS: Again, when we put those resumes on the board, we see the games in sequential order. And we see what the rankings are. So we recognize that, and that’s a piece of it. But so is the entire resume.
Follow up on playing tough teams for weeks in a row:
Question from the media: Is there a distinction between a team beats the 14th, 12th, 16th teams on their resume, and if they beat them all in a row, does it carry more weight? Do you see what I’m saying? Or is it just what it is
at the end?
ROB MULLENS: Well, it probably depends. When you’re comparing them against a team that beat No. 5, No. 9, No. 12 and No. 13, that’s all part of the
conversation. Sure, the sequence is discussed and who they beat is discussed, but so is another team’s resume who’s beaten highly ranked teams, as well.
On what the Committee was thinking during the first half of the Big Ten Championship Game:
Question from the media: Without violating the sanctity of the discussions, can you talk about, I guess paint the picture of watching the Big Ten Championship game together, the value in being with the other committee members, and what can you say about what you guys were talking about last night when Ohio State was down 21-7 in the first half? Is there any sort of reaction you can share from within the room as the game unfolded and how the discussions contributed to the decisions?
ROB MULLENS: Sure, we don’t really have the deliberations while the game is going on, but we’re watching it just like you would watch it. We’re oohing and aahing at big plays, we’re talking about the strategy that’s being employed and about certain players and how they’re playing. But we save the debate until the results because things change and adjustments are made at halftime, and our job is to look at results. But we’ll watch it just like you would watch it, oohing and aahing at big plays and seeing how it unfolds.
More on the biggest rationale for putting LSU ahead of Ohio state:
Question from the media: Apologies there were technical issues earlier. I
think we missed 10 minutes maybe of this. If you could just speak to what was the most compelling argument for moving LSU ahead of Ohio State?
ROB MULLENS: I think the most compelling argument — these are two very close teams, as you’ve seen. I think in our six rankings, one has been No. 1 three times and the other has been No. 1 three times. As I mentioned earlier in the call, it’s just a matter of one does something to move slightly ahead of the other, and this weekend LSU beat a highly-ranked, at the time, No. 4 Georgia team in an impressive fashion in the SEC Championship. That ended up being their fourth win against teams that are ranked 13 or higher in the final CFP poll. Their defense has improved and shown a lot over the last two weeks as they’ve gotten healthy, and once again, their outstanding quarterback play was on display last night.
On what time the Committee members went to bed, and what it meant to come back in at 8:00 in the morning:
Question from the media: I know you guys get to bed really late. I was wondering what time you actually went to bed, and you guys think a lot about coming back to this. What lingering questions did you have heading into this morning that you knew you guys would have to get back into today?
ROB MULLENS: What time did I go to bed personally? Well, I went back, and again, looked at the sheet, looked at the results, thought in my mind, as the chair, what are the things that we need to make sure that we put on the table to make sure that we’ve been thorough. And we do this every week, and make sure that we engage every member to make sure everybody that went back that night and reviewed it had an opportunity to put anything on the table to discuss, 1 through 25, and when we came back, everybody agreed that we should spend considerable time on 1 through 3 again, and then we wanted to visit the Group of Five again because of what that meant. Even though the rankings have been consistent, we wanted to do it one last time to make sure we were confident and 100 percent certain we got it right because of what was on the line. That was consistent with what I felt we needed to make sure we did.
What time did I go to sleep? I don’t even know. I kind of drifted out with the papers in my hand.
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