ACC’s Jim Phillips slams CFP for dropping Miami below Alabama: ‘I was stunned’
ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips made an appearance on ESPN’s “College GameDay” on Saturday to make his thoughts known – again – on the College Football Committee ranking No. 11 Alabama ahead of No. 12 Miami.
“I was stunned to see Miami, who went into the last weekend sixth-ranked team in the country, go to a top-25 team at Syracuse and lose by 4 and fall six spots, when an Alabama team went and played Auburn, a 2-6 team, and jumped up two spots – an eight-spot swing in one weekend was unbelievable, I think, to the ACC,” Phillips said.
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The Hurricanes dropped two of its final three regular-season games, losing on the road to Georgia Tech and Syracuse.
“Miami has two losses all year,” he said. “A loss at Georgia Tech, who’s 7-3 with Haynes King as quarterback. And we all saw how good Georgia Tech was on that Friday after Thanksgiving (against Georgia),” Phillips said. “And to a 9-3 Syracuse team who’s top-25 in the country. The committee has said on multiple times, ‘We really are about watching winning teams. We value winning.’ And that’s what our teams have done.”
In the end, the ACC has done what is required against other conferences, he said.
“We’ve had a winning record against the Big Ten,” Phillip said. “We’ve had a winning record against the Big 12. We’ve won more games against the SEC than any other conference. We have fulfilled that. And for Miami to be leapfrogged in the last weekend, eight spots, when on the same weekend you had Michigan play Ohio State, Ohio State was a huge favorite in the game. They lost the game to a 6-5 Michigan team and fell four spots. It doesn’t make sense.”
Mark Heim is a reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim. He can be heard on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5 FM in Mobile or on the free Sound of Mobile App from 6 to 9 a.m. daily.