COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 14, 2023

Boo Corrigan

Bill Hancock

CFP Media Conference

BRETT DANIELS: I'd like to welcome everyone to the third College Football Playoff Selection Committee teleconference for the 2023 season. Once again joining us tonight will be Bill Hancock, the executive director of the College Football Playoff, along with Boo Corrigan, the College Football Playoff Selection Committee chair. At this time I'd like to turn it over to Boo for a brief opening comment.

BOO CORRIGAN: Good evening. We have concluded our third week of work as a Selection Committee, and as you know the committee has ranked Georgia 1, Ohio State 2, Michigan 3 and Florida State 4.

Before I take your questions, I want to let the group know that Rod West was not able to join us this week. Once again, this had no impact on the work of the Selection Committee. As you know, it's not the first time a member has missed a meeting, nor will it be the last.

I'm sure you have questions about this week's rankings, and I'm happy to take them.

Q. I know that James Madison is not yet eligible, but has there been any discussion about their status, and if they are declared eligible, would you be able to give a good evaluation of them off just one or two weeks?

BILL HANCOCK: I'll take that one. You know, the facts here haven't changed regarding JMU. The committee considers all teams that are eligible to play in the postseason, and that's where things stand.

We understand JMU has appealed to the NCAA. Of course we don't know the results of that appeal. But we will be ready to consider any team that's eligible for postseason play.

Q. How do you weigh the head-to-head with Texas and Alabama as Alabama gets better?

BOO CORRIGAN: Well, again, two really good teams. Alabama has continued to improve, and Jalen Milroe has gotten better each week.

As we look at it, the importance of the head-to-head is there, just as conference championships are.

But as I think I said on the show, the debate in the room continues to be strong as we're going through this and making sure that we're looking at everything as we gather more information.

The teams are different. Texas has Quinn Ewers back after being gone for a couple weeks.

We'll continue to look at it, but head-to-head certainly is important.

Q. On Washington and Florida State, how much of a concern is Washington's defense in the room, even in spite of a solid second half when they shut out Utah?

BOO CORRIGAN: I think when you look at that, that is a factor in what's going on as well as the Arizona State and Stanford, close games there with two teams that have won a combined six games this year.

But we're going to continue to look at it and continue to evaluate week over week. You saw today a little bit when you look at the whole 25, it's a clean sheet every week as we come in and we continue to debate it.

Q. How would you characterize the conversation right now between Ohio State and Michigan for 2 and 3, and did this past week's results where Michigan finally played a ranked team and Ohio State had probably its most dominant performance of the season affect those conversations?

BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, again, looking at Ohio State, the wins over Penn State that they now share with Michigan, Ohio State has got the win over Notre Dame, 5-0 against teams with winning records, top 5 defense. Their offense, to your point, put up 38 last week, and Michigan continues to come along and continues to be dominant in the games that they've played.

As go through it each week, we continue to look at everything, and after week 11 we ended up with Ohio State at 2 and Michigan at 3.

Q. I was wondering about Ole Miss, a team that's got a couple good wins at LSU and Tulane, albeit against a backup quarterback, but having lost in the manner they did to Georgia, what was the conversation like with them, and why did you have them falling the spots that you did?

BOO CORRIGAN: Well, again, looking at the two wins that they do have, their two losses are to Alabama and Georgia. Really high-powered offense in what they do. A lot of respect in the room for Mississippi and how they play.

But again, last week with Georgia and that 38-3 run after tying the game 14-all, we felt as a committee comfortable with them at 13.

Q. I know you talked about this on TV, but with Georgia going to No. 1, how difficult was that conversation, and looks like they finally made a pretty big statement, but I'm wondering how tough was it to make the flip to Georgia this week?

BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, we go in there every week and repeat it again with a clean sheet. You look at the Missouri win, Missouri's win in turn over Tennessee and the Mississippi win, and looking at the totality of the schedule as we go through this, and 5-0 against teams that are .500 and better, the win over Florida, the win over Kentucky, and Penn State continues to be a really good team, particularly with their defense and their offense coming along and having dynamic players on the offensive side of the ball like Marvin Harrison, Jr.

Again, active strong debate in the room as we're going through this, but we as a group came up with Georgia 1 and Ohio State 2.

Q. You mentioned Ohio State's offense the last couple weeks but specifically this past week. How much can one week sort of change a perception of a team on one side of the ball if they have a performance like Ohio State did this week on the offensive side?

BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, good question. As we're looking at it, it's them, but it's also what the teams around them do. So we're trying to take everything -- you're seeing improvement from a lot of the teams that we're talking about in how they're playing. In some cases players coming back from injury and just making sure that we're trying to read the whole piece of what's going on, and Ohio State has been hit by the injury bug, as well, and seeing them have their guys back on the field continues to impress the committee. You can't get much closer than those two.

Q. Can you justify and also tell me how much time you guys went ahead and the conversations you guys had with putting Georgia up to No. 1 and Ohio State to No. 2?

BOO CORRIGAN: A lot of time. We talked about it early, we talked about it in the middle, we talked about it at the end and made sure that as we go through this and the voting process that there's healthy, strong debates, conversations around each one of the teams, and then in comparison to the other teams in making sure that we're tracking where the games are and who's in, who's playing again, who's out, all of those things.

But this is a locked-in group. We go into the room and we lock in, and we eat something, and then we'll lock in again, and then we'll sleep and we'll lock in again.

It's a constant focus of everyone in the room to really be prideful about what we're doing and understanding what our mission is.

Q. My question concerns the drop of Utah. All their losses this year have come against ranked teams either in the CFP or the AP Coaches, and they took No. 5 Washington to the brink on the road. That's still a fairly steep drop for them. What went into your consideration for the drop?

BOO CORRIGAN: Keep in mind as we're going through this, six of the ranked teams between 9 and 18 lost last week, so you have teams losing, you have teams moving up, et cetera, as you go through it, and while there are three close games or games against Oregon, Oregon State and Washington, looking at the UCLA and California wins -- Southern California wins, as the committee looked at it and talked about it and talked about the teams around them, we were comfortable with Utah at 22.