College Football Playoff chairman Gary Barta spoke to reporters on a conference call Tuesday night following the announcement of the CFP’s second top 25 of the season. This week’s top six did not change from last week.
Alabama still held onto the top spot followed by Notre Dame in second, Clemson in third, and Ohio State fourth. While one point of controversy was the fact that Texas A&M remains in the fifth position, just one notch out of the playoff and ahead of sixth-seed Florida which lost to the Aggies in early October, another has started up involving the Aggies vis a vis the Buckeyes who may be running out of opportunities to impress the committee due to circumstances beyond their control.
How much does a head-to-head victory matter (between the Aggies and Gators)?
Well, it matters. It definitely is one of the criteria that we use to evaluate.
Both teams, they’re both with one loss. Texas A&M’s only loss is to Alabama. They beat Florida, as you mentioned. Most recently last week, you watched the Kentucky game that Florida played, and that was a first half that really Kentucky was playing well in. Florida eventually ended up pulling away. Texas A&M, again, continued to play great defense.
When you go through all those criteria, at the end of the day I would say there was a lot of back and forth. Kyle Pitts is back for Florida. He had three touchdowns. He’s a difference maker.
At the end of the day, Texas A&M, with all those other criteria, Texas A&M did beat Florida. That ends up tipping it over to Texas A&M’s side.
