Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek, the new chair of the College Football Playoff committee, replacing Baylor AD Mack Rhoades, who stepped down last week, spent last night talking out of both sides of his mouth while trying to justify the unjustifiable.
Alabama, the highest-ranked one-loss team last week, fell to No. 10 - the third highest-ranked two-loss team - after losing by two points to No. 8 Oklahoma in a fluky result.
Yurachek faced many direct questions about why Alabama fell so much, and particularly why the Crimson Tide would be behind Notre Dame despite a resume that is far superior to that of the Irish.
Yurachek danced all around, weaving inconsistent narratives that would make folks in Washington D.C. blush.
Yurachek cited quality of losses as the main metric that separated Alabama and Notre Dame. He, of course, ignored that, in their own rankings, Alabama has four times the number of Top 25 wins Notre Dame has.
He also penalized Alabama for a comeback road win over South Carolina a few weeks ago while praising Texas A&M for a comeback home win over that same Gamecocks team last week.
Yuracheck's comments on Alabama/Texas A&M and South Carolina tells you all you need to know
Yurachek on Alabama's win over South Carolina: “When you have one loss, and Alabama was rolling there in the middle of their season with those four wins -- Georgia, Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Tennessee -- and while they've continued to win games, they struggled on the road and had to score two touchdowns late in winning at South Carolina. Again, that was a game they didn't run the ball very well.”
Yurachek on Texas A&M's win over South Carolina: "I will tell you the committee, in evaluating the first half of A&M's game versus South Carolina, it did look very much like a No. 3 team, falling behind 30-3 and having four turnovers in that game. Then in the second half they looked everything like a No. 3 team in the country, dominating the second half with outscoring South Carolina 28-0, outgaining them 371 yards to 76 yards, holding South Carolina to 11 yards of total offense in the fourth quarter. I mean, what the committee saw in both Indiana and Texas A&M, good teams find ways to win games when they don't play their best, and that's what Indiana and Texas A&M both did, Indiana on the road at Penn State and Texas A&M at home this past weekend against South Carolina."
This also conveniently ignores that Notre Dame was recently in a dogfight with one-win Boston College. The Irish won the game by 15, but led by only two points with less than a minute to go in the third quarter.
Alabama's loss to Florida State was bad, no doubt. But it's no worse this week than it was a week ago when the Tide was ranked No. 4 as the highest-ranked one-loss team. If that didn't justify a lower ranking before, it shouldn't now.
The truth of the matter is that the Athletic Director at Arkansas wouldn't know what a playoff team looked like if it bit him in the ass.