CHARLOTTE — SMU coach Rhett Lashlee was adamant close to the beginning of his almost 16-minute press convention following his workforce’s 34-31 loss to Clemson within the ACC Championship Sport that he didn’t have a message for the Faculty Soccer Playoff choice committee.
In his personal phrases: “They do not care what I say.”
Lashlee then made calculated remarks about SMU’s playoff outlook all through the rest of his almost 16-minute press convention.
“I haven’t got a message,” Lashlee emphasised.
Adopted instantly by:
“It could be legal if we’re not in. It could be incorrect. It could be incorrect on so many ranges, not simply to our workforce. It could be incorrect to what school soccer stands for — to what it’s.”
Perhaps that is not a direct message, however it does sound like a coach banging the drum for his workforce because the playoff’s movers and shakers deliberate over what to do with SMU forward of Sunday’s choice present.
Even Clemson coach Dabo Swinney went to bat for the Mustangs.
“That is a very, actually good soccer workforce,” Swinney stated. “No manner ought to they be punished. They’re each little bit of the eighth workforce within the nation tonight. Each little bit of it.”
Regardless of the Faculty Soccer Playoff Choice Committee decides might additional shake the foundations of a playoff system that has undergone large adjustments lately.
It boils all the way down to a not-so-simple query: does the committee punish SMU for dropping by three factors on a walk-off subject objective after it erased two separate 17-point deficits in a thirteenth recreation that just about 90% of FBS groups haven’t got to fret about?
“Our workforce deserves an opportunity to be in,” Lashlee stated. “It does not matter what I say, however it might be extremely incorrect. I feel it might be unprecedented. It could set a very unhealthy precedent. It could break all of the rules of what we have been informed.”
We have been informed the committee is not going to punish groups that play in convention championship video games. Then, after the penultimate Faculty Soccer Playoff rankings reveal — which noticed SMU land at No. 8 — committee chairman Warde Manuel was requested if SMU would drop out of the sector solely with a loss.
“Doubtlessly, sure,” Manuel stated.
Thus, the scenario that SMU at present finds itself in was born.
On its face, SMU is the mannequin of a contemporary CFP workforce. The Mustangs gained 11 video games and went undefeated in convention play of their first 12 months as a Energy 4 convention program. These 11 wins got here by a mean of 19.4 factors per recreation. Each of their losses had been the results of late subject targets, and their first loss — in Week 2 in opposition to BYU — got here earlier than the Mustangs made a everlasting quarterback swap to Kevin Jennings.
“If you are going to take a workforce that goes 8-0 in an influence convention, one of many three finest conferences, solely two groups did that,” Lashlee stated. “We had been in. We might haven’t confirmed up, and in accordance with what we had been informed Tuesday evening we would be in. So we confirmed up and we competed our butts off.”
So why is there a lot doubt across the Mustangs? Saturday’s end result dropped them to 0-2 in opposition to at present ranked groups. SMU’s energy of schedule ranks sixtieth within the nation, per ESPN’s Soccer Energy Index. For context, that is simply behind the likes of ULM (56) and South Florida (59).
Realistically, SMU might be weighed in opposition to a trio of 9-3 SEC groups: Alabama, South Carolina and Ole Miss. Particularly the Crimson Tide, who landed at No. 11 — the final at-large bid within the newest set of rankings.
Alabama has three wins in opposition to at present ranked groups, together with a Georgia squad that beat Texas within the SEC Championship Sport moments earlier than SMU kicked off in opposition to Clemson. Alabama additionally has two losses in opposition to unranked groups, together with a 21-point defeat in opposition to an Oklahoma workforce that completed 2-6 in SEC play.
And people losses price Alabama a spot in its personal convention’s championship recreation. These are the information the choice committee should take into account when shuffling groups.
So, after a heartbreaking loss on the ACC’s largest stage, SMU now has to attend over 12 painstaking hours to search out out its destiny.
“We responded like a championship workforce,” Lashlee stated. “We responded like a workforce who might get into this 12-team playoff and win 4 in a row.
“Would love the chance to do this.”
