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 School 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 might be legal if we’re not in. It might be unsuitable. It might be unsuitable on so many ranges, not simply to our workforce. It might be unsuitable to what school soccer stands for — to what it’s.”
Possibly 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 extremely, actually good soccer workforce,” Swinney mentioned. “No method 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 School Soccer Playoff Choice Committee decides may additional shake the foundations of a playoff system that has undergone great modifications 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 discipline aim after it erased two separate 17-point deficits in a thirteenth recreation that nearly 90% of FBS groups haven’t got to fret about?
“Our workforce deserves an opportunity to be in,” Lashlee mentioned. “It would not matter what I say, however it might be extremely unsuitable. I believe it might be unprecedented. It might set a extremely dangerous precedent. It might break all of the ideas 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 School Soccer Playoff rankings reveal — which noticed SMU land at No. 8 — committee chairman Warde Manuel was requested if SMU would drop out of the sphere totally with a loss.
“Doubtlessly, sure,” Manuel mentioned.
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 median of 19.4 factors per recreation. Each of their losses have been the results of late discipline objectives, and their first loss — in Week 2 towards BYU — got here earlier than the Mustangs made a everlasting quarterback change 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 mentioned. “We have been in. We may haven’t confirmed up, and in line with what we have been informed Tuesday night time we might be in. So we confirmed up and we competed our butts off.”
So why is there a lot doubt across the Mustangs? Saturday’s consequence dropped them to 0-2 towards at present ranked groups. SMU’s power 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 can be weighed towards 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 towards at present ranked groups, together with a Georgia squad that beat Texas within the SEC Championship Sport moments earlier than SMU kicked off towards Clemson. Alabama additionally has two losses towards unranked groups, together with a 21-point defeat towards 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 contemplate 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 mentioned. “We responded like a workforce who may get into this 12-team playoff and win 4 in a row.
“Would love the chance to do this.”
