All season, Texas Tech football fans have been frustrated by the fact that the Red Raiders have not been as dominant on the field as expected. Now, according to the College Football Selection Committee Chairman, Hunter Yurachek, that is hurting their playoff ranking.
Tuesday, the committee released its first set of playoff rankings, and Tech checked in at No. 15, which is not great considering that only 12 teams make the field. What has Tech fans angry is that there are a number of two-loss teams ranked ahead of the 7-1 Red Raiders.
One specific two-loss team, LSU, sits at No. 14 despite having a questionable resume. The Tigers have managed to secure no wins over teams in the top 25 of the committee's rankings, and both of the ranked teams they beat earlier in the season (Texas A&M and Mississippi State) are no longer ranked.
However, the Tigers are viewed more favorably than Tech. Though it is only one spot in the rankings, seeing LSU placed ahead of the Red Raiders sends a clear message. What that message is, though, depends on whether you take Yurachek (the Arkansas A.D.) at his word.
"I think that the committee thinks highly of Texas Tech," he said Tuesday, "and you look at when they went on the road a couple of weeks ago, didn't play well against Cincinnati, and give Cincinnati a lot of credit for that. That's followed up with what Utah went to Cincinnati and did this past week."
Holding the loss at Cincinnati against Tech is fair. It was the Red Raiders' worst performance of the season. However, it feels as if other teams aren't being penalized as heavily for losses to unranked teams.
For instance, Texas has a loss to unranked Oklahoma at a neutral site. Yet the Longhorns sit at No. 7 in the rankings.
Georgia was beaten at home by a bad Auburn team. However, the Bulldogs are No. 2 in the first rankings.
BYU has only one ranked win this year, and their lone loss was a road setback against a bad UCF team. And just like Cincinnati did the week after beating Tech, UCF laid a tremendous egg against Baylor the week after beating BYU. Still, the Cougars sit at No. 9.
Then, there's Notre Dame, which has no wins over ranked teams this year. However, thanks to their cupcake schedule, they've looked dominant in their wins. So they are inside the top 12 at No. 11.
Yurachek was asked specifically about ranking LSU ahead of Tech and his reply was telling.
"I think you'll have to really lean on the loss that [Texas Tech] had at Cincinnati two weeks ago for that reason. LSU has a loss against Kentucky, who's ranked 6 in our poll, and a loss to Ole Miss, who's ranked 10th in our poll, and LSU has looked good, and the games that they have won, they have dominated those games against some really stiff competition within the SEC, and then that season-opening win that they had against Clemson."
The takeaway from that assessment is that Texas Tech hasn't won big enough while playing a schedule perceived to be weaker than most. The close calls against Oregon State and Houston, as well as the ugly wins over Colorado and Sam Houston, are being held against the Red Raiders.
Also being held against Tech is the fact that they are not in the SEC. Yurachek specifically mentions the "stiff competition" that LSU has played in the SEC as a reason the Tigers are ahead of the Red Raiders. (It is also laughable that the win over a dreadful, unranked Clemson team is given as a positive bullet point for LSU.)
We all knew that the perception of the SEC would lead to bias in the rankings, and now we have confirmation from the chairman. That means that Tech is going to continue to fight an uphill battle the rest of the season.
The Red Raiders must not only win out to reach the playoffs, but they must also win emphatically moving forward. No more letting unranked teams hang around and make life difficult. Tech better win big if they want to start to make their way up the playoff rankings. But even if that happens, it is fair to wonder if the SEC bias will be too much to overcome.
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