Boo Corrigan
CFP Media Conference
BRETT DANIELS: I’d like to welcome everybody to the
fourth College Football Playoff Selection Committee
teleconference for the 2022 season. Joining us again here
tonight will be Bill Hancock, the executive director of the
College Football Playoff, along with Boo Corrigan, the
College Football Playoff committee chair.
At this time we’ll go into our Q&A segment.
Q. I’m trying to get my head around LSU being ranked
ahead of Clemson. They each have a blowout loss,
LSU to Tennessee, Clemson to Notre Dame, both
top-15 teams, but LSU has that loss, virtual home loss
to Florida State, a team that Clemson beat on the road.
How much do you consider common opponents as far
as ranking those two teams? We talked about it and
you told me a few weeks ago that the committee
values that Clemson win over NC State as a legitimate
top-10, top-15 win because they had Devin Leary at
that time. Nobody in the national media is giving
Clemson credit for that win as a quality win. Does the
committee continue to value that win over NC State as
a top-10 or top-15 win?
BOO CORRIGAN: Let me try to take the first one. Again,
we’re looking for growth during the course of the season,
and LSU since that loss to Florida State and the way that
they’ve played and the way they’ve continued to improve,
the win over Alabama, the convincing win over Mississippi
are two things that we’ve really looked at.
With regard to Clemson, yeah, it does matter. 6-1 against
teams over .500; the two ranked teams are in there. But
as we looked at it in the comparable to the Notre Dame
loss in South Bend 35-14 and how that game kind of went
down as each member of the committee who was watching
it and studying it and looking at everything came back with
the conclusion that we saw LSU at 5 and Clemson at 8.
Q. How much conversation or debate is there among
the committee members about TCU being higher either
ahead of Michigan at No. 3 or possibly all the way up
to No. 2 over Ohio State?
BOO CORRIGAN: There’s conversation. Every week we
go through it and make sure that the first thing we do is
look at 1 through 4 and make sure that we’re comparing it
and looking at the games from the previous week as well
as both offense and defense. When you look at the
balance of Ohio State, the balance of Michigan, TCU is 8-0
against teams above .500, which is really impressive, and
it’s been impressive to the committee, but again, as we
look at their ability to come back in games where to a large
degree Ohio State and Michigan have not, and as I said
last week, that win over Notre Dame by Ohio State is an
impressive second wind on top of the Penn State win.
Q. I wanted to ask about UCF; they lost to Navy this
weekend. What kind of discussion was there about
keeping UCF in the top 25 and how close was it?
BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, still two really good wins over
Tulane and over Cincinnati. The defense has been strong.
The 17-14 loss to Navy where Navy controls the ball, it’s a
different kind of game that you’re playing in that respect.
But they’ve had a really good season. Coach Malzahn has
done a really good job, and clearly there’s a lot of respect
from the committee for UCF to drop two spots.
Q. I’m curious, as soon as we get to the point where
we’re comparing a one-loss Clemson to a one-loss Big
Ten team, how did the committee decide to put
Louisville in the top 25 over Illinois or Purdue or Iowa
or Minnesota when particularly Illinois and Purdue
have a common opponent with Louisville that they
both fared better than Louisville did?
BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, Louisville has won five of the last
six games. They’re 5-3 against teams ranked above .500.
They also have that win over UCF. Two of their losses
were to Florida State and Clemson, and the comparable in
making sure that we’re going through the teams quite
frankly that are in that 7-4 area and making sure that we’re
doing all we can to figure out which ones deserve in there.
But there’s no talk of conference or any of that in what
we’re doing. We’re trying to find the best 25 teams.
Q. I wanted to ask you, how do you value Clemson’s
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resume overall, and also, when the committee looks at
this, the value of a one-loss conference champion and
then also how you guys value a one-loss
nonconference champion?
BOO CORRIGAN: You know, protocol, conference
championships are part of what we talk about, so from that
standpoint, clearly I’m not going to project forward as it
relates to that.
But a really good football team. I think it’s trying to figure
out what stands out for them. Really good defensive line,
really good defensively with what they’ve done 6-1 against
teams over .500. Again, I know this can sound repetitive,
but in watching them, you’re looking for something that
makes them different, makes them stand out. In that
respect Coach Swinney has done a great job again this
year with his team, but the committee views them as the
No. 8 team.
Q. What is separating USC and LSU right now, USC
with just the one loss by one point?
BOO CORRIGAN: Well, we talked a lot about it, is what I
would say before anything else, and made sure that it
wasn’t a single conversation. It came up over and over
again to make sure, and there’s reasons for both teams,
but the committee at the end of the day saw the wins over
Alabama and Mississippi as stronger than the wins over
UCLA and Oregon State.
One area we still have questions on is the strength of the
defense of USC, and looking at it in its entirety, we believe
that LSU deserved to be ranked 5 and SC 6.
Q. I was wondering if you could go into any more
specifics about what you want to see from USC’s
defense, and I also wanted to ask you what the
committee thinks about Clemson’s offense
specifically.
BOO CORRIGAN: Well, the SC defense, that’s projecting
into what it is, but again, when you look at that game, and
what a great game it was, 48-45, I think we’re looking for a
stronger showing by the defense. As a committee, a more
dominant win in those situations to continue to move
forward.
Will Shipley from Clemson is a dynamic player for them. I
think they’ve had maybe a little bit of ups and downs with
regards to the quarterback position that we’ve talked about
in the room. But again, a really good team that’s had a
really good year, and through week 12 that’s our
evaluation.
Q. Gentlemen, I was wondering if any conversation
came up during your debates about LSU taking on
UAB or Alabama playing Austin Peay this late in the
season while you have teams like USC playing at the
Rose Bowl against UCLA or Oregon hosting Utah. I
know it got a lot of flak on Saturday when Joel Klatt
was saying, give me a break, what a joke, about teams
playing, quote-unquote, cupcakes this late in the
season. I wondered if any of that came up in any of
your debates this week.
BOO CORRIGAN: You know, we’re really looking at the
whole body of work. We’re in week 12. People have
played different people throughout the season, some
stronger than others, and our goal really is to look at the
whole resume at this point and make sure that we’re
evaluating the entire resume instead of one single data
point that you can get sucked into at times and making
sure that we’re making the bigger, broader decision that we
have to make and make sure we get that right based on
being through week 12.
Q. My question is how much weight did the committee
give to Hendon Hooker’s injury when ranking
Tennessee?
BOO CORRIGAN: Yeah, when you think about the game,
it was 49-31 at the time when he went out of the game, and
all we can do is evaluate from the start of the game to the
end of the game, if you will. While it clearly affected
Tennessee at that point, it was 49-31. If I remember
correctly, they had a short field as a result of that, and soon
after that went up 56-31.
Again, it’s something that we did all acknowledge in the
room, but it wasn’t something that drove us to a different
conclusion.
BRETT DANIELS: We’d like to thank everyone for their
participation.
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