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Kirby Hocutt explains why CFP committee chose Alabama over Ohio State
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Heading into Sunday, the question was: Who is going to be the No. 4 team in the College Football Playoff? Alabama or Ohio State? Well, the playoff committee answered with the Crimson Tide and in their minds, it wasn’t even a question really.
According to CFP Chairman Kirby Hocutt, Alabama was clearly the No. 4 team, even if it wasn’t a conference champion like Ohio State.
Hocutt: “Alabama was clearly the No. 4 ranked team as a non-champion.”
— Bill Rabinowitz (@brdispatch) December 3, 2017
The reasoning behind the committee believing the Crimson Tide was better than the Buckeyes is because of the Scarlet and Gray’s 31-point loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes in November. In the committee’s mind, that loss was just to damaging.
Kirby Hocutt confirms what every Buckeye fan already knew. The “damaging loss” to Iowa hurt Ohio State’s “body of work” too much.
— Dan Murphy (@DanMurphyESPN) December 3, 2017
Kirby Hocutt on OSU: “More damaging was the 31-point loss to Iowa.”
— Bill Rabinowitz (@brdispatch) December 3, 2017
Kirby Hocutt basically just said Ohio State’s 31-point loss to Iowa was the deciding factor.
“Alabama was clearly the No. 4 ranked team as a non-champion.”
— Dr. Saturday (@YahooDrSaturday) December 3, 2017
Yes, Ohio State had several big time wins over Penn State, Michigan State, and Wisconsin. However, that loss to Iowa compared to Alabama’s loss to Auburn, was just to hard to overlook. But, the Buckeyes’ Director of Player Personal Mark Pantoni did bring attention to the contradiction from the committee’s comments from last week to this week.
Last week – “very little separation between teams 5-8”
Win conference championship over very good undefeated team
Today Alabama is “unequivocally better”
🤔
— Mark Pantoni (@markpantoni) December 3, 2017
While people will argue whether or not the committee got the top-4 correct, everyone can agree on that being on the committee is hard job.