Rhett Lashlee Has Stark Warning For College Football If SMU Is Left Out Of CFP With Clemson Loss
Are we headed towards a world where playing in the conference championship game is going to cost a team a spot in the college football playoff? We might find out this weekend when SMU and Clemson battle for the ACC title, and Mustangs head coach Rhett Lashlee is trying to prepare folks for a situation that would change the sport.
Coming out of the CFP rankings on Tuesday night, chairman Warde Manuel did not say no when asked whether SMU could be bumped from the rankings if they were to lose in the ACC title game. This left the door open for a number of possibilities if Clemson were to win, and Alabama would get in over the Mustangs.
The possibility is there, which is why Alabama fans will need to be cheering for the Mustangs to take care of the Tigers on Saturday night, which would prevent the conversation surrounding a 3-loss SEC team getting in over SMU.
But there's always a catch in these situations, and Mustangs head coach Rhett Lashlee made it clear in an interview with On3 that there could be massive ramifications if SMU were to be left out after losing in a conference title game.
When asked if coaches would consider tanking conference title games, or not even playing in them to prevent losing a playoff spot, Rhett Lashlee did not hold back on what could come from that type of situation.
"If our team all got Covid today and didn’t play, we're in," Lashlee said. "We're in, right? We don't have a data point to drop us below anybody that's behind us. I think if you open that door you’ll see a lot of people do a lot of crazy things. Yes.
"We're not going to. We're gonna go play in Charlotte and we're gonna go try to compete for a championship because it's the right thing to do. That's what competitors do. We value the opportunity to share the field with someone like Clemson, a fantastic team, and try to do something special."
He's certainly not wrong, and Lashlee is not the first coach to think this way, and he will not be the last. Sure, there will be arguments made from both Alabama and SMU if Clemson were to win the ACC title on Saturday night, which would leave that final spot to either the Crimson Tide' or Mustangs.
What Would The CFP Committee Do In This Situation?
When asked this specific question during the CFP teleconference on Tuesday night, chairman Warde Manuel did not give a clear answer that SMU would be in, even though they might lose in the title game.
"You know, that is something that we will decide in the room at the conclusion of those games when we evaluate what happens in the championship. I can't sort of go into the future and tell you exactly how the outcome of that discussion will be. It depends on the outcome of the game and how it's played and the results themselves.
"We will just have to wait and see how the committee is going to analyze that game depending on the outcome, where things will go in terms of rankings and how people will move or will not move."
In speaking with a few different Power-4 coaches on Tuesday regarding this matter, every single one of them pointed out that the risk of losing a spot in the playoff would be something that would have to be discussed at that point in time.
But, the overwhelming sentiment is that there would be a massive uprising, and it would force teams to make a tough decision on risking a spot in the postseason for a title game.
If we get to that point on Sunday morning, discussing whether SMU or Alabama deserves to be in the playoff, it will be a moment in college football that will likely change the sport going forward.