First impression of Indiana and Texas A&M from new CFP Committee Chair?: 'Good teams find ways to win games'

The updated College Football Playoff rankings were revealed on Tuesday night and had Indiana football at No. 2 again, one spot behind Ohio State — no movement from the initial rankings.

Oregon was the other Big Ten team to make the initial 12-team playoff bracket, slotting in at No. 7. So, based on the current projections, Indiana would play the winner of No. 7 Oregon and No. 10 Alabama in the quarterfinals.

Indiana and Ohio State both remain unbeaten, as does Texas A&M — the No. 3 seed.

The Hoosiers and Buckeyes are on a collision course to face off in the Big Ten Championship game in Indianapolis.

What are some of the factors under consideration when seeding the teams? How did Indiana match up with Texas A&M, especially after both teams needed come-from-behind wins over the last two weeks?

Here are some of the key answers New CFP chairman Hunter Yurachek gave regarding Indiana, Texas A&M and top seeds potentially losing in a conference championship game.

Q.  Curious, I know A&M had a come from behind win this week, Indiana had a come from behind win two weeks ago. Was there conversations on both those games, how they were maybe similar and different, and how much maybe those two games factored into the discussion between A&M and Indiana?

HUNTER YURACHEK: I will tell you the committee, in evaluating the first half of A&M’s game versus South Carolina, it did look very much like a No. 3 team, falling behind 30-3 and having four turnovers in that game. Then in the second half they looked everything like a No. 3 team in the country, dominating the second half with outscoring South Carolina 28-0, out gaining them 371 yards to 76 yards, holding South Carolina to 11 yards of total offense in the fourth quarter.

I mean, what the committee saw in both Indiana and Texas A&M, good teams find ways to win games when they don’t play their best, and that’s what Indiana and Texas A&M both did, Indiana on the road at Penn State and Texas A&M at home this past weekend against South Carolina.

Q.  I was going to ask about maybe if you could talk a little bit more about Texas A&M. Does that first half have the potential to come back and haunt them, or would that be just neutralized by the way they played in the third and fourth quarter?

HUNTER YURACHEK: From a committee standpoint, I think the second half definitively neutralized the way they played in the first half, especially when you find a way to win a game like that, when you are not very good and you’re not your typical self in that first half.

Then how they dominated, I mean literally dominated, the second half, again, 370-plus total yards to 76, allowing 11 total yards in the fourth quarter. Really coming back with those 28 points and taking control of that game, they looked like a top three team in the second half of that game.

So I think it really just balances itself out, and of course the win helps and keeps them undefeated at 10-0.

Q.  For the top four teams, what would a loss in the conference championship do to kind of affect their status with a first round bye, without a first round bye? Where does the committee stand on that?

HUNTER YURACHEK: We will just use the conference championship games as another data point to use in ranking our teams. It’s hard to say if it will move a team up or down until we really have that data point and are able to compare that against other teams that play that weekend in conference championship games.

So it just becomes an extra point for those teams participating in the conference championship games.

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