CFP chairman Hunter Yurachek: "It is Texas' loss to Florida that's holding them back now"

College Football Playoff selection committee chairman and Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek was on a teleconference following the reveal of the CFP’s penultimate rankings. Texas was No. 13 in those rankings, behind No. 12 Miami but ahead of No. 14 Vanderbilt.

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Here are the questions he fielded that either directly or indirectly pertained to Texas, plus Yurachek’s answers to those questions as the Longhorns hope to make the field of 12 on Sunday.

First, the top-25…

College Football Playoff top 25 for December 2

1. Ohio State Buckeyes
2. Indiana Hoosiers
3. Georgia Bulldogs
4. Texas Tech Red Raiders
5. Oregon Ducks
6. Ole Miss Rebels
7. Texas A&M Aggies
8. Oklahoma Sooners
9. Alabama Crimson Tide
10. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
11. BYU Cougars
12. Miami Hurricanes
13. Texas Longhorns
14. Vanderbilt Commodores
15. Utah Utes
16. USC Trojans
17. Virginia Cavaliers
18. Arizona Wildcats
19. Michigan Wolverines
20. Tulane Green Wave
21. Houston Cougars
22. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
23. Iowa Hawkeyes
24. North Texas Mean Green
25. James Madison Dukes

Q. Hunter, I wanted to follow up for broader clarification since he was asking specifically about Notre Dame-Miami. Can a team presently outside the 12-team field that does not play in a conference championship game move into the field? Is that possible?

HUNTER YURACHEK: Yes. Idle teams can move based on the results of the championship games. There may be something that happens in a championship game that impacts an idle team, whether that’s their strength of schedule or some other datapoint that we use, or there could be a team that suffers a significant loss in a title game.

We don’t try to predict what’s going to happen, but yes, idle teams can move within the rankings as we rerank them one last time this weekend.

Q. To follow up, related but in a broader sense because Ward said last year that the committee would not use it as a “negative” for teams who lose conference title games. Obviously they could move down but not — he said negative. Obviously SMU stayed in the field even with a loss. Is the committee open to dropping conference title game losers, specifically as it relates to Alabama and BYU, or are they locked in even with a loss?

HUNTER YURACHEK: Again, each of the championship games will just give us another game and another datapoint to evaluate the teams that participate in those championship games and the idle teams around them.

We’ll rerank the teams one last time this weekend, and the five highest ranked conference champions and the seven highest ranked at-large teams will advance to the College Football Playoff.

Q. Vanderbilt finishing 10-2 in the SEC, what is it that makes Vanderbilt be ranked so far below other 10-2 SEC teams and even below a 9-3 SEC team with Texas?

HUNTER YURACHEK: The committee has a great deal of respect for Vanderbilt and what they have achieved, an amazing season, a 10-win season. When you look at their schedule, now that Tennessee is no longer ranked, they just don’t have a signature win. They’ve got wins against LSU, Missouri and Tennessee. Missouri and Tennessee were previously ranked in our poll. They are no longer ranked in our poll.

Then the two ranked teams that Vanderbilt has played, Alabama and Texas, I think both of those games in their own way were a little bit different. The Alabama game is probably a little bit closer than the score indicates, and the Texas game was probably closer than the score actually indicates because if you remember, Texas was up in that game 34-10.

I think it’s just lacking that signature win or two that teams like a Texas and a Miami, Utah, teams above them have.

Q. I assume at No. 13, Texas has no path to get in the CFP; is that accurate?

HUNTER YURACHEK: I can’t predict what one’s path would be to get to the CFP. Either it would have to be one of the five highest ranked conference champions. Texas does not play for the Southeastern Conference Championship this weekend; that’s not their path. Then you’d have to be one of the seven highest ranked at-large teams.

That would be Texas’s path as we rerank this one last time this weekend.

Q. Then along those lines, is the thing hurting Texas the most the loss to Florida, or is there some other factor?

HUNTER YURACHEK: You’re spot on. The committee has a great deal of respect for Texas and they’ve played an incredible schedule. They’ve got four teams they played in our top 10. They beat OU on a neutral field. They just beat Texas A&M at home this past weekend. They lost to No. 1, Ohio State, and lost to No. 3, Georgia.

But one key stat this week in the teams ranked in our top 15, there’s 17 total losses for those teams. 16 of those losses came against teams that are currently ranked or have been ranked in our top 25 this year. The only loss to an unranked team was Texas’s loss to Florida at Florida, and really Florida dominated that game, held Texas to 50 yards rushing, two interceptions. So it’s not that Texas played Ohio State; it is Texas’ loss to Florida that’s holding them back now.

Q. Just about the Ole Miss coaching situation, how difficult is it to evaluate the worth of a coach, and what specifically can you analyze to determine what losing someone like Lane Kiffin means for a team?

HUNTER YURACHEK: It’s impossible for us at this time as a committee to evaluate what the impact is on losing your head coach, specifically at Ole Miss, because we don’t have a game that we can compare Ole Miss with Lane Kiffin versus without him. Without that datapoint, really did not become part of our thought process in how we evaluated Ole Miss this week.