Vanderbilt Football Misses College Football Playoff

Vanderbilt was passed in the final rankings by Texas—which pulled off an improbable win over Texas A&M in the final week of the regular season—Alabama fended off a few difficult opponents while on the ropes, Miami finished the season with a ranked win over Pittsburgh and BYU finished its season with a win over UCF. The trend started weeks ago when Oklahoma beat Alabama and appeared to change the dynamic surrounding Vanderbilt’s playoff chances. 

Vanderbilt has a better strength of record (SOR) than teams ahead of them. The Commodores have the 11th-best SOR compared to Notre Dame’s 13th SOR and Miami’s 14th SOR. But despite going 10-2 and 6-2 in the SEC, it was not enough in the eyes of the committee. The Commodores achieved its first season in program history with 10 wins, but it happened in a year where the bubble for the playoffs was filled with too many teams with one or two losses. The Texas loss for Vanderbilt ended up being catastrophic.

Vanderbilt called an impromptu press conference on Monday to make one final pitch to the playoff committee and looked at a possible 13th game in order to add something to its rèsumè, but its efforts ultimately came up short. That rubs Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea the wrong way. 

“If the CFP committee would take blind resumes, our team would benefit from that exercise,” Lea said in a polite, understated way. “This is not about narratives and stories, it's about the data.”

Prior to Lea taking the podium, Vanderbilt athletic director Candice Storey addressed the media with a similar sentiment. 

By the end of Storey Lee’s comments, it felt as if her press conference had become more of a plea to the committee than an address of the state of things. The Vanderbilt athletic director laid out the Commodores’ case verbally prior to citing a document of metrics that supported it. 

“When the College Football Playoff committee talks about what they want to see, they want to see teams who are playing their best football at the end of the season. Check,” Storey Lee said, “They want to see teams who are playing their best football at the end of the season. Check. They want you to have ranked wins and a strong strength of schedule. Check. Understanding that if you lose they can’t be bad losses and our two losses are quality losses. So, check. And we have–we believe that Diego Pavia is the best football player in the country.” 

Now, Pavia and his Vanderbilt teammates will have to take their talents to a bowl game. It’s an underwhelming finish to a special season on West End.