The College Football Playoff committee could hardly have engaged in more obvious doublespeak than they did last night when discussing the Aggies' ranking in the top three. Texas A&M once again came in at the third spot— something that wasn't that unexpected, given what the committee told us last week, but something that made fans justifiably irate.
Mack Rhoades' comments after the fact made things even worse. The College Football Playoff committee spokesperson is usually the target of a lot of heat, but it's almost like Rhoades is doing everything he can to bait Aggie fans into reacting— he's saying the worst possible things!
According to him, there was a "long discussion" between the Aggies and Hoosiers landing at number three, but the decision was eventually made in favor of Indiana. Again, this is not something that in itself is offensive to the college football sensibilities, but it was his description of that decision that invited confusion and scorn.
College Football Playoff committee once again sticks foot firmly in mouth when discussing Texas A&M's ranking
Rhoades's reasoning for why the Hoosiers were ahead of the Aggies in the rankigns seriously had me wondering if I had heard him right— and yet, these were the words that fell out of his mouth:
Full quote from CFP Selection Committee chairman Mack Rhoades to ESPN on the Texas A&M vs. Indiana debate for No. 2: "It was one of our longer discussions. Indiana, we gave them the edge again defensively – we talked about that last week – and certainly offensively as well. You…
— Carter Karels (@CarterKarels) November 12, 2025
I am so sorry, but Indiana does not have as good of an offense as Texas A&M. SP+ has the Aggies with the nation's second-best offense, just a hair behind USC for the top spot (Indiana is 5th). They just put up 38 points on a Missouri defense that was top-five in the nation in total defense coming into the game, whereas the Hoosiers managed only 27 points on a Penn State defense that (still) ranks behind Missouri in most metrics (points per game, yards per play, third down conversions, etc.).
On the note about defense, the metrics would probably support Rhoades's point, but it's the final point about this last week's games that was so confounding. He mentions that Texas A&M played a backup quarterback, but failed to mention that Indiana did the same— and the Hoosiers allowed more points than the Aggies did to a worse overall offense!
He gave props to Mendoza for "finding a way to win," but the Aggies simply dominated the game against a Missouri team that was much better. You cannot point to the quarterback situation, as that also invalidates any praise you'd give the Hoosiers for their Penn State win. Nor, in reality, should you point to the Aggies' close wins over Arkansas and Auburn as a comparison: the Aggies dominated both of those games statistically, and Indiana barely escaped Happy Valley.
To that last point, the Hoosiers had a 23% postgame win probability per collegefootballdata.com in that game, a stat which calculates the probability of a win given the statistics each team accrued in the course of the game— essentially, who should have won. The Aggies had a 97% postgame win probability against Auburn, and a 69% postgame win probability against Arkansas.
It's apples and oranges, in other words. Not all games that end with a close score are actually close in reality— but the Hoosiers' win over Penn State was a total escape act. The Aggies' close wins are much more to their credit than Indiana's over PSU, as the numbers plainly show.