The third College Football Playoff rankings have come and gone, and the Texas A&M Aggies are still standing pat at third in the overall rankings. That was not unexpected in the slightest, as the Aggie faithful have all but completely lost hope that they'll get the benefit of the doubt from the committee, but there was something strange on the rankings show.
These rankings can be rushed through sometimes, especially when there are high-level college basketball matchups to get to like tonight, but in the short discussion that the studio talent had with new committee spokesperson Hunter Yurachek, the Aggies didn't come up even once.
After so much was made of Indiana's comeback last week, with ESPN personalities insisting that the heart that Fernando Mendoza and others showed in that come-from-behind win over Penn State was what kept them ahead of the Aggies, not one word was dropped about Texas A&M's comeback. I guess when you are out of excuses, you just have to ignore the elephant in the room.
Texas A&M inexplicably given cold shoulder by College Football Playoff committee
The Aggies' comeback displayed just why they're such a great team, showing that they have championship grit and fight even when the chips are down. Marcel Reed was brilliant in the second half of that game, launching his name right into the top of the discussion for the Heisman trophy.
And yet apparently none of this was deserving of so much as a mention by Yurachek or the studio crew. Instead, they had important questions like "what if someone loses on conference championship weekend," which Yurachek quite cogently answered by apparently having a contest with himself to see how many times he could say the phrase "data point" while giving no substantive information.
It's becoming clear that there's really nothing apart from losses ahead of them that could move the Aggies up. Even a blowout win in Austin may not do the trick at this point. If, perhaps, Ohio State loses to Michigan, and then Indiana loses in the Big 10 championship, the Aggies could get the no. 1 overall seed if they remain undefeated. Other than that, though, it is hard to fathom what could bring this result about.
Update: Yurachek later on addressed the Aggies' comeback win over South Carolina. You can find his full response here, but it's so nothing it's almost not even worth looking at. He just recites the stats and says that both teams came back to win— it's like a Magic Johnson tweet.