Aggies in familiar spot at No. 5 in committee’s initial rankings
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said he would be watching game film Tuesday night when the College Football Playoff committee released its initial rankings of the season, and he would rely on someone to relay him the information.
There is no doubt he was pleased with the early pegging, considering the Aggies haven’t played the last two weekends. A&M checked in at No. 5, while Alabama is No. 1, followed by Notre Dame, Clemson and Ohio State.
The Aggies are chased by No. 6 Florida, No. 7 Cincinnati, No. 8 Northwestern, No. 9 Georgia and No. 10 Miami. Texas is No. 17 as the state’s only other school represented in the top 25.
The Aggies have spent the past few weeks at No. 5 in the Associated Press poll, despite not playing at Tennessee and at home against Mississippi the last two Saturdays following three positive COVID-19 tests in the program and the resulting contact tracing.
The Aggies (5-1) are scheduled to host LSU (3-3) on Saturday night and have four weekends to play four games (LSU, Auburn, Tennessee and Mississippi), unless the NCAA opts to extend the regular season with the idea of playing as many games as possible to deter
mine the most deserving participants in the CFP.
A&M edged Florida 41-38 on Oct. 10 at Kyle Field, why the Aggies edged the Gators in the first CFP slotting.
“They're both terrific teams and Florida is playing at a high level, and (Gators quarterback) Kyle Trask is playing at a Heisman (Trophy) level as well,” the CFP committee's chairman, Iowa athletic director Gary Barta, told ESPN. “But when it came down to it, they were close enough … the only loss Texas A&M has is to No. 1 ranked Alabama, and as a committee we just decided that the (Aggies) deserved to be a nod ahead.”
Barta described it as a “challenge” trying to judge programs that have played a widely varying number of games because of the pandemic.
“We're evaluating teams that have played three games against teams that have played eight or nine games,” he said. “But we em
braced the chaos.”
Despite the Aggies owning one top five finish in the last 63 years, this isn't their highest ranking in the CFP, which started in 2014. That occurred in 2016, when they started No. 4 before falling 35-28 at Mississippi State in November of that year, immediately after earning that ranking.
That A&M squad nosedived at the tail end of the 2016 season with
four losses in its final five games. The 2016 Aggies finished 8-5 and 4-4 in league play, and a year later then-coach Kevin Sumlin was fired and replaced by Fisher, who led Florida State to a national title in 2013.
A&M is angling for a much better finish this time around, and only one ranked team (No. 22 Auburn) remains on the 10-game schedule. The Aggies' lone misstep is a 52-24 loss at Alabama on Oct. 3 in the second week of the altered season.
“The head to head at this point certainly has to matter,” ESPN analyst Jesse Palmer said of the Aggies' narrow defeat of Florida. “Texas A&M has been a dominant team and (quarterback) Kellen Mond has been fantastic. Last time we saw them play, they blew out South Carolina 48-3 on (Nov. 7).
“The question is will the head to head lose value down the road if Florida were to beat Alabama in the SEC title game?”
Fisher this week declined to leap into hypotheticals, saying none of it matters if the Aggies don't first take care of business against LSU at Kyle Field this weekend.
“LSU is always going to get your attention, because of what they've accomplished,” Fisher said. “But right now, after not playing for three weeks, it wouldn't matter who we were playing to get our attention, I promise you that.”