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As expected, the selection of the first ever 12-team College Football Playoff field was not without controversy. Even though the expansion from four to 12 teams was expected to minimize the number of programs and fans that had a gripe as the postseason began, it appears as if the opposite is true. This is thanks in part to the SMU Mustangs, who stunned everyone by playing their way into the ACC Championship Game and making the College Football Playoff as the final at-large bid.
SMU's National Championship hopes went up in smoke quick on Saturday afternoon. A pair of early pick-sixes courtesy of the Penn State defense put the Mustangs in a 14-0 hole that they were never able to recover from. In the end, the Nittany Lions cruised to a 38-10 victory, and predictably, skeptics of SMU's inclusion in the field had all of the ammunition they needed to criticize the selection committee for including the ACC runner-up.
After the game, SMU Mustangs head coach Rhett Lashlee sent a message to the naysayers, acknowledging that his team underperformed on Saturday afternoon while remaining assured that his team deserved to make the field.
“Look, it is what it is. We didn’t play well enough to say anything against what’s going to be written. It’s going to be written: should we have been in, or did we belong?” Lashlee said in his press conference, per Alex Byington of On3. “And that’s fine. Everyone here is welcomed to write that. You were here, we didn’t play very good today. But this team is a quality team. We had a good team, we deserved to be here. We earned the right to be here. Disappointed we didn’t play to the level that validates that.”
“But it’s hard right now, because that’s a really crushed locker room. A lot of seniors that know they’re not going to play anymore. This team is not together anymore,” Lashlee continued. “The further they get from this moment, they’ll realize what they did this year and what a special year it was. Only one team is going to hold up the trophy at the end and it’s not going to be us. But what they did was special.”
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin was one of those critics. During the halftime break of Saturday afternoon's Penn State-SMU game, Kiffin took to X (formerly Twitter) to weigh in on what was at the time a 28-0 Nittany Lions lead.
“Way to keep us on the edge of our seats Committee …. Riveting,” Kiffin wrote, potentially addressing the inclusion of both SMU and Indiana, who didn't put up much of a fight versus Notre Dame on Friday night.
