CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Kevin Jennings couldn’t hide the disappointment on his face. SMU’s quarterback still had tears in his eyes.
Clemson’s Nolan Hauser delivered the pain — a 56-yard game-winning field goal on the final play of the ACC championship. It negated Jennings’ valiant fourth-quarter comeback, and it could cost the Mustangs a spot in the College Football Playoff.
“Hopefully, we showed what we can do all year and they put us in there,” said Jennings, who threw for 310 yards and three touchdowns and ran for another. “No telling. Praying we get the spot.”
Warde Manuel and the College Football Playoff Selection Committee will decide the fate of SMU’s football team on Sunday.
Hopefully, the fourth-quarter comeback was enough to get them in. If it is not, Rhett Lashlee and the Atlantic Coast Conference are going to wish SMU had skipped the game and taken the power away from the committee to decide.
Lashlee said on a podcast this week his players could have “caught COVID” and been forced to miss the game. Not playing in the title game would have been controversial, but we’ve seen teams opt out because of health reasons. On Sunday, the Mustangs and ACC commissioner Jim Phillips might really be sick.
“It would be criminal if we’re not in,” Lashlee said. “It would be wrong. It would be wrong on so many levels, not just to our team. It would be wrong to what college football stands for, to what it is.”
Said Clemson coach Dabo Swinney: “SMU, they better be in the dang playoff.”
“Listen. That’s a playoff football team. SMU, they better be in the dang playoffs. What a comeback by those guys.”
Dabo Swinney on SMU pic.twitter.com/rNAvG0evAM
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 8, 2024
In reality, all Saturday night’s 34-31 heartbreaking loss to the Clemson Tigers did was leave the door open to making everything the Mustangs accomplished in the first 12 games of this season meaningless.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not questioning SMU and Lashlee for doing the honorable thing. Showing up and playing for a conference championship is what everyone should do. Heck, the ACC would’ve been upset had Lashlee’s team all faked an illness to skip it.
But the bottom line is there’s a bigger prize than a conference title, and the selection committee showed nothing to earn the trust Lashlee gave them by showing up.
If Alabama is ranked ahead of SMU for the final at-large berth in the field Sunday, there will undoubtedly be regret that the game was played at all.
Why play in a conference championship game if skipping it essentially guarantees you a spot in the national championship field?
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips had something to say about tonight’s game and the CFP rankings. pic.twitter.com/flkA2pNcGh
— Manny Navarro (@Manny_Navarro) December 8, 2024
Texas and Penn State didn’t have to worry about losing Saturday. The committee made it pretty clear by ranking them No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, heading into this week. Their risk was minimal.
But ranked eighth, SMU was the only Power 4 conference leader that had something to lose by playing Saturday.
Notre Dame, Ohio State, Tennessee and Indiana will all be at-large teams in the 12-team field when the bracket is released Sunday. They benefited from not having to play this weekend. SMU could have joined them and put the pressure on the committee to justify kicking them out.
That would have led to a really interesting discussion. The committee figures to have one anyway over the next 12 hours.
They’ll have to decide if SMU is more deserving than Alabama.
“I have seen enough. This team belongs in the Field of 12 in the College Football Playoff. This is a championship drive.”
Sean McDonough, moments earlier, SMU scored a touchdown to erase a 17-point fourth-quarter deficit. pic.twitter.com/c7GCgN53sU
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 8, 2024
“The one thing I’ll say is the reason that I know we should be in is the committee has ranked us in,” Lashlee said Friday. “They’ve said we’re good enough. The regular season is complete. All 134 teams have played their regular season. It is over. The case is closed on that. They said you’re the eighth-best team in the country. They said you’re better than two other teams that are currently in the field for an at-large. They said you’re better than them. And those teams didn’t earn the right to play in a conference championship game, we did. So I don’t get how you could punish anybody for that. I just don’t.
“So we’re going to choose to believe we did the right thing and we showed up. We value playing in a championship game. We value the opportunity to compete with Dabo and Clemson for an ACC championship game. That’s the right thing to do. To me, that’s integrity. We’re not going to find a way to bounce out because we were told on Tuesday night if you don’t play you’re in at 8. But we also know that the committee has a tough job, and so we believe and trust that they’re going to do the right thing, as well, and reward our guys who have earned the right not only to play here but to be one of the 12 best teams in America because they’ve ranked them there.”
SMU didn’t look like one of the best 12 teams in the country through three quarters on Saturday. Clemson did.
The Tigers jumped all over the Mustangs early. Jennings turned it over twice in the first half. Cade Klubnik’s three first-quarter touchdown passes helped power the Tigers to a 24-7 halftime lead. SMU trailed 31-14 entering the fourth quarter. Then, Jennings went to work. He showed everyone why the Mustangs deserve a spot in the field. He finished 32 of 51 passing. He also ran for 35 yards.
Klubnik, meanwhile, led the Tigers to their second win over an FBS team with a winning record this season. Clemson is 2-3 in those games with losses to SEC champion Georgia, top-25-ranked South Carolina and unranked Louisville. But they’re in the field now no matter what.
SMU has to hope the selection committee still thinks they’re worthy of an at-large spot.
“That is something that we will decide in the room at the conclusion of those games when we evaluate what happens in the championship,” Manuel said last Tuesday when asked how the committee would evaluate SMU if it lost in the ACC championship. “I can’t sort of go into the future and tell you exactly how the outcome of that discussion will be. It depends on the outcome of the game and how it’s played and the results themselves.”
Every school not in the Big Ten or SEC should know by now they’re not going to get the benefit of the doubt. Just ask Mike Norvell and Florida State. FSU went 13-0 last season, won the ACC and got left out of the four-team field for a one-loss SEC champion.
Texas entered this week with as many top-25 wins as Miami — zero. Yet, the Longhorns went into the SEC championship game ranked No. 2 in the country — 10 spots ahead of the Hurricanes. Texas was 11-1 and Miami was 10-2. There’s a difference between them, for sure.
Alabama, however, had one more loss than Miami. The Crimson Tide are 9-3 including two losses to 6-6 teams. Yet Alabama was ranked one spot ahead of the Hurricanes for the final at-large berth. Warde said it was because Alabama had more top-25 wins than Miami.
SMU, like Miami, does not have any top-25 wins.
We’ll find out soon if SMU will pay for playing Saturday night.
(Photo of Rhett Lashleee: Grant Halverson / Getty Images)
