NBA skills coach Drew Hanlen joins Kevin O’Connor to break down the season’s hottest topics, from star player development to the reality of tanking in the league. Drew shares inside stories about working with Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Jayson Tatum and others and explains why self-belief can be both a gift and a curse for rising talent.
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(0:48) When will Tatum return for Celtics?
(12:13) Player development & Deni Avdija
(21:43) Can Hornets maintain their winning ways?
(26:25) How can NBA stop tanking?
(31:09) Joel Embiid’s recovery and development
(43:02) How teams use data & analytics to improve
(49:03) Chris Paul retires from NBA
(56:43) How will defensive coaching evolve?
(01:00:11) Future of the All-Star game
Joel Embiid #21 of the Philadelphia 76ers looks on during the game against the LA Clippers on February 2, 2026 at Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Juan Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images)
Andrew Siciliano deep dives on the 2026 NFL Draft with Nate Tice & ESPN’s Matt Miller. Andrew kicks things off with Nate Tice as they parse through Nate & Charles McDonald’s latest mock draft and cover a few of the more interesting selections, including EDGE Rueben Bain Jr. going second overall to the New York Jets, RB Jeremiyah Love in the top ten, EDGE David Bailey to the Washington Commanders and more. Next, Andrew & Nate set their sites on Indianapolis for the NFL Combine as Nate gives his top prospects he’s most excited to watch test next week.
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Later, Andrew is joined by ESPN’s Matt Miller to get his thoughts on the draft (including Ty Simpson, Caleb Downs and more) before talking through his latest NFL mock draft.
(6:55) – Nate Tice breaks down latest NFL mock draft
(21:55) – Nate’s top prospects to watch at the NFL Combine
(44:00) – Matt Miller talks latest NFL mock draft
MIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA – JANUARY 19: Fernando Mendoza #15 of the Indiana Hoosiers takes the field during pregame warmups before the 2026 CFP National Championship between the Indiana Hoosiers and the Miami Hurricanes at Hard Rock Stadium on January 19, 2026 in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Photo by CFP/Getty Images)
(Photo by CFP/Getty Images)
Inside Coverage would be nothing without the impact of our beloved Terez Paylor, who was a pillar of Yahoo Sports’ NFL editorial and podcast coverage. We will continue to produce this NFL podcast in his honor, and hope that you can support Terez Paylor’s legacy in one of three ways:
• Buy an “All-Juice Team” hoodie or tee from BreakingT.com/Terez. All profits directly fund the Terez A. Paylor scholarship at Howard University.
• Donate directly at giving.howard.edu/givenow. Under “Tribute,” please note that your gift is made in memory of Terez A. Paylor. Under “Designation,” click on “Other” and write in “Terez A. Paylor Scholarship.”
Today on the Kevin O’Connor show, KOC is joined by Tom Haberstroh to ask some big questions in the NBA world: Are the Houston Rockets done? What teams have the most to prove in the 2nd half of the season? Which young players might break out and which coaches are on the hot seat?
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Then, the pair look at two of the hottest names in college basketball: Darius Acuff and Darryn Peterson. How does Acuff’s 49-point explosion affect his draft stock? Is Peterson’s self-check-out gambit for Kansas threatening his no. 1 draft pick potential?
Later, KOC is joined by Daman Rangoola, Sam Esfandiari & Claire De Lune from All-Star Weekend to talk the latest with the Lakers and Warriors. That and more on today’s show!
(1:11) Contenders with the most to prove (13:38) Young players to watch (20:26) NBA coaches on the hot seat (33:46) Kings decimated by injuries (37:12) Darius Acuff drops 49 points vs. Alabama (41:44) What’s going on with Darryn Peterson? (56:32) Daman Rangoola & Sam Esfandiari join from All-Star (1:43:10) Claire De Lune joins from All-Star
HOUSTON, TEXAS – FEBRUARY 11: Kevin Durant #7 of the Houston Rockets looks on during the second half of the game against the Los Angeles Clippers at Toyota Center on February 11, 2026 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Jack Gorman/Getty Images)
Nate Tice & Charles McDonald join forces to answer the NFL offseason’s biggest looming questions submitted by the audience. The duo start off by diving into the New York Giants’ potential NFL Draft plans with the 5th overall pick, how the Chicago Bears can fix their defensive line and whether or not Brian Daboll is a good fit with QB Cam Ward as the new Tennessee Titans OC.
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Next, Nate & Charles discuss whether or not the Los Angeles Chargers can fix their offensive line in one offseason, if the Jacksonville Jaguars defense can take a leap next season, who the Denver Broncos should be targeting in free agency (Tyler Allgeier?) and what our expectations for the 2026 Washington Commanders should look like.
Later, the two hosts wrap up with thoughts on the New England Patriots’ upcoming offseason decisions, why Sean McVay changed to a duo run game style with the Los Angeles Rams, whether Sean McDermott was really the problem with the Buffalo Bills and more.
(44:15) – Biggest offseason questions: Patriots, Rams, Bills & more
New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye (10) warms up before the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game against the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
The Cooligans welcome former MLS head coach and analyst Giovanni Savarese for a deep dive into the 2026 MLS season. Gio shares his predictions, breakout teams to watch, and how the league continues to evolve ahead of a massive 2026 on home soil. The conversation also turns to the USMNT, as the guys assess expectations, pressure, and what success should realistically look like at the 2026 World Cup.
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Christian and Alexis then tackle the troubling racist incident involving Vinícius Júnior during Real Madrid’s clash with Benfica. They unpack how these situations are currently handled, question whether the responsibility to stop a match unfairly falls on the player experiencing abuse, and debate what meaningful structural changes could better protect players moving forward.
Finally, it’s a jam-packed Champions League recap. Folarin Balogun shines in a statement performance against Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus suffer a shocking defeat to Galatasaray, and Bodø/Glimt pull off a stunning win over Inter Milan. The boys react to all the drama, surprises, and what these results mean going forward.
Timestamps:
(6:30) – 2026 MLS preview and predictions
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(30:00) – Gio Savarese’s USMNT World Cup outlook
(39:00) – Vinicius Junior deals with racism again: time for a rule change?
(59:00) – Folarin Balogun shines in Champions League loss to PSG
(1:04:30) – Serie A teams suffer shocking Champions League losses
The BBC has unveiled three new dramas coming to our screens in due course, including Shy & Lola with Hayley Squires and Bel Powley.
Shy & Lola, a new six-part drama for BBC iPlayer and BBC One, is written by award-winning screenwriter and novelist Amanda Coe (Apple Tree Yard, The Trial of Christine Keeler) and produced by multi-BAFTA and Emmy award-winning Clerkenwell Films (Baby Reindeer, The Death of Bunny Munro, The End of the F***ing World), part of BBC Studios.
The darkly comic story follows Shy and Lola, two very different women who are forced to become allies when a murder entangles them in the criminal underworld operating in Shy’s small coastal town in the North of England. Squires (The Night Manager, I, Daniel Blake) stars as Shy, a cleaner scraping by and dreaming of a new life in Portugal, with Powley (A Small Light,The Diary of a Teenage Girl) playing Lola, an ex-model-turned-grifter who arrives in town with trouble at her heels.
Filming on the show, based on the French television drama Cheyenne and Lola, will begin this spring in and around the U.K. cities of Hull and Leeds.
Also announced on Monday is D-Notice from writers and executive producers Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn. The six-part British political thriller is set in the world of investigative journalism. Patterson and Lawn are said to “have some experience of” the D-notice mechanism, which allows the government to advise journalists about national security. Now, they’ve come up with a drama that looks at how truth and power speak to one another. It is their third project for the BBC, following The Salisbury Poisonings and Blue Lights, and their first commission from production company Hot Sauce Pictures, backed by Sony Pictures Television.
The BBC has also commissioned 1536, a new drama series for BBC iPlayer and BBC One, based on Ava Pickett’s play of the same name. The eight-part show written by Pickett from Drama Republic (Riot Women, One Day) is set in the heart of Tudor England against the backdrop of Anne Boleyn’s arrest and weaves royal scandal with rural struggle.
1536 centers around Anna, Mariella, and Jane: three young women gossiping, arguing, and dreaming in an Essex village, desperately waiting for their lives to start. When the news reaches them that King Henry VIII has had his Queen, Anne Boleyn, arrested, the three of them never suspect that this act will change their lives forever.
Pickett said: “1536 is something I am immensely proud of and I feel so lucky and privileged to have the chance to bring Anna, Jane and Mariella to a wider audience and to build out their lives even more. In a world where every decision made in the corridors of power ricochets through all of our lives, this story feels more relevant than ever. I’m so grateful to Lindsay Salt for being such a champion of it from the start.”
Lindsay Salt, Director of BBC Drama, added: “From the moment we saw Ava’s play we knew that we had to have the TV version on the BBC. Visceral, funny, provocative, timely and full of courage, this is a piece of work like no other. Ava is an exceptional voice, so we feel very lucky to be working with her and the brilliant team at Drama Republic to bring three iconic female characters to the screen.”
Executive producers are Jude Liknaitzky, Roanna Benn, Rebecca de Souza, Chloe Beeson and Pickett. The series was commissioned by Salt.
For three quarters, Joe Burrow was living up to his “Joe Cool” nickname. The cold weather and the snowstorm in Buffalo didn’t seem to bother him. Despite the elements, Burrow delivered pinpoint passes to his receivers to give the Bengals a lead that lasted deep into the fourth quarter.
Then, disaster struck. Two late interceptions by the Buffalo Bills’ defense — combined with some Josh Allen heroics — sunk the Bengals, who fell 39-34 to the Bills. The loss dropped Cincinnati to 4-9 on the season, and likely ended any realistic shot at the postseason the Bengals had.
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It didn’t look like that would be the case early. Burrow seemed undeterred by the poor weather in Buffalo, and drilled accurate passes to his receivers as the Bengals led most of the game.
His most impressive early throw came in the second quarter, as Burrow placed a perfect pass to Tee Higgins on the boundary of the end zone. Higgins made an excellent hands catch and managed to keep his feet in bounds, giving the Bengals a 14-3 lead.
Allen, as you might expect, wasn’t intimidated by the score. He issued an equally dazzling response, leading the Bills down the field on a grueling 12-play drive that ended in a tight-window touchdown throw from Allen to Khalil Shakir.
The Bills were successful on the two-point conversion, making it a three-point game.
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Burrow’s response? An eight-play touchdown drive that featured a phenomenally-placed pass to Bengals tight end Mike Gesicki and then a diving touchdown catch by Chase Brown on a pinpoint pass as Burrow was backing away from oncoming rushers.
The back-and-forth continued, with Burrow and Allen each throwing another touchdown. In one of the few moments in the contest that actually looked like a snow game, Allen scrambled for a 40-yard score to bring it back to a three-point game.
That’s when everything fell apart for the Bengals. With the team up 28-25, Burrow was picked off by Christian Benford on a quick pass attempt. Benford took it all the way back, scoring a touchdown to give the Bills their first lead of the day.
There was still plenty of time left for Burrow to lead the Bengals back, but the two-time Pro Bowler threw another interception on his next pass attempt. Allen capitalized on that mistake, leading Buffalo to a touchdown on fourth down to make it 39-28 with just three minutes to play.
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The Bills’ decision to go for it instead of kicking the field goal proved prescient as Burrow threw a 25-yard score to Higgins on the next possession, but Allen sealed the win on the next drive with a 17-yard scramble on third-and-15.
Burrow finished the contest 25 of 36 for 284 yards. He threw four touchdowns and two interceptions in the loss. Allen, meanwhile, completed 22 of 28 passes for 251 yards and three passing touchdowns. Allen also rushed for 78 yards and a score in the victory.
A win pushes the Bills to 9-4 on the year. While Buffalo is in strong position to make the playoffs, the team finds itself trailing the surprising New England Patriots for the AFC East title. Allen and the Bills haven’t found themselves in that spot in recent seasons, as the team has won five-straight division titles with Allen under center.
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Sunday’s win proves why that’s the case. Allen is nearly unstoppable when he’s firing on all cylinders. And if the Bills’ defense can force a few timely turnovers against one of the best quarterbacks in the game, Allen is going to make sure he capitalizes on those opportunities.
The work is finally done for the worst selection committee in the College Football Playoff’s dozen-year history, and there are only two ways to explain the grotesque, odious bracket that it belched out Sunday.
By jumping Miami over Notre Dame for the last playoff spot when neither team played on conference championship weekend, either the committee didn’t know what it was doing all along or it looked at its bad options Saturday night and chose the one with the most potential upside to the members.
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Make no mistake, excluding Notre Dame was a message from the CFP, launched in the direction of South Bend, Indiana, and tinged with politics that have festered within the ranks of administrators across the country:
Don’t want to join a conference? Fine, but if it’s a close call for a playoff spot, you get what you get.
And this year, the Irish get nothing. Too bad.
Was it fair? Maybe not. Was it premeditated? No chance. It would be hard to believe anyone went into that committee determined to screw over Notre Dame.
But when all the data was complete late Saturday night, the committee was faced with a choice: There was room for only two among Alabama, Miami and Notre Dame. And despite the committee ranking Notre Dame either No. 9 or No. 10 every single week since the start of November — just inside the cut line — the Irish suddenly dropped to No. 11 and out of the field despite no results that would directly impact where they were in the pecking order.
If Miami had been left out, the ACC would have been eliminated entirely from the playoff thanks to 8-5 Duke upsetting Virginia in the championship game. That would have been an embarrassment not only for the conference but for a system that was set up for power conference champions to get into the field barring an extreme anomaly like Duke.
So that left Notre Dame. And if you make Notre Dame mad, it’s only one school, not an entire conference.
Notre Dame was left out of the College Football Playoff on Sunday. (Trinity Machan/Getty Images)
(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The playoff can exist and rake in billions of dollars without Notre Dame. But Notre Dame cannot exist as an independent, in this era, without the CFP.
That’s why former Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick played such a hands-on role in creating the 12-team playoff. By guaranteeing at-large access for Notre Dame if the Irish were ranked in the top 10, there was a thought they could host a lucrative home playoff game in South Bend — and keep all that money rather than redistribute to fellow conference members — if they simply managed their scheduled properly and won the games they’re supposed to win.
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The power leagues accepted that. But did they like it? No, not universally.
Within the college football ecosystem, Notre Dame gets special treatment. Yes, the Irish are one of the few schools with enough juice to sign their own TV deal, so good for them. But when they’re able to have one foot in the ACC (except, of course, during the 2020 COVID season when it wasn’t convenient) while also having an outsized legislative role on the CFP management committee, it creates an undeniable backlash. As a reporter covering college sports, you never have to go very far into your contacts to find someone willing to grumble about the way Notre Dame wired this system to its advantage.
Ohio State doesn’t get that kind of treatment. Neither does Alabama, Clemson, LSU or anyone else that has actually won a championship in the past decade. Each FBS conference has one representative on that committee via their commissioner to speak for the conference. Notre Dame’s athletic director has a seat at the table to speak for Notre Dame.
That’s a power imbalance, and a particularly notable one when the Big Ten, SEC and ACC would all love nothing more than to put such a hard squeeze on Notre Dame that it eventually gives up independence and joins a conference.
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Did Notre Dame pay the price for that Sunday? Was a message sent about Notre Dame being unable to coast into the playoff on the back of wins against the likes of Boston College, Syracuse, Stanford and Purdue without ever facing the risk of a conference championship game?
Interpret as you wish. We’ll never know for sure. But here are the facts:
On Aug. 31, Miami beat Notre Dame, 27-24, in Hard Rock Stadium. This was known to the committee since Week 1 and a result that was, in some way, always set up to provide some clarity with both teams expected to be in playoff contention.
On Nov. 4, during the first of the weekly ranking shows on ESPN, the committee slotted Notre Dame at No. 10 and Miami at No. 18 despite both teams having 6-2 records. At that point in the season, it seemed confusing to have those two teams so far apart in the rankings given their identical records and the closeness of their metrics.
On Nov. 25, the gap narrowed. Notre Dame was No. 9; Miami was No. 12. Again, to anyone who had been paying attention, this seemed like a potential iceberg for the committee. It didn’t take a genius to see they were both likely to finish 10-2 and were probably headed for a direct comparison that Miami might very well win based on the head-to-head victory.
On Dec. 2, the committee made the curious decision to move Alabama up to No. 9 and Notre Dame down to No. 10, even though the Crimson Tide had not been particularly impressive in a seven-point win at Auburn. But once again, the gap with Miami narrowed by a spot. Asked repeatedly about the head-to-head situation, committee chairman Hunter Yurachek admitted it would be easier for that to come into play if the two teams were side-by-side in the rankings.
And then finally, on Sunday, that happened. BYU lost the Big 12 championship game and moved down from No. 11 to No. 12. Other championship game losers also moved down: Ohio State from No. 1 to No. 2, Virginia from No. 17 to No. 19, North Texas from No. 24 to No. 25.
You know which championship game loser didn’t get penalized? Alabama, which stayed at No. 9 despite a terrible performance against Georgia in which it lost by three touchdowns and had a total of minus-3 rushing yards.
So instead of doing the most logically consistent thing by moving Alabama out of the field, or just keeping everything the way it was, the committee took its final opportunity to act on the obvious head-to-head issue that everyone knew for weeks was likely going to be a problem.
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Is that a heinous crime? Of course not. Because the weekly rankings are merely projections based on incomplete information, the committee had every right to do what it did. There was no clear right or wrong answer at the end, and someone had to be the odd man out.
But doing it this way is going to be an optics nightmare for the committee and the entire CFP system. And by handling it the way it did, the committee gave us first-round rematches of regular-season games in Alabama-Oklahoma and Tulane-Ole Miss, neither of which were all that good the first time around.
So to sum it up, the committee torched its credibility by reordering teams that didn’t play and created a series of unattractive first-round matchups in the process. That’s a failure. This committee did not do a very good job.
But if the purpose was to make clear to Notre Dame that it needs to either join a conference or beef up its schedule so that it brings more quality wins to the at-large discussion next year, they probably accomplished that mission.
“My feelings and the feelings here are just shock and, really, an absolute sense of sadness for our student-athletes,” Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua told Yahoo Sports about an hour after the rankings reveal on Sunday. “Overwhelming shock and sadness. Like a collective feeling that we were all just punched in the stomach.”
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During the interview, Bevacqua called for an end to the CFP’s weekly ranking shows, describing them as a “farce” and saying that they provided “false” hope to Irish administrators, fans, coach Marcus Freeman and staff and, most notably, the players.
“There is no explanation that could possibly be given to explain the outcome,” Bevacqua said. “As I said to Marcus, one thing is for sure: Any rankings or show prior to this last one is an absolute joke and a waste of time. Why put these young student-athletes through these false emotions just to pull the rug out from underneath them having not played a game in two weeks and then a group of people in a room shatter their dreams without explanation?
“We feel like the playoff was stolen from our student-athletes.”
The first team out of the field in the committee’s rankings, No. 11 Notre Dame slipped one spot from last week’s rankings and No. 10 Miami rose two spots despite neither team playing a game this week. The Hurricanes, for the last month behind the Irish in the rankings, leaped BYU and Notre Dame to move into the field as the final at-large selection.
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In explaining the decision, CFP selection committee chair Hunter Yurachek said the committee dropped BYU behind Miami after the Cougars lost in the Big 12 championship game, thus putting the Hurricanes side-by-side with the Irish.
“We had that side-by-side comparison and you look at those two teams on paper and they are almost equal,” Yurachek said. “The one metric we had to fall back on was head-to-head.”
Miami beat Notre Dame, 27-24, in the season opener at Hard Rock Stadium in a game that Yurachek encouraged selection committee members to rewatch before Sunday’s meeting.
While those at Notre Dame understand the result of that game as a factor, the committee’s rankings over the last five weeks didn’t necessarily show its importance in its poll. In fact, during the committee’s very first rankings show six weeks ago — there are five weekly rankings shows before the final — the then-No. 10 Irish were eight spots in front of Miami.
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“If the rankings shows are legitimate, there is no logical explanation of what happened to us,” Bevacqua said. “Have one ranking show at the end, like Sunday. What’s the point of doing anything prior to that?”
In a story at Yahoo Sports in the past, commissioners have suggested making adjustments to the rankings process, including former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, who said, “My personal opinion is we come out with rankings too early. Doing it every week is hard on the chair and the committee. Two polls, one midseason and one at the end, would be better. But ESPN would flip out.”
Marcus Freeman and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish fell out of the CFP field on Sunday despite being ranked above Miami all weeks prior. (James Black/Getty Images)
(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Under the new CFP television contract agreed to last spring, ESPN pays the conferences more than $1 billion annually for the right to the playoff. That includes six rankings shows in which the latest rankings are revealed, followed by a news conference with the chair.
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On Sunday, Notre Dame staff, players and some administrators were watching the show together with the expectation that the Irish would be seeded No. 9 or No. 10. The only “apprehension,” Bevacqua said, was their seed line.
After the reveal, Freeman addressed the team.
“Marcus said it perfectly: Usually there are reasons and answers and explanations, but we don’t have one for you with this,” Bevacqua says. “This is shocking and upsetting. An utter disbelief and sadness from our student-athletes, who were led to believe since the CFP rankings started of what they needed to do and did everything they were asked to do.”
Each week for the last six weeks, representatives from each conference and independents receive time in front of selection committee members. Notre Dame deputy athletic director Ron Powlus made the school’s presentation on Thursday.
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“The feedback we got in the last presentation Thursday was that it was the best presentation that they’ve received in the two years of the expanded playoff,” Bevacqua said.
Notre Dame’s place in the CFP is an interesting one.
The university is just one of two in the FBS — UConn is the other — not to be members of a conference. The Irish are the only school to have a representative on the 11-person CFP governing board made up of a commissioner from each of the 10 FBS conferences.
As it turns out, former ND athletic director Jack Swarbrick was one of the architects of the expanded 12-team format in which Notre Dame’s only path is to get one of the seven at-large selections.
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Many stakeholders across college sports — perhaps even some in the CFP selection committee room — have expressed public and private belief that the Irish should join a league.
On Sunday, Bevacqua strongly pushed back against that notion. Notre Dame is one of the country’s most valuable brands, holds a lucrative independent television contract with NBC and has one of the richest apparel deals with Under Armour.
“We love being independent in football. It’s part of our DNA,” Bevacqua said. “We have zero intention of changing that. It’s part of who Notre Dame is. Quite frankly, this further cements our independence. We are out there fighting for ourselves. That’s something we accept.”
In an interesting wrinkle, as part of a memorandum of understanding signed by CFP officials last spring, Notre Dame will be assured of making the playoff if it is ranked in the top 12 starting next year, Bevacqua tells Yahoo Sports. For instance, if this year’s circumstances unfold next year, the final at-large team (Miami) would have gotten automatically bumped from the field for No. 11 Notre Dame.
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If the playoff is expanded to 14 teams and there are more at-large berths added to the field (from seven to nine), Notre Dame is guaranteed into the field if it is ranked No. 13 or better, according to the MOU.
Meanwhile, Bevacqua and Freeman are focused now on “consoling” frustrated and saddened players.
“They are young kids. They devote so much time and effort to this,” he said. “In a moment, it’s all taken away from them. We’ll process this and move forward.”
Did Miami move ahead of Notre Dame to make the College Football Playoff at the last minute largely because the Hurricanes started out ranked lower than the Fighting Irish in the first minute — ie. the initial CFP rankings back on Nov. 4? It sure seems that way.
Despite neither team playing on conference championship weekend, Miami jumped two spots from No. 12 to No. 10 to take the final at-large spot in the playoff. That move came at the expense of both BYU and Notre Dame. The Cougars dropped from No. 11 to No. 12 after losing a second time to Texas Tech. And Notre Dame fell one spot to be the first team out of the field.
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On ESPN’s selection show, CFP chairman Hunter Yurachek said the committee hadn’t compared Miami and Notre Dame side-by-side until just before the final rankings. The Hurricanes and Fighting Irish finished with the same 10-2 record and Miami beat Notre Dame in Week 1.
That head-to-head win apparently never was considered by the committee until BYU lost on Saturday in the Big 12 title game.
“The first in that was we felt like the way BYU performed in their championship game, a second loss to Texas Tech in a similar fashion was worthy of Miami moving ahead of them in the rankings,” Yurachek said. “And once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody had been hungry for of Notre Dame and Miami and you look at those two teams on paper and they’re almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponents, their results against their common opponents but the one metric we had to fall back on, again, was the head-to-head.”
Miami beat Notre Dame in Week 2 but was ranked behind the Irish all season. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
(Megan Briggs via Getty Images)
When pressed about the committee’s ranking process by ESPN host Rece Davis, Yurachek cited Miami’s starting position in the rankings as to why the committee waited so long to compare Notre Dame and Miami.
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“Rece, if you recall, Miami was a loser of two of three when they entered [the first set of rankings on Nov. 4] at No. 18,” Yurachek said. “And they were in close proximity to Louisville at the time, who I believe was below them in 21st or 22nd spot and we didn’t use the head-to-head metric to compare Miami and Louisville, Louisville a team that had beaten Miami.
“But not until they really got in close proximity, side-by-side with the move with BYU were we able to evaluate just those two teams side-by-side. We always had someone between them. That was previously Alabama and BYU and then just BYU in the last week.”
Based on Yurachek’s explanation, Notre Dame was stunned on Sunday in large part because it had been in the top 10 in every set of rankings the committee released.
Over the six sets of weekly rankings put out by the committee ahead of Sunday’s final reveal, Notre Dame was either 10th or ninth. Miami, meanwhile, worked its way from 18th to 15th, to 13th before two weeks at No. 12 before moving to No. 10 and ahead of Notre Dame.
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Neither team lost a game in the weeks the committee did its rankings. And both teams played five games in November. Had Miami started closer to Notre Dame in the initial set of rankings, the committee plausibly would have moved the Hurricanes ahead of Notre Dame earlier in the season and potentially brought Miami’s 27-24 week 1 win into play earlier.
“As I mentioned last week in last week’s rankings, we thought Notre Dame was better than BYU and deserved to be ranked higher than BYU and we thought BYU deserved to be ranked higher than Miami, which is the way that laid out,” Yurachek said. “After the championship game in the Big 12 and the way that BYU performed again against Texas Tech, we felt Miami deserved to be ranked ahead of BYU. And then you had the direct head-to-head comparison of those teams, Miami and Notre Dame, sitting respectively at No. 10 and 11 in our poll.”
The committee’s rankings process is complicated and does involve a pod system of sorts, where the members of the group evaluate separate pools of teams they believe are relative equals before compiling a top 25. However, if Yurachek’s answers are to be believed, they expose a flaw within the committee’s ranking process that needs to be corrected ahead of next season.
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There’s no reason for the committee to wait until a week after teams’ seasons are over to evaluate them side-by-side. And one or two teams in between two teams with identical records and a head-to-head result should not preclude that head-to-head matchup from being considered.
Teams should not have needed to be directly next to each other in the rankings for head-to-head to matter. After all, it’s the first tiebreaker for every conference when determining a conference championship participant.
Taking Miami over Notre Dame because of Miami’s win is by far the simplest way to justify the Hurricanes’ inclusion in the 12-team field even if you think Notre Dame is now a better team. But waiting until the first weekend of December to consider a game from the last weekend of August is an illogical process.
