Florida State Seminoles head coach Jimbo Fisher. Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports
Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher admits he’s confused with the latest College Football Playoff Rankings dropping his unbeaten Seminoles from No. 2 to No. 3 behind once-beaten Oregon.
Fisher stopped short of admonishing the selection committee with his comments Wednesday.
In the third installment of the CFP rankings, 9-0 Florida State was jumped by 9-1 Oregon, which sits at No. 2 behind undefeated Mississippi State.
“Nothing,” Fisher said when asked of his reaction to Tuesday’s rankings. “I kept watching film of Miami.
“That’s their opinion. We got to get ready to play Miami. Things will always take care of themselves. I don’t mean that in any disregard. Whether we’d have been No. 1, it’d have been the same.”
There is speculation that the drop could be the Seminoles’ lack of impressive wins coupled with close calls at home against Clemson and Notre Dame.
Fisher was asked whether the committee was sending a message that the Seminoles couldn’t withstand a loss while teams in other power conferences could.
“You said that. I’m not getting into all that,” he said. “I thought the name of the game was to keep winning. I don’t know what (the committee is) trying to send or what’s going on. I don’t try to think what other people think.”
Fisher defended the Seminoles’ nonconference schedule, which includes Florida, Notre Dame and Oklahoma State, as well as his team’s wins, Six of the Seminoles’ victories have been by 11 or more points, which Fisher called “significant margins.”
The coach said he would not consider running up the score to please the committee or make the Seminoles’ results more convincing.
“I’m not going to change the integrity of the way I do things,” he said. “I’m hoping to hold the integrity of the game higher than everybody else. If people on the committee can’t see that, then that’s it. We’ll play the game the way it’s supposed to be played.”
Fisher suggested the Seminoles’ were being held to the standards of the 2013 national championship team, which routed opponents throughout the season.
“You don’t win games like we did last year,” Fisher said. “No one has done it 68 years.”
Playoff selection committee chair Jeff Long said Tuesday that Oregon and Florida State were “very, very close” and the difference between the two teams is “razor-thin.” Oregon is 3-1 against teams in the CFP Top 25, and Florida State is 2-0.
The selection committee will eventually pick the four teams that make the inaugural College Football Playoff.
“We clearly look at the win/loss record, but we also look beyond the record to other factors indicating overall strength,” Long said, according to the Orlando Sentinel. “Strength of schedule and body of work are important. Week in and week out, we will begin with a fresh look at all the teams and a clean sheet of paper which provides us with new perspective.”
The Seminoles play at Miami on Saturday night against the 6-3 Hurricanes.
