CFP Chair Warde Manuel Explains Why South Carolina Is Ranked Ahead Of LSU

Following the release of the College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday night, CFP Chair Warde Manuel was asked on his weekly teleconference why the committee ranked South Carolina (6-3) ahead of LSU (6-3) despite the Tigers beating the Gamecocks earlier this season. Per SDS:

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Manuel said the the committee felt like those programs have “gone in different directions” since that game at South Carolina. As a result, the Gamecocks are at No. 21 this week while LSU is at No. 22.

“Yeah, it really came down to the committee felt that since that game, South Carolina and LSU have gone in different directions,” Manuel said. “South Carolina has had some wins in that time frame, and LSU has had 2 consecutive losses. So the feeling was we do look at head-to-head. We obviously consider that closely. We look at that in our evaluation and determine when a team — we take a good hard look when teams play head-to-head and the outcome of the game.

“But in this particular case, we also looked at the body of work and where those teams are, and so the discussion amongst the committee really came down to factoring in everything, in particular, where those teams were since that game was played, and obviously LSU struggled the last two weeks, and South Carolina has really performed admirably since that loss to LSU.”

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