Despite criticism, CFP chair Hunter Yurachek doesn’t see need to change weekly ranking shows

College Football Playoff committee chair Hunter Yurachek had a lot of explaining to do on Sunday.

He didn’t do a very good job of it.

The big question of the day was why the committee ultimately decided to put the Miami Hurricanes into the CFP over Notre Dame, even though the Fighting Irish had been ranked ahead of the Hurricanes in their previous rankings. Neither team played between the last ranking and this one.

Yurachek told ESPN’s Rece Davis that they hadn’t started considering the head-to-head matchup between Miami and Notre Dame until after BYU lost in the Big 12 Championship, which didn’t make much sense.

College Football Playoff selection committee chair Hunter Yurachek explains the decision to put Miami in the field in an interview with Rece Davis on ESPN. 🏈🎙️ #CFP #CFB pic.twitter.com/ycRDQzYqZg https://t.co/47mIGVwAD6

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 7, 2025

Davis’s incredulity at Yurachek’s explanation was how many people watching at home likely felt. Not only was it absurd to learn that the committee had never previously considered the head-to-head matchup in its rankings, but it also spoke to a sentiment already in the air about the point of those weekly ranking shows during the season.

The weekly rankings and the discussions they spark have drawn the committee into increasingly fiery criticism as holes in their logic were being exposed long before this Sunday.

On Saturday’s edition of College GameDay, Kirk Herbstreit, someone whose voice carries weight in the college football world, called for the end of the weekly rankings show (while also predicting the exact mess they would eventually create).

“If you talk to the conference commissioners, honestly, I think we should remove, with all due respect, the Tuesday night show. Because truly, until all the data is in – conference championships, head-to-head, I think all the data comes in, then you can look at this fairly. But to look at this week by week, I just think it sets us up for things like, ‘well that doesn’t make sense, how could you do that? You’ve had Notre Dame ahead of these guys all week; they didn’t even play. How are you going to flip Miami now? It’s really not supposed to be the real rankings until the season is over,” Herbstreit said.

That sentiment was shared by Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua, who told Yahoo Sports after the CFB snub that the weekly rankings show is a “farce” that provides “false” hope based on what appear to be the committee’s good-faith efforts.

“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.”

Yurachek was asked directly on Sunday by The Athletic’s Chris Vannini if it would be better for the CFP to have fewer weekly ranking shows. The CFP committee chair didn’t seem to think so.

I asked CFP chair Hunter Yurachek if it would be better to have fewer weekly ranking shows.

“You’re always going to have controversy, and that’s why we debated for so long. … I don’t think that having less calls is going to change that perception.”

— Chris Vannini (@chrisvannini.com) December 7, 2025 at 12:07 PM

“You’re always going to have controversy, and that’s why we debated for so long,” he said, per Vannini. “I don’t think that having less calls is going to change that perception.”

That’s true in a sense. The way college football and the CFP are structured, it is inherently destined for controversy. But there’s a difference between just announcing on Sunday that Miami got the nod over Notre Dame because of their head-to-head win, and flipping that decision at the last minute after a month of making it seem like that didn’t matter. That’s the epitome of a self-created controversy that didn’t need to exist.

The goal, one would think, would be for the committee to find ways to limit controversies and “own goals.” However, that doesn’t seem to be the priority, with the drama and, quite frankly, anger created by the season-long ranking system seemingly being their preferred way of doing business.