As the conference commissioner, if you’re going to stump for the teams you represent, you might want to get all the facts right. But that proved troublesome for ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, as he tried to make the case for SMU and Miami to be included in the College Football Playoff, regardless of what transpires in Charlotte on Saturday night.
Phillips, discussing the Mustangs’ undefeated conference record heading into Saturday’s championship game against Clemson, tried to draw a comparison to last year’s Florida State team. For context, the Seminoles were left out of the four-team CFP despite going undefeated and winning their conference, mainly due to Jordan Travis’ season-ending injury.
“They’re 8-0 in the conference. There’s two teams in the 68 Power Four schools that went undefeated in the conference — the Oregon Ducks and the SMU Mustangs,” said Phillips on ESPN’s College GameDay. “They’re 9-0 with Kevin Jennings as a quarterback.
“Last year, we suffered through having to hear about Jordan Travis being out and Miami not being the same. Well, it cuts both ways. Since Jordan Travis took over, they’re 9-0. They have more Power Four wins than Texas does.”
Jordan Travis plays for who? pic.twitter.com/WH2D1j0V3e
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 7, 2024
Phillips makes a decent point.
The problem?
Travis never played for Miami or SMU. He was at Florida State from 2019-23 and, despite a brutal leg injury, was drafted by the New York Jets in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL Draft. Travis is still recovering and on New York’s reserve/non-football injury list.
But that’s beside the point. We get what Phillips was trying to say, but going on live TV and arguing for your conference while misstating such basic facts — like mixing up which teams Travis played for — is simply embarrassing.
Not great, Jim. Not great!
Not that Warde Manuel and the CFP Committee were exactly hanging on every word, but this slip-up certainly didn’t help Phillips’ or the ACC’s case.
While we aren’t trying to throw stones here, as anyone who has ever done a live spot like this, whether TV or radio, has fumbled something before, this is just a little more than that. When you’re the commissioner of a major conference trying to make the case for your teams, getting basic facts wrong is a tough one to recover from.
The ACC is already 0-1 today, and kickoff in Charlotte isn’t until 8 p.m. ET.
[College GameDay]
