An excerpt from the Herald:
Rhoades, speaking Tuesday on a conference call after the rankings were revealed, said the committee looks at each team’s “full, total body of work” when determining rankings. This includes looking at their “performance on the field, their strength of schedule, their head-to-head matchups and results against common opponents.”
Despite saying otherwise earlier in his conference call, Rhoades said Miami’s recent losses did play a factor in putting them at No. 18 because of how they lost, specifically citing the offense’s six combined turnovers and inability to close out games in the two defeats. “Early on, I think, like everybody else in the country, [we] held them in high, high regard,” Rhoades said. “Certainly the win against Notre Dame [was good], but with recent losses — that Friday night game to a Louisville team that came into Miami and then obviously the game at SMU — I think offensively right now, Miami is struggling a bit, and so the committee felt strongly in terms of where we ranked Miami.” Rhoades also then clarified that head-to-head becomes a bigger factor “when the teams are comparable at the margins,” which is why they didn’t use it as significantly when considering Miami against Notre Dame as it did for other teams (like No. 4 Alabama vs. No. 5 Georgia, No. 11 Texas vs. No. 12 Oklahoma and No. 14 Virginia vs. No. 15 Louisville, for example).
And while Rhoades credited Miami for the win over Notre Dame, he said the committee “felt strongly” that the Fighting Irish “is a team that when you look at Week 1 to now, a team that has improved, has gotten better.” Notre Dame lost its first two games to Miami and Texas A&M, the latter of which is No. 3 in the initial rankings, by a combined four points before winning its past six games, although the only notable opponent in that span was USC, which the committee has ranked No. 19. “When we look at the tape,” Rhoades said, “we think Notre Dame is a really solid football team.” There are five two-loss teams ranked ahead of Miami: No. 10 Notre Dame, No. 11 Texas, No. 12 Oklahoma, No. 13 Utah and No. 16 Vanderbilt.