LAS VEGAS – The first 12-team College Football Playoff resulted in the first leak of a team chosen for the field.
“I was furious,” CFP director Rich Clark said Tuesday to USA TODAY Sports. “I told all involved, you’ve betrayed the process.”
Brett McMurphy of the Action Network posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that SMU would be given the final at-large spot ahead of Alabama – 30 minutes before the Mustangs was revealed as the 11th seed in the playoff
The debate was the biggest decision by the 13-member selection committee, and created controversy before and after the selection. Never in the history of the College Football Playoff had a leak occurred, and Clark says there will be an investigation to determine how the information was leaked.
“There are only a certain number of people who know,” Clark said. “ I know one thing, it wasn’t me. There’s the selection committee, ESPN and our staff. Someone in that group (is the leak).”
But finding who released the information will be a difficult process. Clark said he heard about the leak from his son Milo, who sent him a text prior to the release of SMU has the last team in.
“He said, ‘Dad, what happened?’ I had no idea what he was talking about until I saw it,” Clark said.
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Clark was speaking Tuesday at the Sports Business Journal Intercollegiate athletics forum. On the big stage, he spoke about the process of how the committee reached its decision, including revealing that the committee will send ideas to the conference commissioner on how to make the playoff better.
Those ideas, however, don’t include absolute transparency. In other words, the specific weekly votes, by committee member, shouldn’t be revealed. Clark also believes the playoff should have multiple rankings shows, not just one show to announce the rankings.
“We have to have enough (playoff shows) for transparency,” Clark said. “If we go just the last week, there’s too much mystery to that. If we take it away and put one ranking out there, I think that’s a big mistake.’
Matt Hayes is the senior. national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.