Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney caused a bit of a stir last week when he ranked unbeaten Ohio State 11th on his Amway Coaches Poll ballot.
As luck would have it, the Tigers and Buckeyes will face off Friday in a College Football Playoff semifinal game. So does Swinney believe No. 3 Ohio State is truly the nation's 11th-best team? No. He just doesn't believe Ryan Day's Buckeyes qualified for a top-10 ranking.
"They're plenty good enough and talented enough to beat us and good enough to win the national championship," Swinney told ESPN's Tom Rinaldi. "But in my opinion, I don't think that it's right that three teams have to play 13 games to win it all and one team has to play eight. What universe am I living in? And it has nothing to do with them. It was about qualifying. And I didn't think they were qualified."
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In terms of sheer numbers, Swinney has a point. No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 Clemson, and No. 4 Notre Dame have all played 11 games. Ohio State has played six. Therefore, Swinney explained, they weren't even considered in his top 10.
"It has nothing to do with Ohio State — absolutely zero," Swinney said. "You can change the name to Michigan or Georgia or Florida or Tennessee or Nebraska. Anytime you have a top-10 (ranking), it should be that special. This year it's like really, really, really special and I wanted it to be that way.
"And so, I wanted to recognize the teams that played nine games or more. And so, if you didn't play nine games, I just didn't consider you from the top 10. That's why they were 11."
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