Clark Lea says there’s ‘bias’ against Vanderbilt in CFP Rankings, and he’s right

Like other coaches of 10-win teams pounding the table to reach the College Football Playoff this season, Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea is flabbergasted as to why the 14th-ranked Commodores are on the outside looking in. Penultimate ranking of Tuesday evening.

Lea believes Vanderbilt did enough to qualify and believes there is a “bias” against the Commodores.

“I don’t know of a world where this team wouldn’t have a place in this,” Lea said Monday on SEC Network. “I’m discovering all the flaws right now in the way we determine who’s in, who’s out. I’m very interested in fighting any perception. I think there’s a bias against Vanderbilt. I think we were ignored earlier in the season and we weren’t given a chance. We had to fight our way into the conversation. All we did was line them up and knock them down.”

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When the College Football Playoff expanded to 12 teams ahead of the 2024 season, most assumed 10 wins would be the magic number within the SEC based on the strictness of the schedule, especially after the “record force” metric was added in August. New parameters even prompted commissioner Greg Sankey and the league’s athletic directors to adopt a nine-game conference schedule for 2026 and beyond to balance the competition and better position SEC teams in the playoff conversation.

Three SEC teams were left out of last season’s bracket at 9-3 overall due to a third loss, another data point that reinforced the idea that 10 wins within the conference was the trump card for other prospects in general.

Unfortunately, the Commodores learn a hard lesson from that perceived status this weekend, as 10-win Oklahoma is expected to be in the mix, as is 10-win Alabama, even if the Crimson Tide lose in Georgia in the SEC championship game.

“We have two types of blemishes in our schedule: a loss to Alabama and a loss to Texas. We were in both of those games in the fourth quarter. I would love to play those games again,” Lea said. “We’ll play anywhere and everywhere. Put the ball in the parking lot. Whoever wants to play us in these playoffs, if they want us to get in, we’ll do it. If they want us to play three games to get in, we’ll play three games. I’m proud of what this team has done and we deserve a chance to win a national championship.”

How preseason bias hurts Vanderbilt

You see why Léa argues perception bias now, right? It is partly why BYU (11-1) is on the bubble right now with Utah (10-2) and others. The Commodores were never supposed to be in this position considering they were left out of the AP preseason Top 25 and didn’t receive a single vote through the first two weeks of the season despite convincing wins over Charleston Southern and Virginia Tech.

Vanderbilt burst into the rankings after Week 3 when the Commodores traveled to then 11th-ranked South Carolina and ended a 16-game loss to the Gamecocks in stunning fashion. Why did South Carolina, which finished 4-8, fall near the top 10 after failing the eye test against Virginia Tech and South Carolina State?

The preseason bias was based on what last year’s team accomplished and the expectation that it would happen again.

AP Poll Voters on Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt barely moved in the CFP rankings

While the playoff selection committee doesn’t use the AP poll as a guide, it certainly creates a narrative in the first two months of the season leading up to the release of the first CFP rankings. The top 25 updated Tuesday will be the committee’s fifth reveal of the season and we expect Vanderbilt to land in the top 15.

After debuting at No. 16 in the committee’s first poll in early November with a 7-2 overall score, Diego Pavia and the Commodores have only moved up two spots since, despite a series of blowout wins.

The Commodores have gone 3-2 against ranked teams this season, but Saturday’s 45-24 win over Tennessee was the Commodores’ only victory against a team. Currently split in the top 25 of the selection committee. And when it comes to metrics, Vanderbilt ranks 15th in game control, 11th in record strength and 22nd in schedule strength — marks comparable to other players in the general discussion.

Additionally, the Commodores rank second in the SEC in scoring offense (39.4 points per game), No. 3 in total offense (468.5 yards per game) and have scored more points than any current SEC playoff prospect over their last three games (135). Only two teams currently projected to make the playoffs – Notre Dame and Indiana – are rated higher in scoring efficiency.

None of those positives matter to Vanderbilt if the selection committee views the Commodores as less than Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Alabama, BYU and Miami — the five teams vying for the final two overall spots in Sunday’s final bracket.

Vanderbilt has been so far from the pack — fair or not — in playoff discussions that committee chairman Hunter Yurachek hasn’t had to answer a single question about his group’s opinion of the Commodores in recent weeks. That likely won’t change this week despite Vanderbilt’s loss to Tennessee, an opponent that has already been used in the conversation over quality wins by Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma.