Clark Lea: 10-win Vanderbilt being outside of College Football Playoff is upsetting

Vanderbilt‘s 10-win regular season may not have been enough to get the Commodores into the College Football Playoff. They won’t play for a conference championship, and are currently on the bubble to make the postseason tournament.

Commodores head coach Clark Lea voiced his displeasure with the current playoff model, sounding off on his feelings about Vanderbilt’s current position. In turn, he called for an overhaul of the committee’s current evaluation process.

“I’m just frustrated. We attempted to state our case,” Lea said, via ESPN Radio. “We were fighting for our team. This team deserves the chance to be in and that’s all we want, is just the chance. Look, it’s not like I’m asking people to vote us national champion. I just want the chance to play for it.

“If you were to have told me before the season that a 10-win SEC team doesn’t get in, I would have said there’s no way. For us to be on the wrong side of this right now, it’s upsetting.”

Lea said his statement is not to criticize the College Football Playoff committee, but rather to criticize the playoff’s current model. The Vanderbilt coach specifically mentioned his issue with how automatic bids are distributed in the current 12-team format.

He mentioned the fact that the playoffs currently allows the opportunity for a Group of Six team to make the playoffs. That leaves teams that finished the regular season 10-2, such as Vanderbilt, Miami and Utah, are on the outside looking in during conference championship week and can’t do anything further to help their case.

“No disrespect to those (Group of Six) teams, obviously,” Lea said. “I know how hard it is to win anywhere, but this is actually about getting the 12 best teams in to compete for the greatest of all prizes, the national championship trophy. And I just I don’t like where we’re at right now with the process.

“I’m frustrated by it. I can’t understand it. If I could understand it, I could accept it. I want to fight against it. I’m anxious to help improve it in the off season, but right now, I’m just fighting for my team.”

The final College Football Playoff rankings will be revealed on Sunday following the conference championship slate. Where Vanderbilt falls remains to be seen, but Lea has stated his case to the committee. For now, it appears that 10 wins for the Commodores may not have been enough to squeeze into the field.