Pitt positioned at No. 18 in 1st College Football Playoff rankings
Despite a 48-25 loss to SMU, Pitt remains relevant nationally, listed No. 18 in the first College Football Playoff top 25 rankings released Tuesday night.
Selection committee chairman Warde Manuel, the athletic director at Michigan, said members valued Pitt’s seven-game winning streak to start the season. Pitt is 7-1 for the first time since 2009, and it started the season 5-0 against Power 4 conference teams Cincinnati, West Virginia, North Carolina, California and Syracuse.
Manuel said the victory at Cincinnati (28-27) and another against Syracuse (41-13), the latter in “dominant fashion,” were decisive factors in Pitt’s ranking. “Their first loss of the season was last week against No. 13 SMU,” he said.
“That freshman quarterback, Eli Holstein, has been impressive,” he said, “throwing for over 2,000 yards (2,056) and (17) touchdowns. It’s just an impressive team that Pat Narduzzi has put together.
“We look forward to seeing how they play (going forward), but their opening run was really impressive to the committee, even with the loss they have.”
Speaking of the rankings as a whole, Manuel said the conferences in which teams play don’t factor into their decisions.
He added, “We don’t look at the public polls. Instead, we are instructed by the founders of the playoff to consider teams’ records, their strength of schedule, their head-to-head matchups and results against common opponents.”
The Panthers are in the conversation for a berth in the 12-team playoff, but they must finish strong in their final four games to rise up the rankings. They are fourth in the ACC standings with a 3-1 league mark, behind No. 5 Miami (9-0, 5-0), No. 13 SMU (8-1, 5-0) and No. 23 Clemson (6-2, 5-1).
The ACC is represented by five teams in the CFP rankings, with Louisville (6-3, 4-2) positioned at No. 22. Pitt has Clemson and Louisville among its four remaining games.
Pitt, which is ranked No. 23 in this week’s Associated Press poll, welcomes Virginia to Acrisure Stadium on Saturday for an 8 p.m. prime time matchup.
Jerry DiPaola is a TribLive reporter covering Pitt athletics since 2011. A Pittsburgh native, he joined the Trib in 1993, first as a copy editor and page designer in the sports department and later as the Pittsburgh Steelers reporter from 1994-2004. He can be reached at jdipaola@triblive.com.
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