GRAPEVINE, Texas - The 12 members of the College Football Playoff selection committee met for the first time Monday at the Gaylord Texan resort, where they debated the merits of the top teams in the country and cast their historic votes for the inaugural playoff.
Committee chair Jeff Long said the group did not determine its top four teams, and he wouldn’t talk specifically about any teams until the first Top 25 ranking is revealed Tuesday (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
College football playoff executive director Bill Hancock called Monday’s meeting “a very important milestone, not only for the playoff, but also the game of college football.”
[+] EnlargeDak Prescott
Mark Zerof/USA TODAY SportsDak Prescott’s Mississippi State Bulldogs are one of two undefeated Power 5 teams remaining.
“This is a truly historic day in college football,” Hancock said. “Twenty years from now we will all look back and say we were here on the first meeting of the selection committee. When we took the first vote today, we looked at each other and said we have just taken the first vote in the history of the college football playoff. It was really, really a cool thing.”
Before they began, though, they had to check their biases at the door.
There is a coat rack just outside the committee’s meeting room, and each committee member was given a white hat with his or her last name on it as a reminder to hang up their allegiances before they enter the room. While there is a recusal policy in place, one of the biggest questions facing the group has been whether or not they would be able to be objective in spite of longtime loyalties to particular schools.
“Those hats will be posted outside that door for every time we go in, and it’s to remind us we’re leaving those things outside and we’re acting within the best interest of college football, and we’re checking those things at the door,” Long said. “While it is somewhat humorous, there’s a point to it.”
That’s where the jokes ended.
Long said the mood of the room was "much more