Louisville’s No. 7 ranking by the College Football Playoff selection committee isn't sitting well with Bobby Petrino, and the Cardinals coach isn't buying its insistence that margin of victory doesn't factor into the rankings.
After Louisville’s 52-7 win at Boston College on Saturday, Petrino hinted his team will keep its foot on the gas in upcoming games vs. Wake Forest, at Houston and vs. Kentucky. He also said he may have coached games differently if he could go back and do them over again.
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“Maybe I made a mistake,” Petrino said, per the Louisville Courier-Journal. “Maybe looking back at it (against) Florida State, we should have kept all the starters in and scored 80 points and did that. But I don't understand why it's like that. I really don't.”
Instead, Louisville beat Florida State 63-20 in that Week 3 matchup
Asked whether the Cardinals needed to blow teams out to strengthen their case for a playoff bid, Petrino said, "I guess we do. It's sad because there's something called sportsmanship.”
Petrino’s line of thinking, though, is off the mark, according to committee member Kirby Hocutt.
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"As we've said as a selection committee before, we do not incent margin of victory,” Hocutt said on ESPN Radio. "We look at performance on the field, but we do not incent the margin of victory. We do not talk about that in our committee room.
"Louisville is a very strong team, very impressive win against Florida State earlier this season. They continue to win. Their schedule, as we talked about it last week, was just not as strong as others that they were being compared against up to this point of time in the season.”
The next set of rankings come out Tuesday, and since No. 4 Texas A&M lost on Saturday, Petrino can at least expect to be bumped to No. 6.