I've edited this Q&A for space purposes...great ?'s answered on LSU, UGA and Bama...long, but very well worth the read...?'s are in *BOLD followed by answers.

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Good evening. We have concluded the second week of the 2019 selection process. The committee has ranked LSU as No. 1, Ohio State No. 2, Clemson No. 3, and Georgia No. 4.

Here's why:

LSU has four wins against top-20 teams, the most of any team in the nation. LSU's win on the road against Alabama was impressive. Its offense is explosive. LSU is ranked No. 1.

Ohio State is ranked No. 2. It continues to play at a consistently high level on both sides of the ball. They're an excellent team.

Clemson is also dominant on both sides of the ball. Although its schedule is not as strong as some others, Clemson is an excellent undefeated team. They have gained more than 500 yards of offense in each of their last five games. The committee is impressed with what it sees.
Georgia, with wins against both Florida and Notre Dame, put them at No. 4 in the rankings this week. The committee spent a lot of time comparing Georgia and Alabama. In the end, Georgia's two wins over ranked teams made the difference in the No. 4 spot. Alabama clearly is a strong team, but the committee gave the edge to Georgia.

*Rob, you mentioned the four top-20 wins for LSU. I'm curious, what was it that the committee saw from Texas that pushed them into that realm of the rankings and also what is lacking from a team like Indiana that hasn't pushed it that far yet?

ROB MULLENS: Well, when you look at Texas, obviously they have close losses to LSU and to Oklahoma, so two of their losses are against ranked teams, and understand they do have that third loss against TCU, but they also beat a ranked Kansas State team. That's what the committee saw in looking at Texas.Indiana, we didn't go into great discussion about them because they weren't on the board.

*How much weight do you guys put in when you look at the final score? Sometimes a team could lose by six and really have been dominated, and sometimes they could lose by 20 and it doesn't necessarily mean they were blown out. How much does the final score weigh into the factor of the way you guys analyze these teams, and does it have any importance to you whatsoever what the numbers are on the scoreboard at the end of the game?

ROB MULLENS: No, we're not looking at the final score. We're watching the games. We understand how the games unfold by watching them. Again, we're fortunate to have the resources provided to us by the CFP that allows us to capture these games and watch them in different formats.

*You mentioned spending -- the committee spending a lot of time with Georgia and Alabama and those wins. How much were their respective losses to South Carolina and LSU part of that discussion, and how does that balance out with those wins?

ROB MULLENS: It's certainly a part of the discussion, no doubt. We're aware of the South Carolina loss for Georgia and that Alabama's loss was against a team that was ranked No. 1, so that's clearly on the board when we're comparing them. But we're also looking at Georgia's wins against top-20 teams Florida and Notre Dame.

*You were talking about score not mattering as much and control being a factor. How did you guys view the LSU win over Alabama in terms of Alabama's loss? Was that considered a close loss or was it a loss that you considered LSU had more control in that game?

ROB MULLENS: No, we don't look at control. Again, we're watching the game. Obviously we understand it was played in Tuscaloosa. We're very aware that LSU led from start to finish. But again, we don't put labels on it. We watch the games for a reason.

*Last week I think I asked you -- you referred to LSU's two marquee wins because they had wins over Florida and Auburn. Obviously the Alabama win is big. But what did Texas do to their resume with them getting back into your rankings and being a road win? How much did that boost LSU in the committee's eyes?

ROB MULLENS: We were aware of the Texas win last week. They weren't ranked, and now it happens to be a fourth-ranked team, but we were aware of LSU's win at Texas when we did the rankings last week.

*Did it help them this week, though, significantly?

ROB MULLENS: I think what helped them significantly is they went on the road and beat Alabama, which made that their fourth ranked -- fourth win against a ranked team.
Rob, the comparison between Baylor and Minnesota two straight weeks is interesting. Similar non-conference situations, and as of now it looks like -- not looks like, Minnesota clearly has a great win, Baylor does not, but Baylor has more good wins past Penn State than Minnesota does.

*Rob, you mentioned Alabama as a really good football team right now, and we've talked about good wins, good losses, bad losses. How do you kind of balance those three essentially being a good team with no good wins and one really good loss?

ROB MULLENS: Well, again, we're looking at full resumes, and there's a lot of good teams, right, so our job as the committee, and again, this is an art, not a science, is to rank those based on what we see on the resumes but also watching the games, and this week the difference for Georgia being at four was the fact that they have two wins against top-20 teams being Florida and Notre Dame.

*Rob, just curious, Baylor at 13th at 9-0 as a Power Five school behind a couple of two-loss teams, what's keeping Baylor ranked as low as they are at this point?

ROB MULLENS: Again, Baylor is a good team with good road wins. I think the difference is that when you look at Auburn, Florida, Florida has the win against No. 12 Auburn, and Auburn's two losses are on the road to No. 1 LSU and No. 11 Florida. It probably comes down to schedule strength at this point.

*So do you view Baylor and OU's schedule as being pretty similar?

ROB MULLENS: Again, I mean, that's just one piece of the equation, but those schedules are similar, yes.

*I wanted to ask about Texas in regards to them being ranked No. 19. You mentioned that they have wins against both ranked Oklahoma State and Kansas State and losses against LSU and Oklahoma, but if that was the case how come they weren't ranked last week and how come they have such a high ascension this week?

ROB MULLENS: Well, as you look at, they beat a ranked Kansas State team that we had ranked No. 16 last week, so that was a new piece of information for the committee. And again, we're looking at a clean sheet of paper and everybody's results from the previous weekend.

*I wanted to ask about the flow of games. Alabama was clearly different in the second half than it was in the first half. How much is that taken into consideration not just when ranking them this week but when ranking other teams? Oklahoma had a similar game against K-State.

ROB MULLENS: Again, we're watching the games, so we understand how they play out. That's a key piece of the committee's work is to make sure that we're watching all these games. We discuss how the games unfold as a part of the conversation.

*Is that something, though, when you see mistakes like that from Alabama in the first half, is that something that contributes to them dropping to five, or do you guys say, well, they won the game and it was different in the second half so maybe it's not that bad? How does that conversation go?

ROB MULLENS: You know, obviously we're commenting on what we see on the game. The results do matter. So we're looking first and foremost at the outcome. But we're also discussing how they reached that outcome.