Texas A&M makes its first College Football Playoff but gets slapped with a No. 7 seed behind weaker resumes, setting up a brutal home matchup vs. Miami.
Texas A&M finally made program history, and the College Football Playoff committee still found a way to insult them on the way in.
The 11-1 Aggies punched their ticket to the CFP for the first time since the format launched in 2014-15, riding one of the best regular seasons in school history to the No. 7 seed and a home playoff game at Kyle Field against No. 10 Miami.
That should be an unqualified celebration. Instead, it comes with a giant asterisk ... the seeding makes absolutely no sense.
Look at the teams slotted just ahead of A&M.
No. 5 Oregon (11-1) fattened up on a soft non-conference slate and then piled "good, not great" wins in Big Ten play. When the Ducks finally stepped into the spotlight? They lost their biggest game of the year at home to Indiana.
No. 6 Ole Miss (11-1) is even more questionable. The Rebels don't even have their head coach anymore and own exactly one truly notable win, a 34-26 victory at then-No. 13 Oklahoma. Solid, sure. Season-defining? Not really.
Meanwhile, Texas A&M owns the best win of the entire group ... a road win over then-No. 8 Notre Dame in one of the toughest environments in college football.
That alone is a stronger anchor than anything on Oregon or Ole Miss' resumes. On paper, the Aggies have every right to be sitting at No. 5, which would have set up a much cleaner first-round draw at home vs. No. 12 James Madison.
Instead, CFP chair Hunter Yurachek shrugged it all off on the selection show.
"Those teams, five through eight, none of whom played this week in any type of championship game scenario, we didn't feel like we had anything from the championship games that were played that impacted the standing of Ole Miss vs. Texas A&M," he said — basically admitting they didn’t bother to re-evaluate.
Lazy logic, brutal result.
The small consolation? At least the committee didn't drop A&M out of home-field range entirely.
"Opportunity to host a game at Kyle Field, I think that will be a really special moment for this program," head coach Mike Elko said. "First time we've had playoff football here in College Station… excited to see the 12th Man turn out for playoff football and excited for the opportunity."
That opportunity is no cupcake.
"Certainly one of the more talented teams in the country," Elko said of Miami. "Certainly going to be hungry to prove that the committee got it right by putting them in… it's going to be a huge challenge for our program."
Under-seeded or not, the path is set ... beat Miami, prove the committee wrong, and force the rest of the country to admit Texas A&M belonged higher than seventh all along.