Dabo Swinney on Criticism of Ohio State Ranking: 'What Universe Am I Living In?'

No. 2 Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney gave the No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes plenty of bulletin board material ahead of their College Football Playoff semifinal when he ranked OSU at No. 11 on his coaches poll ballot.

Now Swinney is wondering what the big deal is.

Speaking to ESPN's Tom Rinaldi in a Saturday interview, Swinney said the ranking wasn't personal but that he wanted to reward teams for playing nine or more games (h/t 247Sports' Garrett Stepien):

"Obviously, they're a great team. They're plenty good enough and talented enough to beat us and good enough to win the national championship. But in my opinion, I don't think that it's right that three teams have to play 13 games to win it all and one team has to play eight. What universe am I living in? And it has nothing to with them. It was about qualifying. And I didn't think they were qualified, based on the number of games, versus all these other teams. ... In my opinion—Texas A&M, Florida, Oklahoma, Cincinnati—they got punished for playing more games."

The coach can keep defending himself as much as he wants, but unless Clemson blows Ohio State out on New Year's Day, justifying his ballot is always going to pit him against Buckeyes fans. Both sides will have an answer to whether Ohio State's CFP ranking was warranted soon enough.