Here are which teams each Playoff committee member can’t discuss in 2018

The College Football Playoff requires selection committee members to recuse themselves from certain decisions that might affect teams they work for in their day jobs.

Here’s the updated list of 2018 committee members, including which teams they must recuse themselves from ranking.

Recusals are in bold. The committee doesn’t force members out of the room for every personal tie to a particular university, typically only those they or close relatives actually work for:

• Rob Mullens, Oregon AD (and selection committee chair)
• Paola Boivin, Arizona State professor
• Scott Stricklin, Florida AD
• Todd Stansbury, Georgia Tech AD
• Herb Deromedi, former Central Michigan coach
• Gene Smith, Ohio State AD
• Ken Hatfield, former FBS head coach
• Joe Castiglione, Oklahoma AD
• Frank Beamer, former Virginia Tech head coach (Beamer also has to step out when the room discusses Oklahoma, where his son Shane is an assistant)
• Chris Howard, Robert Morris University president
• Ronnie Lott, former USC running back
• Bobby Johnson, former Vanderbilt head coach
• Jeff Bower, former Southern Miss coach

One thing you may notice right off the bat with this list: There’s still little representation for Group of 5 schools, even after all the UCF uproar from 2017. The lack of mid-major representation is not new for this group, which has never come close to including a mid-major team in the Playoff.

Here’s the Playoff’s explanation for the recusal policy, which it says is built around avoiding conflicts of interest:

A recused member is permitted to answer only factual questions about the institution from which the member is recused but shall not be present during any deliberations regarding that team’s selection or seeding. Recused members shall not participate in discussions regarding the placement of the recused team into a bowl game.

”If a committee member or an immediate family member, e.g., spouse, sibling or child, (a) is compensated by a school, (b) provides professional services for a school, or (c) is on the coaching staff or administrative staff at a school or is a football student-athlete at a school, that member will be recused. Such compensation shall include not only direct employment, but also current paid consulting arrangements, deferred compensation (e.g., contract payments continuing after employment has ended) or other benefits. The committee will have the option to add other recusals if special circumstances arise.”

Because there’s a recusal policy in place, nobody’s going to think the Playoff committee ever made its choices with anything but fairness in mind.

Kidding. That is not what’s going to happen.