Art Briles believed Texas teams needed Archie Manning on the playoff committee. (USATSI)
Art Briles believed Texas teams needed Archie Manning on the playoff committee. (USATSI)
Why did the College Football Playoff Selection Committee take Ohio State over the Big 12's two candidates? A disappointed Art Briles said Sunday he believed Baylorwould have had a better chance if more Southerners had been on the committee.

"I think the committee needs to be a little more regionalized with people that are associated with the south part of the United States," Briles said during a press conference, per ESPN. "I'll say that. I'm not sure if there's a connection on there that is that familiar with the Big 12 Conference. To me, that's an issue."

West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck gave the Big 12 representation on the committee, and despite a lack of football-related connections to the league's Lone Star State base across his career, does own a law degree from Texas. But Briles seemed to feel the Bears' biggest show of regional support would have come from an SEC legend.

"When Archie Manning went off, I said we're in trouble," Briles told ESPN, referring to Manning's withdrawal from the committee for health-related reasons. "I know Archie. He's a friend. He understands football down here. When he went off that committee, we were in trouble. We need a voice. We need a voice."

Briles also predictably questioned the Big 12's decision to name the Bears and TCU as co-champions despite Baylor's head-to-head victory, a choice that committee chair Jeff Long said left individual members making their own choices about which team should be treated as the league's champion.  

"I think the way the format played out, the waters got muddied a couple weeks ago with saying we'd be presented as co-champs," he said. "I think that hurt the cause for both of us, quite honestly."

Things were already publicly frosty between Briles and Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby following the Bears' win over Kansas State, and it's hard to see them thawing anytime soon following the playoff snub and Bowlsby's assertion that he would have voted TCU ahead of Baylor if he'd been on the committee himself.