The College Football Playoff announced its recusals for the 2017 season, and in addition to being recused from Arkansas, Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long will also be recused from Missouri, where his daughter will be a freshman in the journalism program and employed by the athletic department.
New committee member and former Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer will be recused from both Virginia Tech and Georgia, where his son, Shane, is the tight ends coach and special-teams coordinator.
The only other selection committee member recused from two schools is Tyrone Willingham, who, for the past three seasons, has not been able to vote for or participate in discussions about Duke, where his daughter is employed, and Stanford, where his son is on the football staff.
The 13-person committee has three new members, but only two of them -- Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith (Ohio State) and Beamer will have to leave the meeting room during discussions about their respective programs and can't vote for them. Robert Morris University president Chris Howard, an Air Force graduate and Campbell Trophy award winner, was not listed among the recusals.
Ohio State was one of the committee's most controversial picks to date, as last year's group voted the Buckeyes in their top four, even though Ohio State had lost to Penn State and didn't win the Big Ten.
Ohio State's name and logo will be shaded gray on Smith's CFP-provided computer, making voting for the Buckeyes impossible.
"Committee members have no effect on their own teams because they are recused from all discussion and voting when their teams are involved," CFP executive director Bill Hancock said. "In fact, we took the additional step of [Clemson athletic director] Dan [Radakovich] being recused in discussions of teams that might become Clemson's opponent. The recusal policy is roughly the same as NCAA sports' committees, but ours is a little more restrictive."
Smith told ESPN.com in January he will have no problem recusing himself from discussions about Ohio State.
Smith, who was chair of the NCAA men's basketball selection committee in 2011 and a member of that group for the five previous seasons, said he had to recuse himself in 2007 when the Buckeyes were a Final Four team.
"We went through an exercise in basketball sometimes when we'd literally take the name of schools off and look at the stats and things of that nature so you don't get biased by a brand, and that's what I want to do -- I want to be fair to these kids," he said. "That's what it's all about."
"The one thing I've always learned is that people are going to have differences of opinion and different views, and that's OK," Smith said. "That's the great thing about our society. All I know is I'm going to do what's right based upon the guidelines that are put in place and based upon what I see and learn about individual teams. That's what I've always done, and that's what I'll do in this situation, is just use my experience and my level of expertise to bring that to my teammates in the room and do what's right. Whatever people say about that, that's OK, that's their opinion."
The full list of recusals for the 2017 season are as follows: Long (Arkansas, Missouri); Herb Deromedi (Central Michigan); Radakovich (Clemson); Willingham (Duke and Stanford); Rob Mullens (Oregon); Jeff Bower (Southern Mississippi); committee chair Kirby Hocutt (Texas Tech).
Former Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson, former NCAA executive vice president Tom Jernstedt and former USA Today college football reporter Steve Wieberg don't have to recuse themselves from any teams.
The recusal policy is implemented when a committee member or an immediate family member is still being paid by a school, provides professional services for a school or is on the coaching or administrative staff or team.
The selection committee met this week in Colorado Springs to review the protocol, recusals and timing of the rankings. In September, Smith, Beamer and Howard will meet separately to go through their own mock exercise, but the full group won't meet again until its first official ranking is revealed Oct. 31 (7 p.m. ET on ESPN). The committee will again meet Mondays and Tuesdays once the rankings begin and have six total rankings, with Selection Day on Dec. 3 (12 p.m. ET on ESPN).