Category Archives: BCS/Playoffs

I have a theory.  Mind you, it’s nothing more than that.  Pure speculation on my part, in other words.  But it’s how I’ve to come to settle for myself what the selection committee did to Georgia after the SECCG.

I start with the belief that the committee saw the train wreck coming a couple of weeks out and knew it had too many teams for too few spots at crunch time.  What to do?  It’s not as if taking a most deserving tack or a best tack would solve the dilemma; some team or teams were bound to be left out in controversy.  Which meant the committee would be hearing serious criticism any way it went.

I think what they decided to do was fall back on a formula that would reduce the level of subjectivism going into the final cut.  If nothing else, that would let them feel more comfortable that the ultimate decision was sort of taken out of their hands.  (It wasn’t really, of course, since they were the ones who chose this particular route, but still…)

And I think the choice they made was to treat three games — the Michigan-Ohio State game, the Pac-12 championship game and the SECCG — as de facto CFP quarterfinal games, meaning at least in the sense that they were single game elimination contests for the losing teams in each.  That reduced the size of the final field considerably.  Texas was likely in, given the win over ‘Bama and the draw they pulled in their conference championship game.

FSU?  Well, the ‘Noles should have been a problemmatic decision, but the committee took that Travis injury and rode FSU out of consideration immediately.  Fair?  Nah.  Convenient?  Absolutely.

Georgia, then, wasn’t out because of either best or deserving considerations, but because the committee had to reach a decision.  Ironically, of course, after the CFP plays out, the Dawgs will find themselves no worse than third in the final polls (should Michigan and Washington play for the natty) or second.  Helluva way to run a railroad, if you ask me.

Again, all of this is straight out of my ass, but it makes sense to me.  You know what even makes more sense?  Deciding the CFP field by approval voting.  Eh, but what do I know?

Seth Emerson ($$) suggests it might be.

Florida State, though, deserved it way more. It deserved to be talking about its important Playoff matchup, rather than asked to recount that painful moment earlier in the month.

But here they are. It’s still a nice week. It may be a nice game. But it’s not what it could have been.

“You’ve still gotta take it with a grain of salt and go from there,” said Washington, the FSU defensive lineman. “It’s not the Playoff. But you can’t get that back. Keep moving forward with the people you have.”

It doesn’t take a tremendous leap of logic to think that if FSU were preparing to play in the first round of the CFP, it would be doing so with a roster not depleted by opt outs that simply weren’t motivated enough to risk injury in the Orange Bowl.  But that’s a pretty easy take in the case of the ‘Noles’ special circumstances, being an undefeated conference champion being snubbed by the selection committee.

What about the more likely possibility going forward — players with real NFL futures playing on multiple-loss teams that eke into the CFP field, likely to get mowed down early by a powerhouse, highly seeded program?  Or, players that are justifiably concerned about the increased injury risk from playing more games?

At their core, bowl games are exhibitions in which players are not directly compensated for their participation. For those transferring or preserving their bodies for the NFL Draft process, sitting out makes perfect sense. The 12-team playoff will change the math, however, by bringing the possibility of four extra games. College football players may now suit up for 17 games, equal to an NFL regular season.

The choice now shifts from deciding whether to play just one exhibition game to risking generational NFL money to play as many as four additional games in pursuit of a national championship.

Interestingly, Kirby Smart dismisses that possibility, but look where he’s coming from when he says that.

“I find it hard to believe [a player would sit out],” Georgia coach Kirby Smart told CBS Sports before the season. “The culture in the SEC, I don’t think [suggests] it will happen. That $30 million that is on the line, that could cost them another $15 million if a team [thinks] they’re not going to play through the contract.”

As we see from the Orange Bowl itself, college football cultures vary.

In the end, I suspect this will go the same way as it did in bowl games for so long.  Players played and then watched the likes of Fournette and McCaffrey skip there bowl games without any NFL ramifications.  With that, the dam broke.  Someone will eventually take the first step and skip a playoff game, and if the NFL simply yawns, there will be others to follow.

If you really don’t want opt outs, the only way to guarantee that is by contractual obligation and we know the schools aren’t ready to cross that bridge yet.

Stewart Mandel ($$):

That could absolutely happen, especially in the SEC, where the two teams that reach the championship game in a division-less format will almost certainly both be national championship contenders. Next season, for example, Georgia plays at Alabama in Week 4. Let’s say the Tide win that one. They meet again in Atlanta, neither team having lost since then, and Alabama wins again. The undefeated Tide get the No. 1 seed in the Playoff, the 11-2 Dawgs get the No. 8 seed. They meet again in the quarterfinals, only this time Georgia wins and goes on to take home the natty.

What people need to realize is that in moving to an “NFL-style” playoff, you’re going to have all the same quirks that come with every other sport’s postseason. Teams may face each other two or three times in the same season, perhaps even in back-to-back weeks…

I thought that’s what got us out of the BCS and into the CFP in the first place.  So much for fixing the issue.

These things are foreign concepts to college football, and I have no doubt will feel jarring the first time they happen. But the majority of the college football public has been yearning for a bigger playoff for years, if not decades. You can’t switch to a radically different postseason format and expect everything else to remain exactly the same.

Thanks for those comforting words.  And people still want to argue with me that an expanded playoff doesn’t dilute the meaning of the regular season.