College season’s messy end should spur playoff tweaks
Heading into the final week of college football’s regular season, things are dramatic.
Not the good kind — the nail-biting, who’s-gonna-win, edge-of-your-seat dramatic.
It’s the messy kind, the kind that is going to have the College Football Playoff committee scratching its head and a fan base (or two, or three) livid at the system that was supposed to correct the issues of the Bowl Championship Series. If everything stays as is, the four teams in are Alabama,
Ohio State, Clemson and Washington. All would have no more than one loss, and each is from a different Power Five conference. It’s not the worst thing that could happen. Few could (and will) argue, but it would make a fair amount of sense.
Four of the five big conferences would be represented, although the Big Ten champ would be at some other bowl, which is a concern. But we would all live with it and enjoy a probable Alabama-Ohio State championship game next month.
What if
But what happens if things change this weekend, when three of the four play in their conference title games?
Does Ohio State lose points for not playing in the Big Ten title game? Does the Big Ten championship game actually mean anything?
Does Oklahoma State at Oklahoma (the de facto Big 12 title game) mean anything?
And if Colorado beats Washington in the Pac-12, what then?
A lot of questions, a lot of disorder, a lot of confusion.
Honestly, I am rooting for chaos at this point. Because with chaos, maybe we will see change.
The most anticlimactic of the conference championships this weekend is Alabama-Florida in the SEC. Even with a loss, Alabama is in the playoff, just maybe not at No. 1 (though it would be hard to drop the Crimson Tide unless they are blown out).
If Clemson loses to Virginia Tech, the ACC should not have a team in the top four. Clemson would have two losses — to Pittsburgh and the Hokies — and it would be impossible to justify letting them in with those. The ACC champ would be a three-loss Virginia Tech team, which has no shot.
The Big 12 doesn’t get an official championship game until next year, but its absence this season is irrelevant to the conference’s plight. Bedlam in Norman, Okla., has no apparent CFP ramifications because Oklahoma and Oklahoma State already have two losses apiece (which also shows why the Big 12’s decision not to expand beyond 10 teams while still playing a round-robin schedule could present a similar CFP obstacle when it does play a title game). The Big 12 won’t get in the playoff unless a miracle occurs (a miracle that includes Clemson and Washington losing and a lot of generosity from the committee).
Big year for Big Ten The Pac-12 will be interesting because if Colorado upsets Washington, the committee has to look at Michigan (which won’t win or lose this weekend because the Wolverines aren’t in the Big Ten title game). Or the committee could consider the No. 8 Buffaloes, who jumped both No. 9 Oklahoma and No. 10 Oklahoma State in the latest CFP rankings.
Of course, Oklahoma can only blame itself for losing to Houston and Ohio State early in the season, and Oklahoma State is still reeling from a controversial loss to Central Michigan, in which the Chippewas were wrongly awarded an extra play — on which they scored a touchdown — after time expired.
That brings us to the Big Ten. There are scenarios in which three of the four CFP spots are filled by Big Ten teams. I can just see SEC fans’ heads exploding over the fact their conference isn’t the best in the country this year. (By the way, why the heck is 8-4 Auburn ranked above a team like 9-2 West Virginia, which lost to the No. 9 and No. 10 teams?)
No. 7 Penn State and No. 6 Wisconsin are playing in the Big Ten championship game, and both are ranked below fellow league teams Ohio State and Michigan. Michigan is No. 5 and, in theory, would move up if a team above it lost. But if Penn State wins the championship and has a win over No. 2 Ohio State as well as No. 6 Wisconsin, are the Nittany Lions left out? They’d likely need a Clemson loss and maybe a Washington loss as well.
Confused yet? Annoyed perhaps? Yeah, me too.
The College Football Playoff isn’t perfect. Hopefully, it’s a work in progress.
Improvements
A few things need to happen to make this experiment work better.
First, all the conferences need to have a league championship game. And those need to matter.
Second, the playoff needs to expand to more than four teams. Eight would be a good start, and 12 would be ideal. That would be the way to get the right teams playing head-to-head at the right time of the year. Teams that peak late, like Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, would have a better chance. So would non-Power Five teams that earned a chance, a la Houston in 2015 or perhaps undefeated Western Michigan this year.
Changes might not come immediately, but they’ll have to at some point. Otherwise, every December stands to give us the frustrating kind of drama.