Thoughts of two tournaments were on my mind during my Friday afternoon lunch hour: the College Football Playoff (CFP), and the IHSAA boys’ basketball sectionals.
There seems to be a misnomer regarding the expansion of the CFP. Fans who are perennially on the outside looking in on the current four-team format are expecting parity and equity under the 12-team expansion.
A graph depicts how many times over the last ten years the criteria for CFP seeding would be awarded among teams eligible for it.
The picture doesn’t change much at the top.
Ohio State would have been selected each of the ten previous years reviewed.
Folks here love to hate the Buckeyes, so the news is bad if you are among those folks. I’ve noticed, by the way, the Times-Union readership area is comprised of a notable amount of transplanted Buckeyes, including yours truly (for what it’s worth).
Alabama (9 of the ten years, Georgia and Clemson (7 each), Oklahoma (6), Michigan (5), and blue bloods Penn State and Notre Dame (4 each) round out the least crowded part of the graph.
When it comes to three of the ten years, the confines become tighter: Florida (SEC), Florida State (ACC), the Big Ten (B1G) and soon to be the B1G quintet of Michigan State, Wisconsin, and B1G newcomers Oregon, Southern Cal, and Washington are joined by one team the conference that will no longer closely resemble the Big XII (Baylor).
There were 9 teams who would have been invited twice, and 26 other teams who would have been invited to join the field of 12 if the CFP had the expanded field format over the past ten years.
I don’t believe much will change when the field of twelve plays through to the final four. Much like the NCAA basketball tournament, there will be some upstart teams playing well in the late season who will use their momentum to advance.
Unlike college basketball, however, each time will have one week to prepare for each round of play, and despite the draft eligibility of third-year college athletes in football, lower seeded teams will not have senior-laden classes outsmarting younger teams with raw talent.
College football teams are structured quite differently from college basketball teams.
I looked at many of the 35 aforementioned teams how would have qualified for the field of 12 CFP, and I could only see two schools busting the brackets based on those schools’ collective current state
Louisiana State, Utah, please take a bow. It looks like the biggest upside to a field of 12 CFP is the reduced frequency of athletes opting out of playing in the championship tournament. Hopefully another takeaway will be less kvetching from… the rest of the field.
Five boys’ basketball teams, as of the time I prepared my thoughts, are playing in a Friday night IHSAA sectional semifinal.
Triton (hosting their Class 1A sectional), Lakeland Christian (Bethany Christian 1A), Whitko (Bluffton 2A), Tippecanoe Valley (hosting 3A), and Warsaw (Elkhart 4A) are the area teams who will hopefully wake up this morning looking forward to another week of basketball practice.
If more than one of these teams is playing tonight, T-U Sports editor Connor McCann asked me to blow the dust off my laptop and cover some sectional final action.
I’ll start the day PA announcing this afternoon’s Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference (NAIA) women’s basketball title clash (IU South Bend and Olivet Nazarene University), I’ll finish the evening in one of the five aforementioned venues covering a sectional final.
Since it is Saturday, I’ll give snippets on how I think things went, and see if I’m right or wrong.
Triton should be playing for a title tonight.
Lakeland Christian had a rough season but drew a bye. This is the only reason they’re playing in a Friday semifinal.
Whitko’s defense will need to be even more stifling than it was Wednesday versus Manchester to knock of a Fort Wayne Bishop Luers team whose conference and non-conference regular season opponents’ strengths give them a “quality of opposition” edge.
The Wildcats are a veteran team, though, and this might improve their chances of facing Fort Wayne Blackhawk Christian in tonight’s final.
Valley’s sectional is theirs to lose, but John Glenn might be the opponent awaiting them tonight in the final. The Falcons ended the Vikings’ postseason run in the opening sectional round last year at Knox, and the red and black cannot be overlooked this year.
Did Warsaw find the secret recipe in Concord’s defense Friday night? If so, the Tigers would face Penn in a rematch of the two teams’ January clash, the Tigers winning the regular season fray in overtime.
Win or lose, each of these teams were part of a T-U area high school basketball season far more interesting from top to bottom than recent seasons where there were three watchable area teams at best during the two prior seasons.
I hope there will be more than one game to cover tonight.