College Football Committee Finally Got It Right ... Sort Of
Posted
Jerad Shaw-
It took a while, but it appears as though the much maligned college football playoff committee got it right. Well, kind of. For weeks, the topic of conversation on sports talk radio has revolved around the newly-formed committee and the structure in which it comes up with the rankings. Each week we would get a better idea of what qualifications the 12-member committee has put in place. The committee will be back to a full 13 members next year when Archie Manning returns after having back surgery. It was apparent very early that strength of schedule would play a huge role into who would play for college football’s first ever playoff. The Florida State Seminoles were jumped by two one-loss teams after not losing a game throughout the entire regular season. Apparently, the committee was not impressed with the Seminoles’ non-conference schedule, along with the ACC this season, and has now placed Florida State third in the final rankings. Now even a Florida State homer like myself can respect the fact that Alabama is probably the better team right now, but the lack of respect for the defending national champions is a bit disheartening. I’m told that the committee only looks at what happens in between the lines during the current season, it’s hard to overlook the 29-0 record the Seminoles have put up over the last two seasons. Even with that long streak, the wins this season haven’t been pretty and some were just downright ugly. That leads me to my main concern, style of victory. We teach our children to handle success and defeat with grace and sportsmanship. Three teams this weekend went into games trying to run up scores versus their opponents to catch the committee’s attention. TCU, Baylor, and Ohio State each wanted to make a point with their wins, and in the end a 59-0 shellacking of the Wisconsin Badgers punch Ohio State’s ticket to the playoffs. If you combined the scores for the three aforementioned teams, it would read 152-30, with 27 points coming from one opponent. It probably sounds like sour grapes as my Seminoles rarely pulled away from anyone this year, but watching those games didn’t feel good. Nothing about teams purposely running teams into the ground feels good regardless of the sport. I understand it was necessary, but only due to the way the College Football Playoff is structured. For people like me that cringed every time Ohio State scored, there doesn’t seem to be much hope in sight for a change in the philosophy of the committee. At the end of the day, it seems that the best four teams in college football will decide it on the field. There was a fear that TCU would enter the fray leaving Baylor, a team that had beat TCU in the regular season, outside of the final four. The rules and stipulations state that the best four teams are to be ranked, and apparently that’s regardless if two teams play head-to-head during the season. That is a vital flaw of the setup that these members were handed. If the NCAA is fortunate enough to have two teams so close in record play against one another, there should be no choice but to take that contest above any other stipulation. Then again, we’re talking about the NCAA here. Common sense left that association a long time ago!
