Welcome once again to the invitation to the Alabama-Clemson College Football Playoff, where it hardly seems to matter who has earned the “right” to take on the two clear favorites to make the national championship game.
This year it happens to be No. 3 Ohio State and No. 4 Notre Dame. The Irish overtook Texas A&M with what the committee called a better body of work. Ohio State only played six games, but the committee considered that enough as it won its conference championship and had two ranked wins.
We can argue about resumes and who was most worthy of braving the # 1 Crimson Tide as a double-digit underdog, but it’s no surprise what the committee did. In fact, the decisions in the top four were so predictable that the whole process became dull and boring and so filled with a total lack of meaningful discussion that there is no cause for outrage as we have all watched this unfold.
This speaks to a system set up to favor teams in the Power 5 conferences (and Notre Dame, of course), to keep power and money for themselves. From the beginning, the same teams in Power 5 conferences have dominated the top four. That, in turn, has watered down who is actually able to make a playoff run. Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma have combined 20 of the 28 possible places since the playoffs began in 2014.
If Clemson and Alabama meet in the national championship, it would be their fifth playoff encounter in the past six years.
Talk about a lack of competitive balance in a sport with 130 FBS teams.
And while Oklahoma isn’t in the playoffs this year, the Sooners still proved their Power 5 status on Sunday with two defeats when the committee jumped them four places all the way to No. 6 in the final rankings as they just finished their sixth consecutive Big won. 12 title. In the process, Oklahoma was ahead of unbeaten Cincinnati, a team that should but was instead considered to have an inadequate resume – like every other unbeaten group of 5 team in BCS / playoff history.
That the commission actually says it “respects” the undefeated group of 5 teams it is charged with evaluating smacks of so much hypocrisy that you can only laugh (or cry if you’re Cincinnati or Coastal Carolina or even San Jose State) ).
There is no respect and it never has been. Check out how the committee treated the unbeaten UCF in 2017. The Knights, the only unbeaten team that year, finished 12th overall in the final standings behind five teams with two losses and one team with three losses. It’s no wonder they declared themselves national champions. There was no way the power structure would let them prove this legitimately. The following year, after another unbeaten run in the regular season, UCF was in eighth place – but only behind two teams with two losses!
Former Boise State athletic director Gene Bleymaier saw the same system rewarding only Power 5 programs during the BCS era. He once told me, “Had we beaten Nevada [2010], we would have had a chance, and that was under the BCS system and this was after we went to Congress and put a little pressure on it. Now in my opinion there is no chance of a group of 5. They can remain unbeaten as they want, but that committee will not leave them in the top four. I don’t see that happening, and I think that’s a shame. “
Even in a year when a pandemic changed resumes significantly, with only two lukewarm options between Notre Dame and Texas A&M for the No. 4, the commission declined to judge Cincinnati on its merits. Instead, Cincinnati finished at No. 8 and got to play Georgia in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl – a nonprofit situation because even if the Bearcats win, their critics will argue that Georgia just didn’t care enough. Then there’s the unbeaten Coastal Carolina, who finished in No. 12 and was bypassed for an at-large New Year’s Six spot in favor of multiple-loss teams: Iowa State, Georgia and Florida.
While this particular year looks particularly shameful, we have now become immune to this lack of attention, and it cannot be good for the long-term health of the sport if half of the teams playing it are simply disqualified every year for the playoffs. before the season starts.
The playoffs have also had a negative effect on the competitive balance between conferences. Teams like Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State are only getting stronger the more often they make it to the playoffs as it increases their national profile and recruiting ability, making them perennial national title contenders. (Those three finished in the top five of the recruiting rankings on National Signing Day last week.) It then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that these are the predictable heavyweights when a new season arrives.
With so much emphasis on making the playoffs, the whole bowl system around the playoff feels like it’s a consolation prize and not a reward for a season’s hard work and effort. Players are now skipping bowl games, a trend that won’t end anytime soon.
While it is true that the playoffs were intended to try to create more opportunities for teams to compete for a championship, expanded from two to four teams, the same old rules have been strengthened and strengthened. As a result, the playoff selection process feels like it was designed to support the same teams and conferences. Weekly explanations to justify rankings only fuel the resentment that comes with the work the committee does when they get together.
With so much emphasis placed on schedule strength, work, ranked wins and (to a much lesser extent) championships, it becomes unattainable for a great many teams to even think about the top four. The only way a possible expansion solves the issues is if there are guaranteed seats for every Power 5 champion plus the highest ranked group of 5 teams. But in years like this, when unranked Oregon upset the previously undefeated USC, that format would also be destroyed.
We’ve watched these four-team playoffs in action for seven years now and it’s never been more predictable. That is not only a shame for the teams that deserve more attention or inclusion, but also for the sport itself.