A historic day, 6/26/12, College Football adopted a playoff model for 2014 and the BCS is no more.
This is what we've all been begging for, right?!? Well, you would not know it based upon the response from the media and the public last night and today. Now it appears as if everyone is pissed about only having 4 teams in the playoff and not 8 or god forbid 16 teams in a playoff. I'm not completely opposed to a larger bracket, but let's stop and enjoy what we have...a true national champion...finally.
I can see the argument for more teams, but honestly, to maintain the integrity of the regular season, this thing can not be larger than 8 teams...and even that might be a little too much. Think about it - are there ever 8 or even 6 teams that should, based on their regular season, have a claim to the National Title? The quick answer is NO, but let's look back at last year to illustrate this.
Teams with a claim to the Title in 2011:
ALABAMA
LSU
Obviously, this was the title game, so both would be included in any playoff format. I can't come up with a legitimate argument that leaves either of these teams out of this scenario.
OKST 11-1, conference champ, yes, I think they deserve to be included in the 2011 playoff. For me, the auto bids seem to be pretty simple - undefeated or one loss teams that won their conference. ALA makes it as a non-SEC champ with 1 loss because they lost to #1 and destroyed everyone else in their path. The small conference (Non BCS) teams will need to go undefeated to even be considered, and really this is how it should be. The average weekly opponent for teams like HOU and BOISE is probably 2 TD's worse than the average ALA opponent and a true title contender should never lose to one of those. So if you're not undefeated in a small conference, then you don't have a chance. It's not written that way in the actual playoff rules, but that will be the case.
The 4th team is a little more difficult to choose. The candidates:
STAN 11-1, ORE 11-2 PAC 10 Champs
BOISE 11-1
HOU 12-1
That's really it. Based on the criteria outlined yesterday, ORE would get the nod over STAN in the Conf Champ, head to head, and SOS components which should be enough to put them over the top and get them in as the #4 seed. BOISE and HOU would not be considered because they each had a loss. If BOISE defeats TCU and goes 12-0, then they would have a shot...but I think I would still put ORE in the playoff.
So we would have ORE-LSU and OKST-ALA...who can complain? Nobody. STAN lost to ORE and didn't win their conference. BOISE and HOU both lost games they should not have, so they are out based purely on a major strength of schedule difference against the BCS teams. If this was 8 teams, and all conference champs were included, I think it would be great as well. However, the top 4 in a tourney is a hell of a lot better than leaving a legit championship contender (OKST 2011) out in the cold with no shot to prove it on the field.
Be happy - this is major progress!! Now we just need to get through the next 2 years of the BCS swan song!
We are at about 64 days until the season kicks off...just in case you forgot.
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