12-team playoff bracket carries different aim than old system and it’s working fine
It’s a quaint notion, but does anybody remember the rationale for creating a college football playoff in the first place?
They did it because the regular season and the bowls were doing a poor job of determining who the national champion ought to be, primarily because the major bowls, being contractually obligated to particular conferences, left no avenue to pit the nation’s best teams against teach other.
Thus, the Bowl Championship Series was put into place in time for the 1998 season, the year Tee Martin did what Peyton Manning couldn’t, leading Tennessee to the crown, topping Florida State in the title game.
And believe it or not, the two-team BCS system did a mostly fine job of determining champions.
In ’99, unbeaten Florida State topped unbeaten Virginia Tech and the only other unblemished team was 11th-ranked Marshall, leaving nobody particularly upset the MAC champion got the boot.
The following season, you may recall, it was unbeaten Oklahoma and reigning champ Florida State.
That one turned controversial because Florida State and Miami each carried one loss and Miami owned Florida State’s.
Nonetheless, the then-used computers put the Seminoles over the Hurricanes and into the game, yet because the Sooners posted a 13-2 victory, thus remaining the nation’s only unbeaten team, nobody complained.
Two other times OU was part of the controversy.
In 2003, the Sooners sneaked into the national championship game following a lopsided Big 12 title game loss to Kansas State.
LSU’s victory over the Sooners that season accounted for our last split national championship, the Associated Press poll handing it to Southern Cal, while the coaches poll, contractually obligated to give it to the BCS winner, crowned LSU despite ranking the Trojans ahead of the Tigers prior to the game.
In 2004, the doomsday scenario occurred: three unbeaten power conference schools.
Southern Cal routed OU in the BCS title game, while unbeaten Auburn was left out. Yet, even then, because Auburn only eclipsed Virginia Tech by a field goal at the Sugar Bowl, nobody considered the Trojans’ trophy tarnished. Everybody thought Southern Cal proved itself the one true champion.
And that’s the huge difference between then and now.
Once, it was about identifying a champion. Now, it’s been about crowning one.
Perhaps you noticed, but once the playoff went to four teams, though arguments persisted over who deserved the fourth shot, nobody argued a conceivable No. 1 team had been left out because no conceivable No. 1 team ever was. A conceivable top-four team might have been, but never a No. 1 and that was enough.
Now, in a 12-team bracket, there’s no chance a No. 1 team might be left out of the playoff, nor is there a chance a top-four team could be, and probably not a top-eight team.
Yet, over the last three weeks, long-trusted voices of the game have conveniently forgotten the history of it, yapping about the inclusion of Indiana and SMU like they’re Digger Phelps and Jay Bilas, complaining the NCAA men’s basketball tournament committee chose a mid-major with 26 wins over one of their good friends’ team's that won 18 before getting bounced out of their conference tourney in the first round.
It’s just so dumb.
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One, it’s dumb because the team they thought got screwed the most, Alabama, by the time its season ended, had not only lost to Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, but a depleted Michigan team, too, at the lovely named ReliaQuest Bowl.
Not to mention, Tennessee and Clemson both fell in their first rounds by wider margins than Indiana, so who shouldn’t have made it?
Two, asserting they know the 12 best teams in the first place is dumb because they have no idea, just like the rest of us..
What they might know is who the best 12 teams are on each of those teams’ best day, but that’s not the criteria.
It now appears Ohio State’s the best team and, indeed, the Buckeyes are early 9 1/2-point favorites over Notre Dame.
But how could anybody have known that when the playoff began, for Ohio State entered with two losses, one to Oregon by a point and the other to five-loss Michigan their last game of the regular season.
The Buckeyes entered the playoff the No. 8 seed because it’s the seed they deserved, and even in a system that pays conference champs no mind in the seeding, they still would have entered no higher than No. 6 behind Oregon, Georgia, Texas, Penn State and, probably, Notre Dame.
On the downside, we’ve replaced an old system designed to identify the best team with a new one designed to identify the best team right now, even if that team had no legitimate claim to the top spot at regular season’s end.
On the bright side, because it’s survive and advance, we really are getting the two best teams right now and the bracket has produced great games.
On the dumb side, there’s still a whole bunch of people who think they know things they don’t because of biases they won’t acknowledge and contractual arrangements that cloud their thinking.
Fox: Big Ten
ESPN: SEC
So many should just quit talking.
Sorry to get off-track, but I've got so much angst regarding the men's basketball brat. fears is the name, and he has single-handedly lost the last two games for the Sooners. His every attempt at the hero pass always ends up as another turnover. And he has now become a nightmare, having more turnovers than points. Plus, every time he throws away another ball, he sulks and pouts his way back and doesn't play any defense. moser has to remove him from the starting role, sit him for longer periods, and then use him only when they need a long three. The reality is now that this spoiled wannabe star hurts the team so badly that he shouldn't be on the floor. Back to no coaching moser: why does he allow drive after drive to a rim that is impossible to reach? OU is nothing but a three-point shooting team. Too small to assault the rim. The big man for Georgia, by himself, shut down the OU game in the blocks. Ya gotta adjust, moser. Right.