The final College Football Playoff field was announced yesterday, and it has plenty of people upset. Fans of Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama can gear up for the postseason. Everyone else, get your hot takes ready! Here’s a dozen of the thoughts bouncing around my brain…
1. Committees are the worst thing in the world. When you grow up, if you’re ever asked to be on a committee, be polite about it but just pass. I wrote about this years ago right here on Grind City Media, but committees mostly exist to mollify people. They’re a way for big organizations to pass the buck and to try and anger the least amount of people.
A committee is why we are ending up with Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama in the College Football Playoff. And a committee is why there are so many angry people out there this morning across college football land.
2. And I get it. If I was a fan of Florida State, I’d be pissed off, too. My team won every game on the schedule, including against two SEC teams on the road, and a bunch of people in a room somewhere decided we should not make the postseason. That sucks.
3. At the same time, if I was ranking the four best teams in college football–and by best I mean the teams that I believe are the best, a totally subjective metric–I’d put them like this:
Michigan
Alabama
Washington
Florida State
4. Yep, I left out Texas. I realize Texas finished 12-1 and won the Big 12 conference and had a great strength of schedule, beating Alabama in Tuscaloosa along the way. But I also think they’d lose to Alabama if they played them today. The Alabama team that beat Georgia on Saturday was a different beast than the one Texas played, on both sides of the ball. It’s difficult to put too much importance on a game that happened a dozen weeks ago.
5. I know Florida State has been defanged by the loss of Jordan Travis, their hyper-dynamic QB. In the ACC Championship game, their starting quarterback passed for 55 yards! But their defense was awesome, and they figured out a way to win despite being down to their third string QB. You have to figure they’d have backup Tate Rodemaker back if they were in the playoff, and would be able to produce more on offense.
6. I keep seeing FSU referred to as a Power 5 champion. And I guess technically, they are a Power 5 champion. But we all know the ACC isn’t on the same level as the SEC or the B1G, and the Pac 12 (RIP) was probably right behind those two. Sure, this is all based on the eye test, and I suppose there are metrics you can point to that will tell me my eyes are deceiving me. But I saw what I saw.
7. One stray thought: There is a vast disconnect between the in-season college football rankings and the college football playoff rankings in terms of criteria. All season long, the college football rankings–the coaches poll and the AP top 25–reward teams for doing what they’re supposed to do: win and move up the polls. Then the college football playoffs come along, and suddenly the panel is trying to choose the “best” teams, not the teams who have done what they’re supposed to do (just win games). Maybe we should standardize the rankings all season long?
8. As mad as Florida State folks are, Georgia fans also have a pretty good case to be upset. Yes, my Dawgs were in the number one spot, and then they lost the SEC championship game against Alabama. So they probably deserve to fall in the rankings. Although one season ago, TCU was ranked third, lost their conference championship game, and stayed at third in the final rankings. Somehow, their first loss in thirty games dropped Georgia from first to sixth.
9. That’s the part I don’t really understand: How can a team lose by 3 points to a team you are telling us is one of the four best teams in the country, and drop five spots?
10. And then there’s Washington, who went undefeated and won their conference and looked dominant against Oregon last weekend. They had a few weeks recently where they looked sort of lackadaisical, but it’s hard to find any argument against them being involved.
11. All this talk about finding the best teams made me think, well, what is a team? A team is a collective, a group uniting for a common purpose, who can sacrifice for each other and, like Voltron, unite to become something bigger than they are as individuals. So much of that happens in locker rooms and on bus rides and in restaurants, with results that show up on the field.
Missouri strikes me as a group that accomplished that this season. To be clear, I am not arguing for Missouri to be in the final four. But I do think they’re an example of teamwork and growth and perseverance and all the great things that can come from team sports.
As Nick Saban said about his Alabama team after they beat Georgia to win the SEC Championship, “They’re truly a team. Everybody’s together. Everybody trusts and respects the principles and values of the organization and program and buys into them. They’re all responsible for their own self-determination, which means they can go do their job.”
Which sounds awfully corporate and dry, but yeah, Coach, that’s kinda what a team should be. And a committee can’t tell me what the best team is.
12. Finally, did y’all think any of this was going to be fair? College football isn’t fair, and it’s never been fair, and it probably never will be fair. When they expand to a 12 team playoff next season, there will still be three or four teams upset that they didn’t make it, although they will presumably be teams with a few losses and less of a case to be upset than, say, a Florida State. But the NCAA and college football have always been a mess. Now the transfer portal is opening, and we’ll all gleefully watch college free agency and see which players go where.
Anyway, it is what it is, and no amount of indignation or anger will change anything.
Please, just don’t feign surprise and outrage now. We’ve all been complicit in this thing for a while.