College Football Selects Their Playoffs, But System is Hopelessly Broken
On Sunday, the college football playoff selection committee made their decisions, and predictably it fell flat. In a year filled with uncertainty and chaos, we ended up with Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, and Notre Dame.
It's as if the regular season really never mattered, because these four selections were very predictable. Now you can argue, resumes, strength and schedule and what not, but just eye balling this you can see how poor these selections are. Let's start with Notre Dame. A team that until this weekend looked playoff bound, because their marquee win was against Clemson. Well, that Tigers team was without Trevor Lawrence and half their defense, who returned on Saturday, and led an absolute beat down of the Irish in an embarrassing ACC Championship game loss.
Do we really need to see Notre Dame again? And against Alabama, a team arguably even better than Clemson? No, no we don't.
Now we can get mad at the committee, but this isn't their fault. They are tasked with an impossible job, given criteria that is so overwhelmingly biased, that it makes their decisions for them. Should Cincinnati have made the playoffs? Yes. But should they based on CFP's terrible criteria? No. But wouldn't the viewing audience rather see a fresh team that hasn't had a crack at a Clemson/Alabama? A team that did what they needed to do and never lost a game? I know I would.
The G6 has done everything it should have to be invited to the dance, and the committee continues to ignore them. Cincinnati played almost a flawless season, and when the rankings came out they were eighth. They were behind a three loss Florida team. And we have seen this happen before, who can forget undefeated UCF getting overlooked and then claiming their own national championship. The criteria clearly has been created with an emphasis on keeping the G6 out of the playoffs.
That's why this system needs to be scrapped. That includes the New Year 6 bowls as well (How does Coastal Carolina not make a bowl but a three loss Iowa State who lost to a common opponent make it). I don't have all the answers, maybe expand the selection to ten, give each conference an automatic selection, one for the G5 and four wild card selections. The top two seeds get byes and there are four play in games, and go from there.
I'm sure that my system has problems too, but is it any worse than what is out there? The playoffs have become a predictable slog that rewards names on the jersey over actual games. It feels like every year it's the same four teams, and this year they gave it to one team that seemed less deserving the a fresh new name. The playoffs needs to change, and it needs to happen soon.
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