Do the Big 12 and Pac-12 deserve Kirk Herbstreit's criticism stemming from TCU's performance?
In watching the championship game on Monday it was evident by about 5:02 PT that TCU was not on the same playing field as Georgia.
I mean how could they have been? The Bulldogs came to "hunt" and we have all now heard that audio clip of Kirby Smart pregame, along with the fact he somehow convinced his team they were underdogs. Needless to say, it was Georgia's game to lose and they simply didn't do that by any means, taking a 31-point lead in the first half. However, something that has now made its rounds and stood out from the game, were comments made by broadcaster Kirk Herbstreit.
While he and play-by-play announcer Chris Fowler looked for any and everything to talk about in a game that was clearly over by the mid-second quarter, Herbstreit piled onto TCU's huge loss by calling out the Big 12 and Pac-12. The two conferences who have had the least amount of success in the College Football Playoff, as TCU was the first Big 12 team to actually win a game and the Pac-12 has only had two representatives since the start of the playoff, with one winning a semifinal game.
Herbstreit gave into what I consider the worst part of every playoff, which is when the college football world immediately starts to question if a team deserved to be there when he said:
"Sometimes you get in these games and the Big 12 — and the Pac-12, to some (degree) — you think about this playoff era," Herbstreit said. "A lot of times, they've been criticized about whether or not they deserve a chance. Oklahoma's had a few chances over the past. And when they've gotten in, it hasn't always gone that well. And now you get TCU, and now they're down 52 to 7. So sometimes you're not just representing yourself. It creates a narrative out there, right, for, 'The SEC is so much more powerful and look what's happening to TCU and the Big 12.'"
While Monday was far from TCU's best performance, looking at it from a much larger landscape, they beat the Big Ten champion who also beat Ohio State. Not saying TCU beats Ohio State because we don't know since they didn't face off, but they went toe-to-toe with the team that many thought had the best chance of beating Georgia and took them down. That is simply a fact, and while Michigan fans argue that it should have been them taking that beating, they couldn't even beat a team from the conference that they are now bashing.
While I understand two teams from the SEC in Alabama in Georgia have consistently been dominating and contending for a championship seemingly every year, it doesn't seem fair to me to degrade programs from the Big 12 and Pac-12. The 2017 drought for the Pac-12 and winless streak for the Big 12 don't sit well with many, but both conferences as a whole are getting as strong as they have ever been even with programs departing. Some proof of this would be very nice, but the college football world is doing exactly what it is prone to do, overreacting without looking at the landscape.
For starters, it would have taken an absolute perfect performance from TCU to beat a Georgia team who we have known all season was the best team in college football. They throttled Oregon Week 1, they handily beat No. 1 Tennessee, and they beat LSU who was a team that took down Alabama, by 20. We also know now that we are well into the playoff era that the key to winning from a recruiting standpoint is to have a ton of blue-chippers on the roster. TCU overachieved this season on the field after winning five games a year ago, but it already has paid dividends as they just brought in their best recruiting class ever.
Georgia's roster was made up of 77% blue-chip players otherwise known as former four-stars and five-stars. According to 247Sports, dating back to 2012, the national champion has had at a minimum 52% of their roster be compiled of four or five-star recruits. Prior to the season, 247Sports released a graphic of which teams met the blue-chip threshold, meaning which teams could actually win the championship.
Now in looking at the list, five of the 15 teams finished below .500 with three of them being SEC teams. By the middle of the season we knew that six of them didn't even have a chance at contending for the playoff, and of those six, two were from either the SEC or Big Ten. Not to mention, TCU is nowhere on this list and were able to make the championship. I think the main part of Herbstreit's argument that I disagree with is the fact that he is grouping in entire conferences, whether it be the SEC or Big Ten, and saying they are worlds better than the Pac-12 and Big 12.
The Pac-12 and even the Big 12 to an extent were probably from a holistic standpoint more competitive than the SEC from top to bottom, but due to their nature of beating up on each other because of scheduling, often do not make the playoff and are viewed as less. Outside of Ohio State who won the championship the first year of the playoff, no other Big Ten team has won a playoff game, so for Herbstreit to group in the Big Ten as if his alma mater hasn't been carrying the load of the conference is surely interesting.
Next season will be a huge year for the Pac-12 who will have six legitimate contenders in the conference, and a chance to finally end their playoff drought. The Big 12 will rely on its biggest brands in Texas, Oklahoma, and now TCU to represent as well. However, just making the playoff will not be enough to end this conversation. Until someone from the Pac-12 and Big 12 wins it all, the college football world is going to act like the entirety of the SEC and Big Ten are worlds better. When in reality we are witnessing two dynasties at the same time, and not taking the time to appreciate the greatness of those, and are instead bashing those who are not as good right now. News flash, what Alabama has been doing, and what Georgia is now doing, is extremely rare. Comparing anyone to that is quite odd.
All of this to say, the expanded playoff will be the best case scenario for college football. It eliminates the conversation of the committee selecting the wrong teams (for the most part), and it gives programs who have a bias against them and their conference a chance to prove if they belong or not. It also will lead to results we cannot ever imagine, and will really determine who is the best team week in and out.
