Imagine Dayton receiving a higher seed in the NCAA Tournament than the second-place team in the Big 12 because it won its conference? Or last year’s AAC winner, UAB, getting an easier road than Duke or Kentucky?
Sounds ridiculous, right?
Well, to a much smaller degree, that’s the format of the expanded College Football Playoff. The third and fourth seeds will be going to the winners of the ACC and Big 12, no matter who wins.
Those two teams will receive a bye, and as a result an easier path than superior teams from the super conferences, the SEC and Big Ten.
I understand the reasoning behind the format of the expanded playoff. You want to reward conference champions. Still, I think inclusion should be enough of a reward.
The ACC and Big 12 champions do not deserve to be seeded above the likes of Ohio State, Georgia, Texas and Ole Miss, among others.
They will clearly not be the third- and fourth-best teams in the country, whoever wins those underwhelming leagues.
There is a wide gulf that exists between the ACC and Big 12 and the Big Ten and SEC. The aforementioned conferences will almost certainly only be represented by their respective champions. In the first edition of the committee’s playoff rankings, ACC leader SMU was No. 13. Big 12 leader BYU was ninth.
SMU’s best victory is No. 18 Pittsburgh. BYU was fortunate to get past five-loss Utah on Saturday night. Its best win is over … SMU.
Of course, there is no guarantee one of these teams will represent their respective leagues. But the other options aren’t much better. You remember how Clemson, a game behind SMU in the ACC, fared against Georgia, right? Crushed, 34-3. Colorado, trailing BYU by a game, doesn’t have a single win over a team in the committee’s rankings.
It seems silly that whoever wins the ACC and Big 12 will be seeded higher than the second-best team in the SEC and Big Ten, and have an easier path to a title just because it plays in a considerably weaker league.
Take it a step further. The top few seeds may actually get tougher quarterfinal games than the fifth and sixth seeds, since they would be facing the ACC and Big 12 champions.
Obviously, a lot of this is uncertain, but the current format creates an imbalance that could easily be rectified.
The playoff was expanded for inclusion, added interest, and of course more money. The idea, however, should be to create the best games, and the way to do that is to seed based on the strength of the teams.
The NCAA Tournament doesn’t operate this way, because it makes no sense. All that matters when it comes to March Madness is the résumé. College football should adopt that model.
Rising Tide
Give Kalen DeBoer credit. His first season was looking like a lost year. Alabama had dropped two of three games, falling in road contests to Vanderbilt and Tennessee.
The Crimson Tide’s margin for error was gone. Pressure was building on the man replacing the legendary Nick Saban.
His team has responded in a big way, with blowout wins over Missouri and LSU by a combined 76-13, and now is in a decent spot to receive an at-large bid to the playoff if it can beat Mercer, Oklahoma and Auburn to close out the regular season.
Alabama will be significant favorites in all three games. It’s hard to see a two-loss Crimson Tide being left out with wins over Georgia and LSU and their lone defeats on the road against quality teams.
Reaching the SEC championship game remains a long shot. Alabama is a game behind Texas, Texas A&M and Tennessee, and tied with Georgia, Ole Miss, Missouri and LSU.
A lot would have to go right at the top of the SEC, which is more crowded than the BQE at rush hour. But this year looked like it was headed in a bad direction after that loss at Tennessee.
Alabama hadn’t suffered three losses in a single season since 2010. It should be able to avoid that fate until the postseason now.
The fast Lane
A year after leading Ole Miss to a program-record 11 wins, Lane Kiffin has the SEC program in the playoff hunt after a dominant win over Georgia.
The Rebels close out the year against Florida and Mississippi State, games they should win handily. That would give them double-digit victories for the third time in four years.
That has happened just once in school history, back in 1959-62. The next big program with an opening should throw everything it has at Kiffin.
