This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
College Football Thoughts
Dec
5
2017
The College Football Playoff committee has produced this year’s selection of teams, which means that a lot of people are unhappy.
In my case, I should be happy, because the team from down south is not in the playoffs. But the committee didn’t learn its lesson from last year.
And that lesson, that I mentioned last year but apparently the committee didn’t read, is that they shouldn’t place the 3rd-best team from a conference into the national championship playoffs.
One could argue that Alabama is the 3rd-best team in the SEC. And yet they have been selected as the 4th-best team in the country. Why not Auburn, the team that beat them and won Alabama’s division?
I’m not going to go on an Alabama conspiracy theory – I just think the committee is taking the wrong things into account.
They favor minimal losses over conference championships, and I take the opposite view.
I thought the debate in the committee would be between Ohio State and USC – both two-loss conference champions. I personally would have chosen USC, because OSU already lost to Oklahoma so we have an idea of how they would have done in the playoffs.
I like the idea of teams playing significant non-conference games, and I think the committee’s direction undercuts that. If they are going to reward minimal losses and ignore conference championships, it’s in teams’ best interests to setup a favorable schedule.
Plus, with the limited games, there is limited cross-conference comparison, so it’s hard to tell if a two-loss PAC-12 champion is worse than a one-loss Big-12 champion. Maybe the PAC-12 is tougher this year. Maybe Oklahoma would have another loss if they had to play Notre Dame. Now we won’t know until after all the bowls are done if USC should have been the fourth team in the playoff.
I do hope that Clemson will blow out Alabama, to give yet another sample point to the committee that a team that did not make its conference championship game should not make the national championship playoff.
Choose wise and discerning and experienced men from your tribes, and I will appoint them as your heads.
Deuteronomy 1:13
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This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 8:09 am and has been carefully placed in the Sports category.
December 5th, 2017 at 10:39 am
If the playoff stays at four teams, then you should have to win your conference to be considered by the committee.
I favor 8-team playoff: Power 5 conference champions, plus three at large. This year it would look something like:
Clemson
USC
Ohio State
Georgia
Oklahoma
Alabama
Plus two of the following:
UCF
Washington
Wisconsin
Penn State
Miami
December 9th, 2017 at 8:25 pm
I favor tradition: every conference sends its champions to its traditional bowl, we all argue about who is #1 after the games are played, and we all know it’s just talk. Because we don’t now really have a #1: there’s a winner of a very short end-of-season tournament.