The SEC deserves to have two teams in the Final Four, and Alabama should be one of them

First of all, if you're a Bama fan reading this you're just a fan, just like me. As fans, we have absolutely no obligation to not look ahead of the next opponent. No amount of future-tripping will have one bit of impact on what the rest of this season deals out to the Alabama Crimson Tide. We don't matter unless we don't show up for games and we don't show support win or lose. We are the Bama Nation and this program's tradition has us rightly expecting to be in the mix for the national championship every single year.

If you're not just a fan then you are (1) a member of the allegedly objective sports media (2) a coach or player and you should know better than to eat this rat poison or (3) a fan of a rival school and your therapist has told you not to hurt yourself by obsessing over stuff like this.

The Southeastern Conference is the best football conference in the country. Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia and LSU are the five most lethal teams in the country (Auburn and Florida are both better than their records indicate). Put any two of these against any other two teams in the country. Play each matchup 10 times and there's better than a coin-flip chance that those two SEC teams end up meeting each other in the Championship Game every time.

You can't change my mind.

Even with the injuries to Tua Tagovailoa, Henry Ruggs, Christian Hale and Raekwon Davis Alabama is still one of the elite teams in the most elite conference in the country. The College Football Playoff selection committee is supposed to nominate and seed the four best teams in the country.

Alabama needs to win out, of course. They have to win the Iron Bowl and it doesn't matter if a one loss-Georgia wins or loses the SEC Championship Game. If Georgia loses, Alabama is in because its one loss compared to Georgia's two is a better resume.  If LSU loses, Alabama gets in because LSU lost last. If Georgia stomps LSU, all the better because Alabama lost one game by a measly five points in a slugfest.

I hear and respect the arguments of teams like Clemson, Ohio State and Oklahoma. Pick Clemson and either of the other two for playoff berths. For the odd man out you can make a case that the jilted team could have never survived an eight game SEC schedule with their skins intact. They'll be ok--they know that's true and besides, they're used to being left out. They can play one of the other SEC elites for third place bragging rights.

If Alabama wins the Iron Bowl, then the Tide should make its sixth appearance in the College Football Playoff. Anything else is a travesty.

Don't argue with me.

First College Football Playoff rankings are out and no one outside the top four is happy.

Mark my words--we are headed towards (at least) a six-team playoff slate. Only the top four are playing for the national championship and the top four won't be set in stone until the first Sunday in December. But regardless of who those top four are, at least two teams that are left out will have at least two eloquent someones each complaining about how they got robbed.

The people squalling about how their team deserves to be in the group who produces the champ will credibly argue that the college football playoff is just an extension of the old Bowl Championship Series, where a consensus selection of the two best teams played for the title. They'll credibly argue that while the CFP is an improvement, it's not improvement enough. It's still just a popularity contest with twice as many popular contestants. More is better, they'll say.

Those arguing against expansion will counter with an equally credible case that extension of the CFP field continues to diminish the importance of the regular season. They'll also make a compelling argument that the regular season plus bowl games are the traditional foundation of college football's popularity. It's not the NFL, it never will be, so it therefore shouldn't ever be made to look even a little bit like the NFL. The BCS was only superficially flawed in that every now and then there really were three deserving teams.

So here we are with the first CFP rankings:

Rank	Team	Record
1	Ohio State University	8-0
2	Louisiana State University	8-0
3	University of Alabama	8-0
4	Penn State University	8-0
5	Clemson University	9-0
6	University of Georgia	7-1
7	University of Oregon	8-1
8	University of Utah	8-1
9	University of Oklahoma	7-1
10	University of Florida	7-2
11	Auburn University	7-2
12	Baylor University	8-0
13	University of Wisconsin	6-2
14	University of Michigan	7-2
15	University of Notre Dame	6-2
16	Kansas State University	6-2
17	University of Minnesota	8-0
18	University of Iowa	6-2
19	Wake Forest University	7-1
20	University of Cincinnati	7-1
21	University of Memphis	8-1
22	Boise State University	7-1
23	Oklahoma State University	6-3
24	United States Naval Academy	7-1
25	Southern Methodist University	8-1

And... they're already controversial. Here is a short and non-exhaustive list of complaints:

• Clemson is the defending champs and they're undefeated but left out because B1G SEC bias.
• Alabama has played no one (except everyone on their schedule). 
• LSU has played almost no one (except everyone on their schedule).
• Minnesota is B1G and they're undefeated, too. And they're not even top 10?
• Baylor is undefeated!

All of these complaints are at once both valid and stupid. They all make a point that will change next Tuesday as Alabama, LSU and Penn State all face conference opponents this Saturday. Ironically, this fact bolsters both arguments for and arguments against expansion beyond four teams. The "for" camp can argue that having Bama square off against LSU is a strength of schedule boost, a plus for inclusion of either or both in the final slate. The "against" crowd can argue that this is why we play the regular season and why diminish it by letting the regular season loser sneak in?

The constant debate over the post-season process is a distraction that diminishes interest in the sport of college football. It's not about the game anymore. Did you know that there is a profession called historiography? It's the study of history writing. That's where we are--instead of discussing college football, we're discussing schtuff that has as much to do about the game of football as historiography has to do about who won at Yorktown.

I miss when the Sugar Bowl matched the south against the north and the Rose Bowl pit the west against the east and all the other bowls were just post-season fun. And we debated all off-season long about who was best.

Last Call: Alabama vs Clemson, Part IV – Who wins and why

Here we go again. It’s Alabama and Clemson for the fourth time overall and the third time for the National Championship. Alabama has a 2-1 lead in the College Football Playoff series, winning it in the title game after the 2015 season, losing in the title game after 2016 and winning again in the first round last year. This is the matchup everyone has expected since opening day last September. Though it’s probably not the matchup everyone wanted.

Both teams have had close calls on the way to Santa Clara. Clemson scraped by Syracuse at home and struggled against Texas A&M on the road (Bama easily beat A&M in Tuscaloosa. Alabama trailed Georgia until late in the 4th in the SEC Championship game. But both teams have blown out most mere mortals.

Alabama has the best QB tandem in the country. Either current starter Tua Tagovailoa or 2017 starter Jalen Hurts can absolutely ruin Clemson’s day. Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence is a talent upgrade from 2017’s Kelly Bryant (who quit the team after being benched; go figure). But he is an experience and athleticism downgrade and wash, respectively. Lawrence has never seen a defense like Alabama’s and this is his first year as a starter. Lawrence is not the running threat that Bryant or his predecessor Deshaun Watson was. Both Tagovailoa and Hurts are. The game of college football can sometimes turn based on the play at the QB position and remember that Alabama doesn’t always use Tagavailoa OR Hurts.

Alabama’s offensive line has been stellar all season and they are the major reason why the QB and running corps have been so successful. Clemson has great athleticism on the defensive front, but the Tiger secondary comes up wanting. Syracuse and South Carolina had passing clinics against Clemson but neither team had defenses quite up to the task of stopping Lawrence & Co. Bama does.

Alabama’s defense has somehow consistently gotten better as the season has gone along. Early in the season, the baby-fresh secondary had receivers running open almost every play. Guys were often out of position or bit on head fakes. By the time Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray faced the Tide, guys were better at strategy, technique and physicality. True, Patrick Surtain was targeted successfully on one drive by Oklahoma.

Clemson’s experienced offensive line will face the meanest, most athletic and deepest defensive front it has seen all year. They haven’t seen anything like it since last year’s strangulation by Bama. Alabama’s offensive front will see a bunch that looks a lot like LSU’s. And Mississippi State’s. And Auburn’s. And Georgia’s.

While college football often turns on QB play, the outcome is usually determined by which team has big uglies that are better than the other guy’s big uglies. Alabama has a slight edge in the DL-OL match, and by far the better QB team.

Alabama 38, Clemson 28

Addendum: The fourth Alabama – Clemson matchup in four years is being used by ESPN’s selected mouthpieces as another reason why we need an expanded playoff field. They used the snub of Georgia and Ohio State in the same fashion.

More football games in the postseason is not good for college football. It lessens the importance of the regular season and it is that which sets football apart from every other collegiate sport. The tradition, pageantry and rivalries that make the regular season so important to so many fans and alumni must always be a primary consideration. A completely secondary consideration is more money for conferences, conference executives and ESPN.

As for the fans, we are good with four and no more.

Oklahoma QB Kyler Murray: “They didn’t stop us…”

This is galling, but completely expected. It’s what almost every high-flying offense has said after a loss to Alabama since Nick Saban stepped onto the Bama sidelines in September 2007.

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"We're not really satisfied. This isn't satisfying. I know it's a great season, and we've got a lot to be proud about, but coming up short wasn't the goal."

Afterward, coach Lincoln Riley said the Sooners played "their worst ball" in the beginning of the game, and Murray said Alabama "didn't stop us."

"As you saw, they stopped us the first quarter, we stopped ourselves, but hats off to them," Murray said. "They're a good team. They've got a great defense. But second half, we picked up the tempo. They got tired, and at that point, we kind of ..."

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“… got pulled down, knocked down, tackled for a loss and blown up by Quinnen, Anfernee and Raekwon.”

Alabama didn’t get tired. They just did what they’d done for 12 out of the 13 games they’d already played. Saban & Associates started subbing in the backups in the 3rd quarter, knowing full well that if the Sooners got within sniffing distance of coming back the starters would return rested and ready for a 4th quarter smackdown. When Alabama needed to score, they did. When Oklahoma needed to score, they got pulled down with one hand tied behind Anfernee Jennings’ back.

Also, it wasn’t the Alabama defense that got tired. It was Oklahoma’s. I will admit that I underestimated the Tide defense’s stamina and overestimated the Sooner offense. As it turned out, Oklahoma had essentially a one-horse offense. That one horse is a very gifted QB with uncanny talents, but those other 10 guys might not even start for Georgia, the only other team with a QB as scary as Murray.

Unlike Oklahoma, Georgia almost beat Bama. Twice.

Coach Saban did the honorable thing and called off the dogs at the end of the game. It was clear that on the Tide’s last possession, Sooner defenders had neither the desire nor the ability to tackle Oklahoma-native Josh Jacobs anymore. They were sick of him, and sick of Bama’s ability to run a multidimensional offense.

It also bears noting that Oklahoma has also become a very undisciplined football program. Under Bob Stoops, the Sooners averaged only about 4 flags per game. Under his replacement Lincoln Riley, they’re averaging about 7 flags per game. We all remember the complete lack of discipline displayed by last year’s Heisman Trophy winner (and playoff loser) Baker Mayfield.

I have always admired Oklahoma’s football program. They’ve had some awesome teams, great players, great coaches and a case full of National Championship trophies. Their fans are gracious visitors and hospitable hosts since forever. Oklahoma has been a class act until now. I hope their team gets their class back. What we saw last Saturday night was ugly,  and the Almighty notices stuff like that.

Post script addendum: Remember this post? All that needs to be said is this: In the only opportunity to have the Heisman Trophy winner face the Heisman Trophy runner-up, the runner-up showed the voters the error of their choices. In the only game where each quarterback had to face the other quarterback’s team, the one voted as Most Outstanding came up wanting. Poetic justice, indeed.

Bama has its hands full with Oklahoma

Most of the media expect a Saturday night shootout when Bama takes the field against the 12-1 Oklahoma Sooners. Most Bama fans think it will be just another step on the path to glory. For once in forever, I think the media has it right.

Sooner QB Kyler Murray deserved to win the Heisman Trophy. So did the Tide’s Tua Tagovailoa but only one player can win it at a time and Tua did appear to be a mere human in the SEC Championship Game against Georgia. Murray’s stats are better than Tua’s and yes, part of that fact is because Kyler played more snaps in the 3rd and 4th quarters. Tua was usually watching Jalen Hurts inflict his own brand of pain in the second half. Murray has  more attempts, more completions, more yards per completion and more TD’s. But he also has more sacks and more INT’s—more on that in a moment or three.

Bama fans need to accept that a healthy Murray is a handful, especially with the corps of speedy, athletic receivers he has. Oh, and with a tandem of talented running backs. Any of the offensive guys Coach Lincoln Riley puts on the field could start and star for Alabama. They are going to score a lot of points against the Tide and by the time the 4th quarter gets into under 10:00 to play, Bama’s D will be tired of chasing Murray and tackling Sooner playmakers.

But I don’t believe Alabama will just have to outscore Oklahoma to beat them, because while the defense may get tired it’s just as likely that this won’t be as big a deal. The Tide defense continues to get better with each game.  It practices against a high octane offense every snap, and has vanquished some not-too-shabby SEC teams en route to 13-0. Quinnen Williams is sure to be a disruptive force up front. Mack and Anfernee are terrors backing the line and Surtain has turned into a frighteningly good weapon in the secondary. There will be plays where Murray is running for his life and where Q blows up the whole Sooner OL.

And then there’s Tua, who also deserved to win the Heisman and who wouldn’t be wrong in making this game a statement to the voters who had him second. Unlike Murray, Tua won’t be facing the best defense in the SEC. He’ll be facing a DINO--defense in name only. In fact, in his game preview Tidefans’ Jess Nicholas notes that Oklahoma’s highly suspect strength of schedule is a reason to suspect whether OU’s offensive line can hold up against Q and the gang.

It’s worth noting that Oklahoma has had Bama’s number and owns the series record. Alabama is 1-3-1 in the series, with a three game losing streak and a 45-31 humiliation of a Nick Saban team after the 2013 season. Football is a funny game. Not funny hah-hah. Funny strange. Alabama can exorcise some old demons Saturday night.

I think they will, in a high scoring affair.

Alabama 52, Oklahoma 42

Tua Tagovailoa didn’t win the Heisman Trophy, and here’s why that’s ok.

I was as disappointed as every other Bama fan on the planet when Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray edged out Tua Tagovailoa for the highest individual honor in college football. But I’m ok with that, and here’s why.

• He’s only a sophomore and if he stays healthy through the 2019 season, he’s a slam dunk to be back in New York City next December.
• He’s a pure-hearted class act who will look at this the same way he sees an incompletion. Pray. Get up. Try harder.
• There’s a lot of Bama fatigue out there. The Alabama Crimson Tide is a football program that people are tired of talking about.
• There’s a lot of Nick Saban fatigue, too. But Nick Saban talks back and he’s not often kind to the media when he speaks to or about them. Rat poison, and all.
• Tua will use this as motivation to play his best game on December 29, when he faces Murray in College Football Playoff the Orange Bowl.

Don’t be ticked off, y’all. All three finalists deserved the trophy and Kyler Murray was nothing short of sensational this year.

This very well could be just the impetus that the whole Alabama football team uses to crush their remaining two opponents and be the first team in the CFP era to win back-to-back championships. Just like Alabama was the first to do it in the BCS era for the 2011-2012 seasons.

Alabama still has a lot to prove, and so does Mr. Tagovailoa.

The 2018 Alabama Crimson Tide football season is a storybook still being written

I knew the Georgia Bulldogs would be a real test for Alabama. I just didn’t expect it to be an essay exam. Kirby Smart had a nearly perfect game plan for an Alabama offense led by Tua Tagovailoa. But for the second time in two years, he had no good answer for a backup QB coming in and snatching a sure win away from him. Just like the 2018 Championship Game last January, the entry of the backup signal caller completely changed the texture and flow of the game and just like last time, Alabama snatched the glory at the very end.

Give Georgia their due, because they were clearly the better team until the QB change. That’s the way it was last year. I agree with Coach Smart—Alabama would not want to have to play them again. Not this season, anyway. I still think they’re one of the four best teams in the country right now, two losses or not.

Rightly or wrongly, Smart will never live down that fateful, failed fake punt on 4th and 11. At midfield. With the game tied at 28. With 3:04 left in the to play in regulation. Jalen Hurts—who this season swallowed both pride and ego to accept the backup role in the year of the transfer QB—promptly led the team down the field. He took the ball the last 15 yards and scored the winning TD on the ground.

Truth be told, Georgia’s defense was gassed and probably couldn’t have stopped a fresh Jalen, the best offensive line on the SEC, three bowling balls for running backs and the best receiver corps in the country. Bama was going to score. Kirby just made it easier for Hurts to get it done.

This has been an amazing season. En route to an undefeated regular season, Alabama beat all of its opponents by 20 or more points. That has never happened in the history of a game we now recognize as “college football.” (Forget the 1888 Yale reference; it doesn’t count when you can’t throw the football).

At 13-0, Alabama is the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff. It is Alabama’s 5th appearance in the Top Four. That’s never happened before. The No. 1 seed has never gone on to win both playoff games and claim the title, either.

Alabama will face No. 4 seed Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl on December 29. The last time Alabama and Oklahoma faced each other in the Orange Bowl, Coach Paul W. “Bear” Bryant’s Crimson Tide shut out Bud Wilkinson’s Sooners by a score of 17-0. Alabama has not beaten Oklahoma since, going 0-3-1.

Alabama has never had a Heisman Trophy winning QB. That looks almost certain to change next Saturday, as Tagovailoa looks like a lock to claim college football’s highest individual honor. This is despite the parade of great QB’s in Alabama history. Bart Starr. Joe Namath. Kenny Stabler. Richard Todd. Jay Barker. Greg McElroy. AJ McCarron.

Alabama has won back-to-back national titles before. In fact, it’s happened four times: 1925 & 1926; 1964 & 1965. 1978 & 1979. 2011 & 2012.

The 2011-2012 teams won back-to-back titles in the BCS era, something no one had done before. If Alabama wins out by beating Oklahoma and the winner of No. 2 Clemson and No. 3 Notre Dame, it will claim back-to-back 2017 and 2018 national titles in the College Football Playoff era. That’s never been done before, either.

Given all of this never-been-done-before backdrop, you just can’t escape the sense that this season is extra special for a football program that is already storied and, dare we say blessed? Each of the four teams in the Playoff have won multiple titles. It’s impossible to recount the history of this game without including reverent references to Alabama, Notre Dame and Oklahoma. And hey, Clemson’s been in the Top Four now four times, losing twice to Alabama and beating them once. Their head coach is Alabama grad Dabo Swinney, who wears a national championship ring he won as part of Bama’s 1992 squad.

Alabama has lost to Notre Dame for a title and beaten them for one, too.

Oh, Oklahoma has seven titles, including back-to-back crowns in 1955 & 1956. This is storybook stuff. This is end-of-days stuff, y’all. 

Since (almost, I think) no one reading this will have to prepare for Oklahoma, we can look ahead. We don’t have to take it one game at a time. We can fully expect to see Alabama beat a very good 12-1 Oklahoma Sooners team, and then square off against either an undefeated Notre Dame in a rematch of the 2013 BCS Championship Game or another undefeated Clemson for the fourth straight time in the College Football Playoff. And as Bama fans, we expect this storybook to end with the Tide winning it all and everyone living happily ever after. 

The College Football National Championship will be decided Saturday night, y’all

If LSU can’t beat Alabama in Death Valley, at night, in front of 100,000 screaming crazy drunk Cajuns, nobody can. You might as well just ship the natty trophy to Tuscaloosa.

There is nobody else on the Bama schedule or in the likely College Football National Championship Playoff field with the personnel and scheme that can hang with the Crimson Tide.

Both teams are coming off bye weeks. Traditionally, the team with the most emotional investment suffers from a week off because it interrupts the momentum of success that the emotion is built on. That team is LSU, but the pause will be offset a little by the night kickoff and the crazy coon ass energy in the stands.

Alabama comes in with a Sabanesque business as usual attitude, having already sampled the road in Columbia and Knoxville.

LSU’s defense is what has brought them to this point. Defensive Coordinator Dave Aranda’s base package is a 3-4 scheme that looks a lot like a Nick Saban strategy. Their problem though is a lack of true 3-4 talent and depth, forcing Aranda to rely on some nickel lineups and even a 5-2 look that’s designed to confuse the offense and create opportunities to disrupt. LSU is so-so when it comes to total defense but they’re 7th in scoring defense.

Their star defensive player, Devin White, must sit out the first half Saturday night due to a targeting penalty called on him against Mississippi State two weeks ago. 

They will be sorely tested by an Alabama offense that has yet to see a defense they can’t destroy by halftime. Starting QB Tua Tagavailoa is an absolute phenomenon (and he’s only a true sophomore!) and he has a young-but-freakishly-talented corps of wide receivers. Behind Tua is a fleet of at least three bowling balls for tailbacks, and the studly Jalen Hurts waits in the wings as Tua’s backup. LSU can’t afford to let Bama get up by two scores in the first quarter but my sense is that this will happen, anyway.

Alabama’s very young but very talented defense faces an LSU offense that Les Miles would be very proud to call his own. QB Joe Burrow is a so-so passer and a decent runner when the field is wide open before him. He managed to make a few plays against Georgia but was only 50% and no TD’s. He’s 53% overall with only six TD’s and three INT’s. Burrow in the pocket is not going to beat Alabama, and Burrow has only so-so backs to carry the ball. There is no Leonard Fournette at LSU this year.

Alabama’s defense is getting better as the season progresses. The injury bug that bit so hard last year has gone elsewhere in 2018, so the unit has been developing together all year long. Expect the Tide front seven to get LSU’s offensive line out of position from time to time, and for Williams, Davis and Buggs to wreak havoc. A very young defensive backfield has also gotten better through the first eight weeks but is still inexperienced and somewhat thin. One reason why teams have been able to score 20+ points on this defense is opposing receivers running free in long yardage downs.

Bama’s only weakness remains special teams. Tide fans should pray this game doesn’t come down to a special teams play or three.

It shouldn’t, though—the game of football is always and everywhere won or lost in the trenches. Alabama’s OL appears better than LSU’s front seven, and LSU’s OL might hold its own against Bama’s front seven for a half. If Alabama gets up by 14 or 21 before halftime… well… you’ve seen that movie before.

Bama wins another one comfortably.

Alabama 44, LSU 17

Barring a meteor strike, Bama and Clemson are on a championship collision course.

The Alabama Crimson Tide and Clemson Tigers are on a completely different plane of existence than the other 128 programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). After Georgia and Ohio State showed their mortality against LSU and Purdue(!?) respectively the last two Saturdays, it’s now clear that there are only two Titans left in college football, and they’ve done battle in the College Football Playoff three times before.

Alabama has beaten Clemson twice since the inception of the CFP. Clemson has beaten Alabama once. They have played consecutive years in the postseason and there seems very little standing in the way of a fourth collision in January 2019.

Clemson has feigned mortality twice this season. Once in a home scare against Syracuse. A second time on the road against a not-too-shabby Texas A&M squad. No one else they’ve faced has offered more than token resistance and it’s unlikely that anyone on their schedule has the chops to knock them off.

Alabama looks invincible. The Tide team makes well oiled machines look like clunky, puttering wrecks and has yet to do anything but score on the first possession of their first eight games. Bama’s offensive line stems the Mongol Hordes while QB Tua Tagovailoa picks apart the opposing secondary and the fleet of bowling balls roll through defenseless pins. Bama’s defense started the season with questions about the secondary and after eight games appears to be almost as nasty as the 2011-2012 squad.

Both of these programs have gotten here the right way and the hard way. With a press corps that scrutinizes every move of every player and every coach on every day of their lives. With an NCAA enforcement division that’s never been so well staffed and so well funded. With the 24/7/365 news cycle driven by social media and internet bulletin board chatter.  Alabama and Clemson have as much chance of cheating as a naked Stormy Daniels would sneaking a 38 Special on to Air Force One.

Alabama and Clemson have recruited better, developed better, coached better, scheduled better and just played better for three straight years (four for Bama). No one has been able to stop them from excelling in a sport with rules that are designed to prevent anyone from being better than everyone else over and over and over.

They are winning, and no one can make them stop.

That has the chatterati class whining about the CFP four team playoff and crying for expansion of the field. If they’d just expand the field other teams would have a chance, they say. It’s not about ability, hard work and determination, they say. It’s really about privilege.

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Pure. Playoff. Privilege.

With Alabama being the only team 'on cruise control' to the playoff, @TimBrando says it’s time to extend and it’s time to extend now. pic.twitter.com/Pg1Z1FOK9z

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 21, 2018

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Tim Brando isn’t the only idiot playing this tune. The college football talking heads are a perfectly harmonized chorus singing the privilege blues. They sound like a bunch of Democrats who never understand that when you try to soak the privileged, all you do is concentrate more power into the hands of the privileged. If they think the CFP is rigged now, just expand the field to six, eight or ten teams. Go ahead—give the Alabamas, Clemsons, Georgias and Ohio States more victims. They’ll just get to play more games, gain more recruiting exposure, get more postseason practice time and make more money.

More money means the privileged will just recruit better, develop better, coach better, schedule better and … just play better.

This post isn’t a philosophical rant. It’s an acknowledgment of the fact that whatever rules you play the game by, there will always be winners and losers. And the winners are pretty easy to spot pretty early on during the game. Right now, the game’s winners are Alabama and Clemson and there’s no one showing the chops to do anything about it.

Crimson Tide standing on the edge of history

On January 1st 2015, Alabama plays Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl, the first round of the first ever College Football Playoff. If the Tide can defeat the Buckeyes, then on January 12 they will face the winner of the Rose Bowl’s Oregon – Florida State battle in Arlington’s AT&T Stadium.

History can be made here. If Alabama defeats the Rose Bowl survivor and takes Title 16, it will forever erase the memory of the Miami dynasty of the 1980’s and make the Capstone the most storied football program in the history of storied programs.

Y’all know I’m a homer. I don’t hide that fact. I wear it like a badge of honor. But I am not an in-your-face Bammer either. I don’t dress up like a clown on game day. I don’t have a home with every corner decorated in Crimson and White. Hell, I don’t even have a Bama room.

But I know history unfolding when I see it, and folks… this is history unfolding.

Since his arrival in Tuscaloosa, head coach Nick Saban has led the Crimson Tide to three national titles, including two in a row. No one in the BCS era had ever repeated as BCS Champions and now that the BCS era is over, that feat can never be repeated. So there’s one angle on the “making history” narrative.

How’s this for making history: What team has the opportunity to claim both a BCS repeat and the first ever CFP Championship? Well, there’s only one, silly. And that’s Alabama.

Anyone who thinks this will be a cakewalk to glory is delusional. Ohio State is a worthy opponent, coached by a man who has beaten Alabama on his own way to a national title. Neither Florida State nor Oregon—two teams with quarterbacks and offenses that have given the Tide trouble in the past—aren’t slouches, either. The CFP committee made the right selections for the four team field. Saban and his brain trust have their work cut out for them, but no one thinks that Bama doesn’t have the tools to get it done.

That said, how prescient was the post from June 2012 from KrAzy3? The man laid out an argument that makes many people squirm, and he’s probably right that at some point in the future, the dropoff in quality between the No.3 team in the field and the No. 4 team will be significant enough to make people wonder why we went to a four-team field.

But a key point he makes is that the CFP is the direct result of the BCS pairing SEC West runner-up Alabama against SEC Champion LSU in 2011, which led to the historic BCS repeat. The talking heads and pundits at ESPN and Sports Illustrated were outraged, and the powers that be in college football went from being apathetic towards a playoff to rushing headlong towards one so that such an absolute tragedy never happens again.

This should make even the most casual Alabama fan laugh his or her ass off: Alabama is poised to ruffle the feathers of those little biddies all over again.

Win two more admittedly challenging games, and become the first team to win a championship in a playoff system that resulted from you winning a championship that almost no one outside the friendly confines of the Heart of Dixie thought you deserved.

If Alabama brings home the hardware on January 12, 2015, the Tide will have the last laugh, will have made college football history, and it will have Bama fans cackling in delight at the irony of it all.

An earlier version of this post had the CFB Championship game on January 14.

BCS’ Bill Hancock on selecting the selectors (Audio)

“This committee will be I think modeled in the large part after the NCAA sports committees. They do that pretty well. Of course every one of those committees is subject to contention to controversy every year to soccer to tennis to basketball. They’re all the same. I expected this to be made up primarily of current administrators like the NCAA committees. I expect the number to be somewhere between 10 and 20, maybe toward the middle of that number. Every conference to have a representative. Then maybe some at larger representatives to fill in and then … what criteria they use?

“This is pretty broad, but it makes sense. Win-loss record. Who did you play? Where did you play them? How did you do? What’s your schedule strength? What about head-to-head? What about common opponents? Injuries? Yeah we lost to ‘State University’ but our quarterback was hurt that day. We won the rest of our games and he’s back. All kind of common sense things that folks use to evaluate team is what this committee will use.”

Via the Dan Patrick Show.

I don’t know where others stand, but I am becoming less and less impressed with this whole selection committee thing as time goes on. The more we learn about it, the more subjective and qualitative the process becomes.

Bring back the BCS rankings.

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College football playoff quotables

None of them succeeded, and as recently as Jan. 10, 2011, Hancock told reporters covering that night's Oregon-Auburn BCS championship game: "There is no overwhelming support to do anything different." Exactly one year later, the morning after last season's Alabama-LSU snoozer, the commissioners met at a New Orleans hotel to begin discussing the future, after which Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told several of those same reporters: "Everything is in the mix."

Lo and behold, five months later, we have a playoff.

…

“A four-team playoff doesn’t go too far,” Virginia Tech president Charles Steger told reporters. “It goes just the right amount. We are very pleased with this new arrangement.”

First sign the screw job is in: College presidents like the plan.

Can I translate what Steger said for y’all? We were going to have to change — public perception mounting, Congressional meddling, etc., you understand — and so the plan was to give in without giving up what matters to us (mostly unequal access, money, control). We did this, and y’all are commending us. Damn, we are smart.

They kind of are. They created a system so flawed, so dysfunctional, so unpopular that anything looked better in comparison, and so they were able to give us the most watered-down playoff possible and lock this baby in for 14 years.

…

Tuesday was especially sweet for those inside the machine who fought for a playoff long before their colleagues came around to the idea. Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson, whose league suffered a defeat Tuesday when the presidents denied a waiver that would have made the MWC a BCS automatic-qualifying conference for the 2012 and 2013 seasons, couldn't hide his pride in the formation of a playoff. He just wished it had come earlier. Under this system, TCU -- then a Mountain West member -- would have made the playoff in 2009 and 2010, and Utah -- then a Mountain West member -- might have made it in 2008. "I've testified in front of Congress [in 2009]," Thompson said. "I wanted an eight-team playoff and a selection committee. I'm half right."

Thompson hasn't given up on a bigger bracket, and he won't be alone. Still, he understands this is an evolutionary process. The Alliance was a step. The Coalition was another. The BCS was another. "Eight-team, 16-team. I still believe in that," Thompson said. "I think that would be ultimately better, but this is a tremendous step."

This step covered more ground than all the others combined. It took major college football across the Rubicon, and the sport will never be the same.

…

It was something of a Bonfire of the Vanities. Since the NCAA isn’t the most popular group around, and the BCS was widely considered to be the disfigured spawn of a self-serving group of athletic departments, it was hard to favor one side over the other. That’s why so many members of the media wretched at the mere utterance of the letters B-C-S. They knew why the system had been created and were irate that its proponents and propaganda partners tried to convince us that it was legitimately devoted to finding college football’s finest team.

Two years from now, things will change. The BCS will be no more, replaced by a four-team “playoff.” And while that is cause for a celebration of sorts, media members must be careful not to rejoice too much. There is still work to be done.

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Corruption free playoff model?

Last week in this space, I asked that media members be kept off of the selection committee for the four team college football playoff. The gist of that post was that the risk of getting a horribly biased blowhard or three on the panel that chooses the most significant bowl pairings was too great.

The BCS has long been derided as a system corrupted by power and money, and rightfully so. But at the end of the model runs and final poll ballots, the BCS usually got it right and pitted the two best teams in the country against each other to determine the national champion.

With a yet to be formulated selection committee, how certain are we that the best four teams in the country are chosen to play in the three game slate? Fans won’t stand for a slate that features the four highest ranked conference champions at the expense of leaving out a one-loss team that didn’t win its division. Nebraska, Oklahoma and Alabama all deserved their shots at the title despite not winning their conference. Would any of those three teams make in the four-team field in 2014?

In the BCS system, one coach, one athletic director or one conference commissioner had little chance of effectively influencing the outcome of the selection process. One or two votes may have been influenced but the poll participant pool was sufficiently large to dilute such influence and make it unlikely that a less than deserving team made it in the big game. Now, there are two big games.

With no more computers and a single selection committee—which could end up being much smaller than the collective BCS poll participant pool—has the chance of corrupt influence increased, decreased, or stayed about the same?

Thomas Watts at BamaHammer has an opinion on that.

Flash back to the 2004 season, when USC was paired against Oklahoma for the title and Auburn was left out. Tommy Tuberville lobbied very hard to get his Tigers into the game but was forced to “settle” on a Sugar Bowl berth.

But another coach was much more successful at influencing the system—Mack Brown. The Rose Bowl already had Michigan and really, really wanted to invite Pac-12 runner-up Cal. But Brown was having none of that. He took to the airwaves, whine incessantly and twisted enough arms and votes to ram the Longhorns down the Rose’s throat.

It’s really hard to corrupt a large process that selects only two teams. It’s much easier to Mack up a smaller process that selects four. It’s hard to fault a coach for acting in his program’s best interest and you can bet that the coach of a borderline 4/5 team is going to double-time his efforts to get his team in there.

The challenge is designing and operating a model that prevents a two-loss Big 10 or ACC champion from leapfrogging a higher ranked and clearly better one-loss SEC or Pac-12 runner up.

Keeping media members off of the selection committee helps get that system in place. Having a sufficiently large and sufficiently transparent selection committee does, too.

If the history of the BCS tells us anything at all, it tells us that for at least the first few years, there will be some jaw-dropping WTF moments in the selection process. Tweaks to the system in response to those events will eventually correct the flaws and we’ll have a credible and convincing process. But until then, don’t underestimate the ability of the decision-makers to screw this up.

And don’t underestimate the chances of a deserving team getting Macked out of a slot in the playoffs.

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Keep media members off of the playoff selection committee, please

When the BCS commissioners flesh out the details of the still gestating four-team seeded playoff, the one group that should kept far away from the selection committee is the media.

The sports media folks already have venues for making their influence felt when it comes to ranking college football teams. Their print, broadcast and internet platforms give them a loud enough voice, but they also have this thing called the Associated Press Top 25 poll.

While there’s less conflict of interest in the AP Poll than there is in the USAToday Coaches Poll, there’s enough bias and outright incompetence to write books about.

For an extreme example, have a look at Craig James’ AP ballot.

Before anyone accuses me of unfairly using an anecdotal example as evidence of general media incompetence, consider this question: How trustworthy is a poll that would even consider giving Craig James a voice?

Thomas Watts at BamaHammer.com has an excellent post about the wisdom of having a selection committee choose the four teams who ultimately play for the national championship. He’s got a point—the human element of the BCS formula is responsible for matching Alabama against LSU in the 2012 BCS Championship Game. If the BCS got the matchup wrong, it wasn’t the computers’ fault.

It was the two polls. For all intents and purposes, what are polls if they aren’t just a big fat selection committee?

Do we really want to concentrate the human element into a smaller group and dramatically increase the chance that bias or incompetence screw it up?

The James example helps to illustrate the folly of including media on the selection panel. James wasn’t clever enough to conceal his level of asshattery. But there are many horribly biased members of the media who are clever enough and including even one or two of them on a panel of this importance is a risk we shouldn’t be willing to accept.

Don’t get me wrong. There are capable and at least superficially unbiased members of the media. Andy Staples would be a good one. Stewart Mandel is another. Tony Barnhart is trustworthy. Ivan Maisel is thoughtful and seems fair-minded. As much as I would like to see the analytical competence of Gary Danielson participating in the selection process, it wouldn’t be worth the risk of having someone like Skip Bayless or Jason Whitlock muck everything up.

If you’re going to have panel members who aren’t former coaches, athletic directors or conference commissioners, you’re better served by having bloggers on it. There are more of them to choose from, they’re at least as knowledgeable as your nationally syndicated morning talk show host and unlike said host, their bias is as clear as the colors of their blog background. Rather than concealing their bias they embrace it without letting it get in the way of delivering the truth.

Better still, go find six avid college football fans from around the country. Joe Sixpack consumes college football all day Saturday, from the opening credits of Game Day to the midnight wrap up on Sportscenter. They’re the real experts. They’re better equipped to pick the best four teams than the guy who turns a cute phrase in a thrice-weekly column and the guy who bloviates for hours on end during his radio broadcast. For far too many of those knuckleheads, picking the best four consists of “eenie, meenie, minie moe, they stay home and they shall go” then stroking each other on Twitter about their thoughtful and difficult selections.

We should recognize that empanelling a selection committee will introduce bias to the process and that there will be controversy over who gets those coveted last two spots in the four-team playoff. Let’s not feed the inferno of outrage by including people who already have sufficient venues of influence. The risk of some clown getting in there and screwing it all up is too great.

UPDATE: Just moments after this post went up, CBS’ Dennis Dodd posted his recommendation for a 50-person selection committee. The overwhelming majority? Media members.

The most glaring omission? Andy Staples. The nuttiest inclusion? Mike Bianchi or Glenn Guilbeau in a tie.

I rest my case.

UPDATE II: Bruce Feldman reads IBCR. Or, great minds think alike.

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Playoff “consensus” agreement demonstrates SEC dominance

The news of a consensus agreement on a four-team, seeded playoff for college football was welcome news for most college football fans. Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive—who has been a proponent of change in major college football’s postseason for years—was particularly pleased.

“I am delighted,” Slive told reporters after yesterday’s meeting.

While the details of the commissioners’ draft model are still sketchy, SI’s Steward Mandel says that the agreement includes a selection committee that picks "best four," and which emphasizes—but does not require—conference champions.

Other sources indicate that the two semifinal games would be played in traditional bowl venues and the championship game will be bid out to cities seeking to host the event, similar to the Super Bowl.

That’s not everything Slive was asking for, but it’s pretty damned close.

Contrast the “consensus model” with what other conference commissioners were reported to have favored or expressed support for. Big 10 Commissioner Jim Delany endorsed requiring the four teams to be conference champions. Pac 12 Commissioner Larry Scott advocated a true plus one, with the championship game to be played after the bowls. The ACC never could quite get its story straight, once advocating the best four teams; then flip flopping towards emphasis on conference championships. The Big East, well…

Only one conference and one commissioner expressed a single position and never waivered from it. That was the SEC and Mike Slive. Once the SEC’s position became clear, everyone pretty much knew what the playoff would resemble. Once it became clear that the conference with the last six BCS Champions wasn’t backing down, yesterday’s “consensus agreement” was a formality.

Either the SEC was getting most of what it wanted, or there was going to be no deal.

That’s not conceit. That’s not arrogance. That’s the truth.

At one point yesterday before the announcement that the group had reached consensus, Delany told reporters that discussions could stretch well into the summer. Pundits in the Twittersphere noted that the BCS commissioners weren’t set to begin negotiations for the new contract until September 1 and speculated that this might drag on until then.

It wouldn’t have mattered because Slive wouldn’t have budged.

The next steps include fleshing out the details of the system and putting it to the Football Bowl Subdivision presidents. It may prove more difficult for the Slive Playoff to gain consensus of the 120 CEO’s of major college football programs.

Make no mistake about it, though. It’s the SEC’s world and everyone else is just living in it.

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ESPN to Big East: “We fart in your general direction.”

As the BCS Commissioners gather in a smoky backroom to hammer out the future of major college football’s postseason, all the major media outlets have a take on what to expect, what’s at stake, yadda yadda.

IBCR News shared two earlier today.

Here’s ESPN’s, and what’s most interesting is who they don’t think will have much influence in whatever deliberations take place, emphasis mine:

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Where does each of the conferences stand on the biggest issues?

Here's an educated guess on what each of the five major FBS leagues wants:

ACC: ACC commissioner John Swofford was the only BCS conference commissioner who supported SEC commissioner Mike Slive's plus-one proposal in 2008…

Big 12: The Big 12 and SEC announced last month that their champions will play in a postseason bowl game, a relationship similar to the Big Ten and Pac-12 meeting in the Rose Bowl. As such, interim Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas said his league has lined up with the SEC…

Big Ten: More than anything else, Big Ten presidents want to make sure they protect their league's traditional relationship with the Rose Bowl. They actually prefer keeping the current BCS system because of that reason…

Pac-12: Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott also wants to make sure his league maintains its traditional alliance with the Rose Bowl, and he went as far as saying the SEC's new postseason arrangement with the Big 12 puts the plus-one model back on the table…

SEC: Slive dug in his heels and said his league, which has won the past six BCS national championships, wants a playoff that includes the top four teams -- and nothing else. Why wouldn't he?

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Big East? Meh… Who cares.

To be fair to ESPN, they do include the Big East in the matrix of preferences expressed by the different conferences and Notre Dame. But the “five major FBS conference” meme is telling: The World Wide Leader was snubbed by the Big East last year when the conference presidents turned down its offer of a $1.4 to $1.9 billion media rights deal. The conference presidents later forced Commissioner John Marinatto to resign.

The defections of Pitt and Syracuse to the ACC, West Virginia to the Big 12 and TCU reneging on its agreement to join the league have also hurt the Big East’s ability to bill itself as a going concern. Boise State—which pledged to join the league in 2013—was reported to have been reconsidering its decision as well. The league has lured Temple, Central Florida, Houston, SMU, San Diego State and Navy, but Houston is the only program to have been nationally relevant in recent years.

As events unfold over the days ahead, it will be interesting to see if the league with the most to lose gets anything it really wants out of the BCS meetings.

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If Barack Obama was NCAA President, this is how the playoffs would work

This is how the Division I college football playoffs would work if Barack Hussein Obama was President of the NCAA. Because, you know, it’s not his job to make the most money. His job is to make sure everybody gets a fair shot.

Up until now, the 1% have kept all of the BCS money and championship glory to themselves, while the other 99% do all the dirty work to enrich the 1%. That’s not fair.

So, Barry’s gonna fix it. After all, he’s the only one standing between the BCS fat cats and the pitchforks, right?

The first order of business is decreeing by Executive Order that there shall be an eight team playoff rather than the four team scheme agreed upon by the leaders of the 1%, the college football presidents in Division I. The four team playoff doesn’t give enough people a chance, even though the disadvantaged schools didn’t really play anyone of significance and belong lousy conferences. It’s not their fault that all conferences are not equal in size or competitiveness. All of that size and competitiveness is a function of greed and collusion anyway. Rewarding excellence is not what’s important in this endeavor. Inclusion is important.

The second order of business is to divide the playoff venues fairly. There will be one in the northwest, one in the midwest, one in California and one for Notre Dame. The southeast—winners of the last six BCS championships—just have to understand that it’s not their turn anymore.

Next, The One will appoint a Presidential Playoff Selection Committee, made up of hand-picked experts on college football and how it relates to the important issues of fairness and equality today. Candidates will include Buzz Bissinger, Nancy Pelosi, Whoopi Goldberg and Bill Maher. Frank DeFord will serve as Commissioner Emeritus.

On the Sunday after the conference championships are decided, the committee reveals its choices and seeds the tournament

Here’s the bracket:

Despite the fact that Alabama wins the 2012 SEC Championship, LSU is the overall No 1 seed. However, to give Boise State a shot, their first round matchup will be played on the Smurf Turf.

Next is Ohio State. Ohio State travels to the west coast to play California.

The next is Notre Dame. Notre Dame hosts Syracuse beneath Touchdown Jesus in South Bend.

The last of the four first round matchups is the exciting clash of Oregon at Toledo. The fact that the Pac-12 gets two in the tournament is of no significance, even if USC beat them both and the committee chose LSU over Alabama. Remember, this is about who is deserving. Toledo? How can you have a playoff with no MAC Attack? Get real.

We already know how things are going to go.

The Blue Turf confounds The Hat, denying him the opportunity to snack on his favorite delicacy and killing his offensive playcalling genius. Broncos roll.

There’s no way The One lets a team from Berkeley get beaten in the playoffs. Urban Meyer cries again.

Oregon and Toledo battle it out on the frozen Tundra and Oregon wins a close one.

With The Orange up by five with :09 left, the Irish have the ball on Syracuse’s 35 and it’s fourth and four. Everett Golson appears to miss the receiver on a Hail Mary pass as time ticks away. However, after further review, The One decides that the touchdown was deemed passed.

Cal beats Oregon in the second round, while Notre Dame pulls out another miraculous victory against Boise State, with the Broncos meeting the Irish for the National Championship.

It doesn’t really matter who wins that game, does it? It’s not really important whether there’s a winner or a loser so regardless of the outcome, all eight teams get crystal balls.

DeFord then goes off to write a 6,000 word sleeper column explaining how fairness won the day. Buzz Bissinger goes on MSNBC and Current to explain that he really wanted no part in the selection process and that college football should be banned. He confesses that it was he who convinced the committee to screw Alabama and the SEC. Pelosi babbles on about how we just had to play it to see what was in it. Whoopi goes on The View and talks about how much better looking Notre Dame’s tight ends looked.

The One gets to host all eight teams in the White House Rose Garden.

The ordinary college football fan? He’s Hoping for Change.

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With new bowl deal, Mike Slive outmaneuvers Jim Delany

Friday afternoon, Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive and outgoing Big 12 Commissioner announced a five-year agreement to send their conference champions to an as-yet unnamed New Years Day bowl, if those conference champions are left out of the pending four-team playoff being considered by the college football powers that be.

With one press release, Mike Slive shows why he is the Jedi Master of The Deal and Big 10 Commissioner Jim Delany is just another politician.

The deal with the Big 12 does four things:

1. It virtually guarantees that the conference champions of the two most dominant and demographically dynamic conferences will meet in the postseason, whether that’s in the four team playoff that is poised to replace the BCS or in the Unnamed Bowl.
2. It guarantees that if the selection process somehow finds a way to screw the Big 12 and SEC champs out of berths in the final four, it creates a path for the winner of the Unnamed Bowl to be named the Associated Press National Champions. It weakens the credibility of the Delany-driven four team selection process.
3. It places intense new pressure on Notre Dame to join a conference. Delany’s insistence on “conference champions only” in the final four is one thing. Cutting Notre Dame out of a second major postseason matchup with national championship implications is another matter entirely. Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick brushed off Friday’s development, telling the NY Times Pete Thamel that the deal had no near term implications. pffft.
4. It places new competitive pressure on the Sugar Bowl, an event that traditionally hosts the SEC champion. In the BCS era however, the Sugar only hosts the SEC champion if it was hosting the BCS Championship Game or the SEC champ wasn’t playing for the title. Now, the Sugar Bowl may have to compete with another venue. There happens to be a big one just outside of Dallas.

Delany and PAC-12 Commissioner Larry Scott have both expressed strong desire to maintain their relationship with the Rose Bowl, which itself had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the BCS rotation. Their goal is to have at least one of the semifinal games in the new playoff played in Pasadena (assuming that the Big 10 and PAC-12 can both get teams in the four team field).

Hypothetically, a scenario is possible wherein the Big 10, PAC-12 and ACC all get final four berths along with Notre Dame at large. While that hasn’t happened yet, it’s certainly within the realm of possibilities. This is especially true if teams not named Notre Dame must be conference champs and the teams are selected by a human committee in some smoky backroom in Indianapolis. The folks who’ve watched six straight SEC teams win the BCS Championship were drooling over this; praying for it to happen, even.

Until Friday afternoon.

In the doomsday scenario above, a highly ranked SEC team will play a highly ranked Big 12 team on New Year’s Day, in prime time. Maybe the winning team won’t hoist a crystal ball, but it might host the AP Trophy while the two conferences rake in the cash.

Your move, Jim Delany.

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Kill the Kramer Rule

After reading the elegant post at BamaHammer.com urging the Southeastern Conference to resist Jim Delany’s attempt to manipulate the college football postseason, I decided to grant myself permission to reprint the following, which appeared in this space on February 29, 2012.

College football fans should not be subjected to this nonsense. We don’t want the highest ranked conference champions to square off in a four team playoff. We want the four best teams to play for the championship, and nothing short of that is an improvement over the system in place now.

NOTHING.

The Kramer Rule on a four-team playoff should be DOA

No, Stewart Mandel. You are not on an island full of Alabama fans. You are squarely in the neighborhood of common sense and good reason. The requirement that all of the participants in a four-team FBS playoff be conference champions—which shall henceforth be referred to derogatorily as the “Kramer Rule”—is a bad idea.

It’s bad on many different levels, too.

To start with, such a requirement is an arbitrary standard because all conferences are not the same size or have equal levels of competition. The Big East Champion is not the same as the Southeastern Conference Champion, who is not the same as the Big 12 Champion. Rewarding a 9-3 Big East Champion while excluding an 11-1 SEC West runner-up is arbitrary.

The current BCS faces imminent antitrust litigation from Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who will challenge the BCS under the Sherman Antitrust Act for arbitrarily limiting competition. Do you really want to make Shurtleff’s case easier by adding even more arbitrariness to the selection process?

Of course not.

Secondly, what to do about Notre Dame? The school holds a chair at the same table as the conference commissioners of the SEC, PAC-12, ACC, Big 12 and Big East. Imposing a conference champions only rule arbitrarily excludes Notre Dame because as an independent, they cannot be a conference champion.

So with a wink and a nod, do you make an exception for the Fighting Irish? Should the four teams in the playoff be conference champions plus Notre Dame if they otherwise meet BCS Bowl eligibility standards? That gives college football’s perennial media darling an advantage not afforded to any other school in any other conference (including mid-majors in the WAC, Mountain West and Conference USA).

I guarantee you that if Notre Dame is 9-3 or 10-2, the old school media will bang the drum loudly and make sure that they’re ranked highly enough to get in the playoff.

Good luck selling that, Mr. Kramer.

Third, the fans won’t stand for it as soon as they realize what would have happened in 2011 had there been a conference champions only, four-team playoff. It would have pitted No. 3 Oklahoma State against No. 5 Oregon and No. 1 LSU vs. No. 10 Oregon. No Stanford, no Alabama, no Arkansas. Fans clamored for the two best teams to be paired against each other for the championship two decades ago. They weren’t asking for the two best conference champions.

By extension, fans won’t care to see the four highest ranked conference champions in a four-team playoff. If they demanded that the two highest ranked teams be paired in 1992, they’ll holler just as loudly for the four highest ranked teams in 2012.

Fourth, money talks. When the conference commissioners start cutting nuts and putting details of a new postseason plan together, CBS and ESPN will counsel their partners about installing a plan that puts good inventory on the schedule, not some high-brow notion of inclusiveness and “fairness.” The public and the media might think it’s “more fair” to include a 10th ranked conference champion in a playoff, but that doesn’t mean college football fans will buy tickets or watch the game.

Which playoff game would you rather watch: Alabama vs Oklahoma State, or LSU vs. Oregon in a rematch? If you’re a TV executive, you already know the answer to that question and you’re already showing the commissioners how much damage could be done by pursuing such folly.

Fifth, there is a big difference between “winning the case” and “not getting sued,” which takes us back to  Shurtleff’s pending lawsuit against the BCS. The BCS is vulnerable on antitrust grounds, but that doesn’t mean Shurtleff will win (or lose) his case. Deciding to reduce the arbitrary nature of BCS selection by instituting a four-team playoff reduces that vulnerability. It’s a lot easier to argue having four teams with access to the championship is an improvement over only two. Why give Shurtleff his bullets back by substituting one arbitrary standard for another?

If you institute a four-team playoff and you make sure that the four highest ranked teams are chosen regardless of conference affiliation or conference championship status, you’ve probably eliminated the entire basis for Shurtleff’s complaint. Not getting sued is the right course of action. That’s doubly true if the only requirement for gaining access is winning enough to be ranked in the top four.

Even Notre Dame and Utah should be happy with that.

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Even a four-team playoff is a dangerous step on a slippery slope

The Birmingham News’ Kevin Scarbinsky has an interesting column on the danger posed by the college football playoff proposals being batted around the conferences.

Various reports have the conference big wigs putting a specific proposal before the FBS presidents in June. The playoff zealots and BCS anarchists are beside themselves with glee—they’ve already counted all of the chickens.

Assuming that the conference chiefs can agree on a workable and sensible model, and assuming that the presidents endorse and adopt the plan, the danger lies in what becomes of the playoff in the not-so-distant future.

Scarbinsky describes the Football Championship Division’s latest proposal:

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It'll include, not four teams, but 24 teams.

It'll extend an automatic bid to every conference that wants one, and the rest of the spots in the field will be at-large bids extended by a selection committee.

The committee will seed the top eight teams, give them first-round byes and award them home games in the second round.

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The playoff zealots and BCS anarchists ask: “What’s wrong with this?”

This, as Krazy3 explains, represents a desire for inclusion rather than excellence.

This country was built on the ideal of equal opportunity. Everyone has a chance to succeed and the best of the best are handsomely rewarded. There are nice parting gifts for those who fall a bit shy of the mark. But not everyone can enjoy the fruits of others’ labor. There is no dishonor in losing to a superior opponent and you are not entitled to stand on the same dais with him and bask in his glory.

Some have fewer opportunities and have to work harder to earn their success. Others have better opportunities and have a shorter path to glory. That’s life. It’s not fair, but the only people who still believe life should be fair are kindergartners and leftists.

We ought not be entering the territory where equal rewards are handed out like trophies at kindergarten basketball camps. Feel-good leftists like Buzz Bissinger can’t comprehend why competition should allow the emergence of a single winner. In their narrow little minds, if  sport can’t be for the greater good of all participants, then it should simply be banned.

Krazy points out that the No. 4 team has rarely been worthy of a shot at the national championship, and it hasn’t happened yet in the history of the BCS. The BCS bowls that don’t host the championship game sometimes make boneheaded decisions on who they invite to their games, but the BCS has succeeded in its original goal of putting the two best teams on the same field to play for the national championship.

The BCS doesn’t work perfectly but it does work. No system conceived by the human mind is perfect and the BCS hasn’t been without controversy. Does anyone think that a four team bracket won’t escape controversy? If Jim Delany has his way, will the model be an improvement? “Hell no.”

The BCS has had the incidental effect of placing college football in the forefront of public attention. College football is arguably the nation’s second favorite sport, trailing only the NFL in national following and popularity. But the game of college football is nothing like the game played on Sundays. Accordingly, its post season shouldn’t be patterned after the NFL playoffs. There is no Super Bowl in college football and duplication will lead to destruction.

Mark my words.

It should be noted that I disagree on one point with Krazy. I believe a four team playoff is the right idea because while history hasn’t produced a winner from the No. 4 spot yet, the conference realignments and scheduling schemes being concocted over the next two years may well do so. It’s prudent to plan for a legitimate slate of four contenders and a scenario where all three games are pick’ems.

There will never be a legitimate slate of six contenders. Or eight, or any other number greater than four. Once you step on that slope, you’re on your way down to handing out trophies at the end of the season and simply rewarding people for showing up.

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