If you’re TCU or Baylor, then you better be worried.
There’s a four-team playoff out there, and Florida State and Oregon appear the best bets for two spots. That leaves two spots, and there are two guys who want them.
They happen to be the two best coaches and most-influential political figures in college football.
Alabama’s Nick Saban and Ohio State’s Urban Meyer have dominated college football since 2003. Saban is 109-20 with four national championships between stops at LSU and Alabama. Meyer is 119-20 with two national titles between Utah, Florida and Ohio State in that stretch.
That’s a combined .850 winning percentage, and all the rock-star clout and benefit of the doubt that comes with it.
Regardless of Tuesday's rankings, don't think for a second Meyer can’t push the Buckeyes past the Horned Frogs or Bears with his influence. In 2006, Meyer successfully talked one-loss Florida into the BCS championship game ahead of one-loss Michigan, who desperately wanted a rematch with Ohio State.
It’s an easier pitch this time, something like this:
“That loss to Virginia Tech in September was J.T. Barrett’s second start. He’s a Heisman Trophy candidate now. Did you see what we did to Michigan State? Wait until you see what we do against Michigan. Oh, and by the way, we’re 21-0 in Big Ten play in the regular season since I arrived. We do this every year."
Saban has even more freedom. The Tide might be in the top four already and can play their way into the SEC championship game with a win against No. 1 Mississippi State next week and the Iron Bowl on Nov. 29. Even if Alabama loses another game, however, Saban can still spin a hell of an argument for a two-loss SEC team. If anybody can do it, it’s him. Something like this:
“We’re the best two-loss team in the country, and look at the schedule we played. We won at LSU. We played Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Auburn. We’re the second-best team in the best conference in America. We’ve won three of the last five national championships. That Florida State team you hate so much? Nobody knows Jimbo Fisher quite like me, people. Somebody get me a Little Debbie.”
Of course, they won't come out and say it quite like that, but they can drop hints and massage the media.
They can point to the championship rings. They can point to the television ratings. Who wouldn’t want to watch Ohio State-Alabama outside of say, Auburn and Ann Arbor? That’s a nuclear matchup those fan-bases we’ve been waiting for since Woody Hayes met Bear Bryant in the 1978 Sugar Bowl. Could Twitter really handle Saban, Meyer and Lane Kiffin in the same stadium?
And those fans are already on the offensive against TCU and Baylor. They’re attacking the lack of a conference championship game. They’re attacking that 61-58 shootout. They’re Baylor’s loss to West Virginia, especially in Tuscaloosa. They’re attacking the Big 12. Meyer and Saban only have to throw in a well-timed jab here or there in their teleconferences while pumping up their teams.
That’s college football politics, and it will absolutely affect the playoff committee.
No two coaches are better at playing the game, and no two coaches are better at playing the game. If you don’t think the two coaches most obsessed with winning in the FBS will do anything and everything in their power to get to the first four-team playoff, then you haven’t been watching since 2003.
Or you’re living in denial in Fort Worth and Waco.
