'Consolation games': Coaches poll marks start of four-team playoff politics

Matt Hayes

'Consolation games': Coaches poll marks start of four-team playoff politics image

The Amway Coaches Poll is out, and this means absolutely nothing in the new postseason world that is the College Football Playoff. 

It does, however, give us an idea of not only how coaches feel about the 2014 season, but - more important - underscores what the sport was dealing with for the last 16 seasons of the BCS.

MORE: Seminoles top Coaches Poll | Sooners top SN Top 25 | Consensus poll  

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Coaching Logic 101: Oklahoma destroyed Alabama on a neutral field, has more starters returning and the Tide has a brand new quarterback who hasn't started a game while heading into his fourth season.

Yet there is Alabama, No.2 in the coaches poll behind defending national champion Florida State and ahead of You Know Who. The team that gave Tide coach Nick Saban his worst loss in seven seasons in Tuscaloosa.

Admit it, you're going to miss the BCS.

Apparently, those same coaches who didn't think a new quarterback would be a problem for Alabama, have some serious issues with Central Florida's new quarterback. Because how else can UCF, with what likely is the best defense in the state of Florida, be unranked while the team it blew up in the Fiesta Bowl (Baylor) is No.10?

Chalk it up to those darn "consolation" games. You know, the excuse Nick Saban used this summer for Alabama's loss to OU (the same excuse he promised wouldn't be an issue days before the Sugar Bowl), and no doubt the excuse those voting in the coaches poll are using for Baylor.

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Maybe the Big Ten Championship Game was a "consolation" game, too.  Because why else would coaches have Ohio State (No.6) ahead of Michigan State (No.8)? The same Michigan State team that won the Big Ten last season by beating then-unbeaten Ohio State, and then beat Stanford to win the Rose Bowl.

Ohio State returns 12 starters; Michigan State returns 11. Michigan State has won big games the last two seasons, Ohio State hasn't.

Fortunately, we have the selection committee for the first-ever college football playoff. That is, until some team gets hosed out of the No.4 spot.

Until then, we've got the coaches to kick around. Enjoy it.

AMWAY COACHES POLL 

1. Florida State

2. Alabama

3. Oklahoma

4. Oregon

5. Auburn

6. Ohio State 

7. UCLA

8. Michigan State

9. South Carolina 

10. Baylor 

11. Stanford

12. Georgia

13. LSU

14. Wisconsin 

15. USC

16. Clemson 

17. Notre Dame

18. Arizona State

19. Ole Miss

20. Texas A&M

21. Kansas State 

22. Nebraska 

23. North Carolina 

24. Texas 

25. Washington

Matt Hayes