1. I don’t want to get on a soapbox, but …
So now everything has to change. Now there are not enough teams or not enough voters, or not enough coaches on the committee or too many football minds, or not enough metrics or not the right metrics.
We’re one season in with the College Football Playoff, and I’m here to lay down two undeniable facts: it worked, and we don’t need to change a thing.
It worked because the 12-member committee did what it told everyone on the planet it would do when this fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants idea began: pick the four best teams. Who says Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State are the four best teams, you scream.
The committee does.
The same committee that was charged to give its opinion on the four best teams in college football. The same committee whose only true metric, whose only true North in this entire process, was its gut feeling.
That’s right, gut feeling.
This is the way we’ve been picking national champions, selecting teams to play in the BCS, and now selecting teams to play in the CFP, since Rutgers and Princeton played the first intercollegiate college football game four years after the Civil War ended.
Because that’s what polls are. No matter how the parameters are laid out, no matter what is considered a significant metric or an insignificant side note, these things still come down to Mike Tranghese sitting in front of his computer and thinking to himself as a CFP committee voter, who are the best four teams in the nation?
And here’s the beauty of it: Tranghese’s thoughts may be different from those of Condoleezza Rice. And in the end, majority rules.
Just like every other college football season. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: we traded 125 human voters for 12. The only difference is a smaller sample.
We increased the number of teams that can play for the national title by 100 percent — and decreased by tenfold the number of opinions about who should play. Why in the world would anyone think anything would be different?
And here’s the better question: why would anyone think those running the train (see: university presidents) want it any different?
These men and women of academia know controversy sells; they’ve seen it firsthand over the previous 16 seasons with the BCS — where a small, regional sport developed into the gargantuan, revenue-generating monster because those university presidents stumbled backward, on pure luck, into the one thing everyone can agree on: it’s best to disagree.
College football is the sport of arguing. My team is better than yours, my coach, my stadium, my mascot, my tailgating. And on and on and on.
If you increase the playoff field to eight teams, you dilute the field and water down the chance of controversy — thereby eliminating the very thing that made your sport so popular over the last 17 seasons.
So Baylor and TCU got hosed, so what? The worst that could happen is Baylor decides it must upgrade its non-conference schedule (then we get, say Baylor vs. Ole Miss in the regular season) and the Big 12 decides it must reinstitute its conference championship game (then we get more Kansas State 35, OU 7).
This sport needs controversy; it's fueled by it. The last thing it needs is to change a playoff formula that — who in the world thought this could happen? — is more controversial than the three dreaded letters: BCS.
“I think that the committee will look at this year, look at this season, look how the entire process went," said committee chairman Jeff Long said of assessing the process.
You’ve hit it out of the park, CFP.
Don’t change now.
2. Our old friend
Speaking of the BCS, if the old warship were still around, we’d have No. 1 Florida State against No. 2 Alabama and not a peep would be heard.
Alabama’s loss (at Ole Miss) is better than Oregon’s loss (at home to Arizona), Ohio State’s loss (at home to Virginia Tech) and Baylor’s loss (at West Virginia). Only TCU (at Baylor) has a comparable loss — but not a comparable resume.
More times than not, she got it right.
3. Ball wins
Look, I’m as sideways about the whole co-champion thing with the Big 12 as anyone.
But let me quickly debunk the one talking point that seems to be overtaking reality as we decompress from the spectacular few minutes that was Waiting For Four.
If Texas and/or Oklahoma were sitting there for the Big 12 instead of Baylor and TCU, the Big 12 wouldn’t have been left out.
That’s a bunch of hogwash.
All things being equal — everyone with the same records and same scores — there is no doubt: on the last game of Championship Saturday with the difference between the teams so thin, 59-0 wins every time.
(It probably also didn’t hurt that as all 12 committee members watched in awe of what Ohio State was doing with a third-string quarterback, a certain Wisconsin athletic director and former Badgers coach — and booming personality/committee member — was more than likely talking about how things like this “never happen” to Wisconsin. You know, in case that influenced anyone’s gut feeling).
4. Championship feeling
Sign hanging over the entrance to the Big 12 offices: “Those who stay will be participants."
5. The Weekly Five
Five schools and their recruiting pitches to the Big 12 expansion committee:
1. Houston: “Lubbock would just about fit in our navel.”
2. SMU: “We didn’t vote for Craig James.”
3. Boise State: “Three words: frequent flyer miles.”
4. Memphis: “We’re on your side … of the Mississippi.”
5. Fresno State: “We’re not Oakland!”
6. The courting of Les
Depending on whom you listen to, Les Miles was offered the Michigan job in 2010 and turned down the Wolverines before they could offer it in 2007.
Now we’re back for Round 3, and after one industry source told Sporting News he would be “floored” if Jim Harbaugh left the NFL to return to his alma mater Michigan, the aim in Ann Arbor once again turns to Miles.
For his part, Miles says he hasn’t been contacted by Michigan, but even if he was, this isn’t about going back to his roots to save his alma mater. This is all about leaving a loaded LSU team — one that could win multiple championships over the next two or three years.
And by championships, I mean national championships, not just SEC Championships.
“I’m comfortable with my team and what I’m doing,” Miles said.
Only Alabama has the depth of talent LSU has, but the Tide’s lines of scrimmage aren’t as talented across the board. All that’s left for LSU to return to the elite of the SEC is the emergence of five-star QB recruit Brandon Harris.
Harris hasn’t played significant minutes since early October, and didn’t play a snap in four of the final six games. But he’s an elite talent who showed ability early in the season against Mississippi State and New Mexico State.
Once he develops into a consistent threat, LSU will be as dangerous as any team in the country. Meanwhile, in Ann Arbor, there’s a lot of work to do.
The question for Miles: why leave and not reap the rewards of your work?
7. Bronze landslide
It’s not if Marcus Mariota will win the Heisman Trophy, it’s only a matter of by how much.
Oregon’s redshirt junior quarterback can't reach O.J. Simpson’s unthinkable point total of 2,903 in 1968, but that number — nearly 400 points higher than the No. 2 (Reggie Bush, 2,541 in 2005; a trophy that has since been vacated) — also has an asterisk: there were 1,200 voters in 1968. There are 929 votes this fall.
The best way to analyze the biggest Heisman victory is percentage of total possible points won, and at the top of that list is Bush (91.7 percent), just ahead of Ohio State’s Troy Smith (91.6) in 2006.
Players get three points for a first place vote, two points for a second and one for a third. It’s hard to imagine Mariota being left off any ballot, much less ranked lower than second.
Any total point number at or above 2,545 will set the record. If Mariota gets 75 percent of the first place votes (and he’ll probably get more), he’d already have 2,091 total points. The rest is easy.
8. The silent hero
Somewhere on the Florida State campus, someone better figure out a way to honor Sean Maguire.
Because if FSU somehow navigates the rest of its schedule, if the ‘Noles continue to do what they do and find a way to beat Oregon in the fourth quarter and beat the winner of Alabama-Ohio State to win their second straight national title, they should erect a statue of Maguire in Tallahassee.
Without Maguire — you remember him, right? — FSU’s postseason destination probably is the Orange Bowl. Or worse.
If Maguire starts at quarterback with scant hours of preparation after Jameis Winston’s one-game, everything’s covered suspension and doesn’t play well, FSU not only loses to Clemson — but once the emotional air of motivation in winning back-to-back titles escapes, more losses follow.
Instead, we have a young quarterback — one we’ll likely never hear from again unless Winston is expelled prior to the playoffs (hey, you never know) — who sucked it up, didn’t panic in the moment and made big plays when he had to.
The guy who, when you really think about it, led FSU to its best win of the season.
9. The best of the rest
The magnificent, intended consequences of the College Football Playoff: better non-playoff bowl games.
With the move to the CFP, the Power 5 commissioners — not the bowls — decided what teams play where. With that, three can’t-miss non-playoff bowls:
Cotton Bowl: Baylor vs. Michigan State. The ultimate clash of styles between two coaches who built programs with sweat on their brows.
These two guys — Baylor’s Art Briles and MSU’s Mark Dantonio — aren’t exactly tearing it up in recruiting wars (though both have gotten very good at it). It’s about evaluating and developing players in these two programs — specifically, the quarterbacks.
The most important position on the field under Briles: Robert Griffin III, Nick Florence, Bryce Petty.
The most important position on the field under Dantonio: Brian Hoyer, Kirk Cousins, Connor Cook.
Peach Bowl: Ole Miss vs. TCU. Another classic styles collide game: Ole Miss’ nasty defense vs. TCU’s point-a-minute offense.
The Rebels’ defense will be completely healthy by New Year’s Day, and the TCU offense (and entire team) will have a chip on their shoulders the size of the Fort Worth Stockyards — eagerly waiting to prove the CFP wrong.
Texas Bowl: Arkansas vs. Texas. It’s not a marquee, CFP bowl, but it’s got plenty of juice.
The Hogs and ‘Horns are bitter rivals from their old Southwest Conference days, and Arkansas has won three of the last five dating back to its last year in the SWC (1991). But that’s just undercard.
Texas and Arkansas both are built on the foundation of we’re tougher than you — and both desperately need a bowl win for offseason momentum. Translation: it’s going to get physical. From play one.
10. The Game
Let’s us not forget the Renaissance Men of Army and Navy. May their rivalry shine brighter than the futures of the players on the field.