A Few Other Things About How College Football Chooses Its Champion
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In early August I wrote about the absurdity of how College Football has always chosen its champion. To be sure, the four team College Football Playoff (CFP) is not as absurd as the BCS system before it, or the “let the media” decide approach that existed for one hundred years prior. And although I would love to think my article was the final push needed, as coincidence would have it, weeks after my article was published it was announced that the CFP would (finally and eventually) be expanded.
As I argued, an expanded CFP would be more consistent with how champions are chosen in everything from pro sports to your local softball league. More teams are always given a chance to compete for a championship, besides only the few perceived to be good enough to do so. Yet, with the news of CFP expansion, many of the same people that love the March Madness “Cinderella,” predicably complained that no more than four teams are “worthy” or “capable” of capturing the crown.
One other thing that I wrote about and has again been so obvious this season is the ridiculousness of the learned CFP Committee. To reiterate, I would love to be part of that boondoggle, but the inconsistency of their weekly “deliberations” and even their need to exist continues to be called into question. I get it, this is more content for ESPN. However, I do wonder if at some point the desire to squeeze a bit more content out of the College Football largess, does not hurt the product itself when the Committee’s decisions become so hard to explain. In any event, this season is turning out like most years. In the end, a small child could look at the AP Poll and pick the top four undefeated or one loss teams and land on the same four teams that the CFP Committee will likely chose.
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With all that said, it occurs to me that I inexplicably failed to mention perhaps the most absurd aspect of the current CFP system. Non-division winners sitting on their couches watching Conference Championships, have a chance to back into the CFP. Put another way, at the conclusion of the regular season, some of the lowest ranked teams that still have a chance to make the CFP, can not only make the CFP, but can do so without having to ever play a thirteenth game.
In every other competitive endeavor, teams that have the best regular seasons earn a first-round bye and the ability to give their players more time to get healthy from the rigors of the season, and avoid further potential injury that might occur in a first-round game. The CFP routinely “awards” byes to the worst of the playoff teams. Someone please explain this to me like I am a small child, without saying “that is how it has always been done.”
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