Time for a rant. It's been awhile.
Well, you knew it had to happen. Like death, taxes, and CTE, we get a complaint about the CFB playoff committee - and it's neither a new complaint nor a particularly compelling one. It seems that back in 2012 when all the tug 'o war was going on over how this thing was going to happen, the Big 10 and SEC reached a "grand compromise" in language where both thought they were going to get the better of the other. For those without Internet or out of the loop because you were seeing Manti Teo's girlfriend on the side, here is the CFB criteria agreed to by the head of all Five Families.
First, the essay portion everyone skips over so they can go right to the multiple guess questions.....
Establish a committee that will be instructed to place an emphasis on winning conference championships, strength of schedule and head-to-head competition when comparing teams with similar records and pedigree (treat final determination like a tie-breaker; apply specific guidelines).
The key phrase is underlined, but the essay still isn't complete.
The criteria to be provided to the selection committee must be aligned with the ideals of the commissioners, Presidents, athletic directors and coaches to honor regular season success while at the same time providing enough flexibility and discretion to select a non-champion or independent under circumstances where that particular non-champion or independent is unequivocally one of the four best teams in the country.
Note that these are listed BEFORE any tie-breaking criteria..........IOW, if we look at the teams and Team A is a non-champion but UNEQUIVOCALLY one of the four best........that team gets selected.
When circumstances at the margins indicate that teams are comparable, then the following criteria must be considered:
Championships won
Strength of schedule
Head-to-head competition (if it occurred)
Comparative outcomes of common opponents (without incenting margin of victory)
Basically, the Barzini/Delaney family decided that this means "you must win your conference championship," and the Corleone/Slive family - with better lawyers and league offices in Birmingham - decided this means "no you don't." So now after losing out on all the monies from the bidness, Delaney sends out Tessio/Alvarez to lure Sankey into a trap.
“I thought that would be it. But when our league is left out of the Playoff three years in a row, I’m not happy about that. I don’t think we have followed the criteria set by the commissioners in naming those four teams."
As I noted earlier, Barry himself was on that committee. Can we find out whether he supported Ohio St or Penn St in 2016?
But WHERE are the SPECIFICS? Anyone can say what Tessio did right there - but what are the specifics? Whom is he alleging wrongly made the playoff?
But let's really consider this whole eight-team concept.
The 8-team concept has become the fallback argument of those with little more to do than stir up trouble. These are the people who were offered seven straight nights of sex and want to complain they need a king sized bed to make it feel better (although Alvarez could clearly fill one himself).
1) We can't even get TWO GOOD semi-final games with ONLY FOUR TEAMS.
59-20, 38-0, 31-0, 24-6, 30-3
We've had TEN semi-final games now. Only THREE have been closer than 17 points at the end (and one of those was 11).
We can't even get two semi-finals with the four best....and expanding is going to make this BETTER?
2) The comatose bowl games will be gone - which might not be a bad thing.
Once upon a time, you could have a New Year's Day where 3-4 bowl games had a bearing on the outcome of the championship.
Even once we went to the BCS, you could often get some great BCS bowls with teams playing to show they were worthy.
And then we got the playoff, which created a massive increase in the number of future NFL stars saying, "Why should I go to Orlando and play in the Citrus Bowl, when I can go to Disney World and NOT play and NOT get a silly injury in an exhibition game?"
This will increase ten-fold with playoff expansion.
3) Just what the world needs - some 7-6 playoff teams!!!
Just a few months ago we had 7-5 Pitt facing Clemson. What's to stop a Dabo Swinney with an unbeaten #1 who knows they're in regardless from saying, "Our conference will get more money if more teams make it - so I'm going to rest my starters and not risk injury."
Meanwhile, down in Atlanta, the Evil Kirby Luthor and his Legion of Dawgs intentionally injure Alabama's QB, not only diminishing the Tide's chances for the SEC title but for winning the playoff (now expanded to 3 game) even if they win the game.
4) Just wait to hear the crying over the home field advantage in the 4 vs 5 game.
"Yeah, we'll play the games on campus!"
So #5 Florida has to go to #4 Wisconsin.......and a snowstorm that dumps two feet of snow into Camp Randall makes for pretty viewing of snow angels but lousy football. The Big Ten is already so averse to this that they play the "Let's See Who Gets Snubbed This Year" Bowl indoors.
But what if you have a situation like 2017? Should Ohio State, the 2-loss conference champion who couldn't beat Iowa with a hammer, have to go play at the 1-loss NON-champion? Or - flipping the rankings to "reward" Ohio St for scraping by overrated Wisconsin.......should ONE-loss Alabama have to go play AT two-loss Ohio State?
How in the hell can you then say "the regular season is important" if the team with the better record does NOT get home field?
Or how can you say "the conf championship matters" if the non-conf champ DOES get it?
We can guess easily which side of that argument Tim Brando will take - whichever one puts Alabama at a disadvantage.
4) What about Notre Dame?
No, not the cathedral.......the catastrophe of arrogance in South Bend (no, not that guy).
Will Notre Dame be forced to join a conference? It's hardly fair if they are not. Hell, you can even have them rotate among the Five Families - they play a Pac 12 schedule one year, an ACC one year, etc.
I've got plenty more but that's enough for now. I need a nap.
