Imagine Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones along with fellow owners Bill Bidwill of the Arizona Cardinals, Dan Snyder of the Washington Redskins, and Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots serving on a National Football League Playoff Committee that would determine who makes the NFL playoffs.
Imagine the same in the NBA with Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks, Jim Buss of the Los Angeles Lakers, and James Dolan of the New York Knicks deciding who makes the NBA playoffs.
As insane and ludicrous as it sounds, that is what college football has done. The College Football Playoff Committee is chaired by Arkansas Razorbacks Athletic Director Jeff Long and has among its other members Barry Alvarez, Athletic Director of the Wisconsin Badgers, Pat Haden, Athletic Director of the USC Trojans, Oliver Luck, Athletic Director of the West Virginia Mountaineers, Dan Radakovich, Athletic Director of the Clemson Tigers, and Tom Osborne, the former Athletic Director of the Nebraska Cornhuskers who is still closely tied to the school.
As respected as the individual members of the committee are the format is so absurd that it begs for skepticism and conspiracy theories.
Honorable Members in Dishonorable Format
Having four available playoff spots for five power conferences invited controversy before the teams were even selected. And that is exactly what happened. The TCU Horned Frogs and Baylor Bears, co-champions of the Big 12 Conference, were aced out by the Ohio State Buckeyes after their 59-0 win in the Big Ten Championship Game with a third string QB. The Playoff Committee, in all of its wisdom, is sending third string QB Cardale Jones and the Buckeyes to face the top ranked Alabama Crimson Tide. This is the same committee that dropped TCU from a ranking of third to a final ranking of sixth despite the Frogs winning their final game 55-3.
While none of the Final Four playoff teams have direct ties to the members of the committee the fact remains that Osborne and Alvarez have strong Big Ten connections. Osborne, it should be recalled, also coordinated Nebraska’s defection from the Big 12 to the Big Ten. By any reasonable standard one could certainly speculate about Osborne wanting to stick it to the Big 12 and working with Alvarez to get their Big Ten business partner, Ohio State, in the playoff instead of Baylor or TCU. Add in the most powerful commissioner in college sports, Jim Delany of the Big Ten, and you have the ingredients of Ohio State’s emergence.
Corporate Gobbledygook
Few things are more insulting than spin and that is exactly what Long gave us each week when rankings were released. Long’s corporate gibberish only added fuel to the fire of fans who did not believe that the committee operated on the up and up. The subsequent lack of transparency did little to calm not just fans of TCU and Baylor but all college football fans who simply want the best matchups and teams.
Matchup Disorder
Another act of senseless stupidity was sending the Florida State Seminoles to the Rose Bowl to face the Oregon Ducks. Forcing Seminole fans to travel to Pasadena for the second time in one year and then expecting them to travel to the championship game in Arlington, Texas if they beat Oregon is beyond unrealistic. The traditional Pac 12 (Oregon) vs. Big Ten (Ohio State) Rose Bowl matchup must have made too much sense. Also making too much sense would have been a prospective matchup of Florida State facing Alabama in the Sugar Bowl in nearby New Orleans.
Book Smart
The CFB Playoff committee is staffed with some of the most accomplished and distinguished Americans that could be found. But a group of retired football coaches or even computers would have likely done better and could not have done any worse.
The Solution
Since it call comes down to money and with interest at an all-time high an eight team playoff with the Power Five Conference champions and three wild card teams is the best solution. The first and second round games should be played on campus at the higher seeded team’s campus with the national championship game on New Year’s Day. And if the world goes from the current 39 bowl games to 35 or 36 then I think it will somehow still survive.
