There was no good way to resolve the 4-team College Football Playoff field for 2023 after the perfect sequence of events unfolded to create an impossible choice.
Had any of the following happened Saturday – FSU losing to Louisville, Georgia beating Alabama, Texas losing to Oklahoma State or Michigan’s bus crashing and forcing Iowa to be named the B1G champion by default – the committee would’ve had an easy 4. Instead, they had to figure out how to thread the needle of Alabama having lost to Texas, the fact that they clearly wanted to ignore that result, and the fact that Florida State was an undefeated power-conference champion that they clearly thought was inferior to either.
As you know by now, they chose option 3 and hosed a 13-0 Seminoles team out of a CFP bid.
Maybe good for us, but bad for the sport
It shouldn’t surprise you that there’s a reason this site is OK with that outcome. The thought of Michigan, having already been given the cushiest matchup in CFP history (by opposing talent level, at least) and still losing a year ago, being handed potentially an even easier one was pretty nauseating. Our own team has played in the playoff twice, both against generationally amazing teams that capped off perfect seasons by obliterating blue-blood opponents in the title game after dismissing the Irish; if the source of all evil in the sport was to win a CFP game before ND did, our fans would much rather them have to truly earn it.
But our obvious biases aside, this was a bad decision for the sport as a whole, albeit a fitting one. The 4-team CFP came about largely because Alabama got a redo against LSU in 2011, in a sport that to that point avoided redos whenever there was a reasonable alternative (as you know from my so far two-part Regular Season Games Undone series). To close the book on the 4-team era with Alabama getting another handout based on a nebulous ‘eye test’ is…right, somehow, in a very wrong sort of way.
The stupid part about it is, this particular Alabama is not the death machine we’re used to. It’s not like these guys, unlike the 2011 and 2012 Tide that did get second chances, were crushing everyone in sight. We all saw Bama need a 4th-and-31 miracle to beat Auburn. We all saw them stave off Texas A&M (who fired their coach), Arkansas (who had a losing record) and South Florida (I know Jalen Milroe didn’t play, but my God that game), all basically in one-possession games. (Bama ran it up with a last-minute TD vs. USF instead of kneeling on the ball.) Michigan is still favored over the Tide in the Rose Bowl, despite all the platitudes about how great Alabama is and despite the Wolverines’ recent history against the best of the SEC, which tells you all you need to know.
The impact of this call is far-reaching
This particular decision, though, hits in a different way than that 2011 Bama decision did, because it essentially codifies what we already know – the SEC and B1G are going to be treated differently than the rest of us. Why? Because eff you, that’s why.
That’s a bad thing for Notre Dame, too.
It would be hard to say the Irish were treated unfairly by the 4-team version of the selection committee. The Irish often took advantage of ‘eye test’ themselves, particularly in 2015, when they had no real wins of note but hung on in the CFP race because they had a lot of talent. In 2017, ND was in great position to make the playoff with a loss before going down in flames in November. In 2020, ND got a bid some didn’t feel they deserved despite getting plastered in the ACC title game. In 2021, ND was one more major upset away from probably backdooring into the CFP for Marcus Freeman’s debut, despite again not having a real win of note. (I still kind of wish this had happened, especially given what happened in our timeline.)
However, this decision makes you wonder if those days are over. Next season, basically every true power program except for ND, Florida State and Clemson will be in one of the big 2 conferences. If the committee can dismiss Florida State at 13-0, why wouldn’t they do something like that to ND in similar circumstances?
The good news is that with the 12-team field, the Irish’s fate will always ultimately be in their hands – unless we end up with two small-conference unbeatens at some point, no one who wins all their games will ever be left out again. But on the margins, it’s easy to see a world in which a 10-2 Notre Dame, stuck playing half their games against a conference we’ve just been told is second-class, gets exiled from a playoff field in exchange for a 9-3 team from one of the big two because ‘eye test’. Not a world we want to live in!
Potentially hot take: I think Saban’s legacy is somewhat tainted because of this, 2017, and 2011.
The structure of college football’s postseason, and the logic by which the sport determines a champion, have changed THREE times specifically to benefit Alabama. In 2011, Bama was handed a rematch with LSU despite the BCS rejecting the exact same scenario in 2006. In 2017, Bama was given a playoff spot despite not even winning their own division. Now this. Yeah, he’s still the greatest CFB coach ever, but no other sport reinvents itself like this to benefit one particular team and coach.
Anyways, Roll Tide. I hope they win by 50.
Just throwing out there that if there had been consequences for the 2022 LAX selection committee, like all of them being black balled from the sports industry, this wouldn’t have happened.
The best solution remains expanding to an FCS-size playoff field.
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been on the 24 team playoff push for several years now. CFB fans keep calling the CFB way unique and steeped in tradition and in my opinion it’s asinine how this sport has decided a champion for the last 100 years. Every other level of football has identified a way to determine an objective champion on the field without there being a 4-6 week break between the last game and the championship game.
It should be 24 teams and I personally think every game should be held on campus of the top seed. Now if you said the championship game should be played in the Rose Bowl every year that would be ok too. Top 8 teams get a bye, the playoffs start the week after the CCG’s (I would love to scrap these but TV would never allow it). I’d be fine with dropping the # of games to 11, but I doubt it would happen so 12 games plus CCG and then playoffs. Mind you the champions are already playing 15 games in most cases.
Teams are for sure going to get screwed in a 12 team format and it is still very possible to schedule your way into a 12 team playoff. Look at Penn State this year, they are not good and their best win is against an Iowa team we are all aware of. Plus in a 24 team playoff this year, ND would have hosted said Iowa team and then played a second round matchup with Michigan. That would be a ratings bonanza and so sweet to smoke that loser Harbaugh
I am kind of amazed that people have watched a decade of this four team playoff and their response is: “More of this, and bigger.”
I need multiple more weeks of playoff Bama/Georgia/Ohio State hype and I need it now
How could anyone who likes college football not want more of the top teams playing each other in a winner go home format?
Sure there are tons of blowouts, just like all season long. It’s still the best college football possible. It happens that the CFP has corresponded to an era where there is an insane divide in talent between 2-3 teams and everyone else. So if you don’t like that, then why watch any games outside of ND?
A 12-team playoff this very year would be goddamn amazing!
In year’s past we’re either looking at great odds of a split National Championship (pre-BCS) or Michigan vs. Washington for all the marbles with FSU still getting shutout from a title shot as an undefeated.
I’ve always said this, the sanctity of the regular season was never, ever worth these types of dumb outcomes on top of giving us even less football played between top teams.
The sport being too top-heavy has been a huge criticism and then 2023 gave us something quite different and yet…some are like nah I wouldn’t want more playoff games.
Yes, there are things like Oregon losing twice, not winning their conference, and they shouldn’t have a shot to win a title being a thing to get hung up on as bad. It’s never really bothered me much but it’s a legit argument.
I just don’t know how 13-0 FSU gets shut out right here and now and STILL people think a 12-team playoff is worse!?
The choices aren’t “12 team playoff or FSU gets hosed”. The simple solution to omit Bama.
Sure, maybe that’s a simple solution for FSU if we’re only looking at FSU.
Maybe a 12-team playoff is still even better for FSU this year.
By the committee’s own logic, a 12-team playoff can’t be better for FSU because they aren’t capable of winning a national title at all, due to Travis’s injury.
What’s better for FSU is for them to be in the four team playoff, which was an option and the right one.
I’ll argue the only reason people think Oregon shouldn’t have a shot is because of how the champion has been decided for 100 years. If for the past 50 years the sport had instituted an FCS bracket, nobody would have a problem with Oregon (a team who lost 2 games by 6 points) having a shot at a championship after winning a 4 week playoff.
I keep seeing people say the goal is to determine the “best team”. That right there is subjective. The goal is to crown a champion at the end of the season. The Giants weren’t the best team in 2007 or the Cavs in 2016 or LSU in 2003.
Tradition is actually good and not something I want to throw away. In fact it’s a big part of why I and many, many other people have historically preferred CFB to the NFL. I do not actually want to min/max my entertainment utils and optimize all sports to their most high speed low drag forms
This also infers that tradition in the past didn’t maximize entertainment and/or that the sport hasn’t been plagued by terrible decisions for over 100 years.
This is key to all of these arguments when we’re talking about the crowning of champions in this sport. There is no going back to something that was already frustrating-free and lacking in controversy. It never existed.
“bad and imperfect things have been done in the past, so let’s make more opportunity for them.”
I’m a huge boxing fan I’ve seen how this goes
It’s really easy to not hold up a mirror to the past. That’s for sure.
Tradition for the sake of tradition is the same thing as progress for the sake of progress.
If there is no current logic to the tradition, and especially if it is in fact counter productive, then it’s probably not a good tradition to keep around.
I’d argue the tradition of “10-2 Oregon who lost twice to Washington cannot be national champion” is a pretty solid one
Is 14-2 National Champion Oregon better or worse than 2007 LSU?
worse, because for 2007 what’s done is done though it was objectionable at the time, whereas I have no need to repeat a similar mistake going forward.
FSU getting shut out is done too, and I’m here to tell you that in a 12-team playoff it wouldn’t have happened!
Again, “Something bad happened so you have to accept a different bad thing” is not a convincing argument. Not now, not an hour ago, not next time.
Why, for the people whining about FSU missing out, is it considered a “different bad thing” to offer a system where no decision making is needed and FSU gets in?
Leaving FSU out of the four team playoff is bad. Setting up a 12 team playoff that includes Florida State and the next seven most perfectly deserving teams, is also bad, but in a different way.
You are very trusting of them.
[Scowls in GK Chesterton]
It’s really easy to just keep saying “everything will be better, this time they won’t dilute things”
Things can’t get better unless you try to improve them. We know things currently suck.
Right, and kicking the playoff to the curb would be an improvement, we should try that again
In your opinion, which to be clear, is in fact an opinion despite how you don’t seem to realize it. Your opinion also differs from the vast majority of opinions on CFB.
Ah you have a more popular opinion so its objectively right, sure thing, that is how it works.
The only opinion I have stated is that the committee should not exist at all.
I personally don’t want a 12 team playoff. Fewer teams are better for ND. Take 2012 for example, despite my remark about us not really competing.
But what I have been arguing is that 12 teams allow for auto bids which create an objective way to get into the playoff. That is simple logic, not opinion.
I guess one other opinion was that as a college football fan, I would enjoy watching a 12 team playoff, as it would create more good football.
But that was separate than what I would actually like to see happen.
I am definitely pro autobids for conference champs in the 12 team system we’re moving to.
And we improve things by leaving the same people in charge and giving them more decisions to make?
Weren’t you the one who just made a snide remark when I suggested we take the power out of their hands?
Also, you always do this, but you just ignore people’s points. It has been discussed on this thread, but it would remove the most important decisions from them.
Go back to arguing that Parker is a better OC than Rees.
Maybe you would do better to just ignore my comments, they make you really angry.
Well unfortunately everything that’s been done for the past 10 years to “improve” things has just made it worse, so forgive me if I don’t trust that track record.
I never said tradition isn’t good. I love the tradition of March Madness. That Thursday thru Sunday is some of the most exciting sport days of the year.
I hate the tradition of arguing if team A’s schedule was tougher than Team B’s schedule and who’s loss was a “better loss” and then we all sit down at the end of the 45 minutes and say, “Well it stinks that we don’t have a way to settle this, because we artificially limit the number of teams eligible for the championship. I know I say I love to see upsets and I’m a huge fan of the little guy but I don’t like when they try actually compete for a championship”
I just don’t understand how everyone can say these players shouldn’t get paid and they’re ruining the sport by transferring and then in the same breath say only a super small percentage of all teams should qualify for the championship that is half decided by a group of old men in a 4 Seasons conference room.
I don’t think they should get paid, I do think they’re ruining the sport via transfers, and I don’t think a CFP committee should exist. I’d be fine with the AP and coaches polls being the de facto champion makers again. It’s weird you think people who are anti-NIL/free transfer, an entirely separate issue, must also be huge fans of the committee.
What was all that ‘simple solution’ talk about with FSU!?????
If we have a four team playoff, the simple solution is to put Florida State in. This is not hard to follow. I am not wed to the concept of a playoff at all. Lower level football doing it means nothing to me.
It is very hard to follow because on one side you’re critical of everything 4-team playoff, seemingly because of the poor decision to leave FSU out.
Yet, the AP set up from the past very likely prevents FSU from also winning a title, as well.
The 12-team playoff does not leave FSU out.
You see that, right?
What the man wants is CFB to look like it did the last time ND competed for NCs.
I mean, that was certainly a better system for ND.
I won’t argue with that.
2012?
I’m 34, most of Notre Dame’s football in my memorable life has been massively disappointing, though we’re finally about to break even.
You must have missed that final game. We were not competing for a NC.
har har harrrrrr
It’s very simple. We have a four team playoff. Within its own rules/logic/history, it should not leave Florida State out, yet did. The way to avoid this problem is to put Florida State in. Between the option of “make the playoff an even bigger thing” or “make the playoff a non existent thing”, which is a separate topic over whether Florida State should or should not be in the four teams that the playoff system had to select, I will happily opt for no playoff.
I don’t agree with this logic at all.
It’s not fair to hold the 4-team playoff to a certain set of logic/rules and then advocate for a no playoff system that doesn’t provide you with any better (and I’d argue far worse) set of logic and rules.
Obviously, the better answer is to have the coaches themselves vote on who the best teams are without playing any bowls at all. The very same coaches who 1) have a vested interest in making their own team look as good as possible by inflating the value of teams they’re playing and 2) who probably have very little free time to watch other college football teams play college football in the same season. The very best solution. It was broke years ago, so we shouldn’t try to fix it.
Where are these rules you speak of?
Here are their protocols. It explicitly states that they will take injuries into account.
https://collegefootballplayoff.com/sports/2016/10/24/selection-committee-protocol
They utilized their own rules!
Well, we don’t like those rules, I guess. FSU was undefeated!
Get out of here Liberty, these discussions aren’t for you.
Exactly. It’s more like arguments against the rules that one sees rather than an actual disagreement with the decision in the end.
One place I think everyone agrees is that there is a problem with the CFP committee.
We probably don’t agree on what the problem is, or how to fix it. But no one seems impressed.
The committee and just 4 teams was always going to be a problem.
I’ve been arguing for a larger playoff since before we were even writing at SB Nation.
Exactly. I don’t understand why people think FSU should have gotten into the playoff instead of Bama.
They don’t give arguments except for it’s never been done or whatever. (Most honestly don’t believe FSU is actually one of the 4 best teams currently.) But of course, just because something hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done now. We obviously have a unique case.
Because they played all of their games and won them all.
Bama, UGA, Michigan and Ohio State should be in the playoffs. We could have skipped the season and locked and loaded this thing back in September.
Your reply reads like a lawyer saying, hey we put it in the fine print.
There have been a ton of arguments outside of it’s never been done before. You just don’t want to either read them or accept them.
I’ve made comments elsewhere about the arguments but saying they won them all is precisely not saying they are one of the 4 best teams.
Do people really think they are one of the 4 best?
And I’ve already said “the best” or “4 best” is such a crock argument.
Can you tell me what makes a team “the best”? What is the criteria?
It’s not hard to tell that a team who was very good (#2 or #3) when their star QB is healthy, easily drops to #5 (or worse) when that same QB gets injured and the backup is not anywhere close. When star QBs get hurt, teams get significantly worse (esp. when their backups are not particularly competent).
I hope you’re trolling and don’t actually believe this.
A) you couldn’t answer my question for a simple criteria of what makes a team “the best” despite winning all of their games scheduled
B) Alabama benched their current QB earlier in the year for a guy who just transferred to play lacrosse. Yet somehow they are one of “the best”.
Honestly we should reevaluate after every round in the playoffs. If Washington wins but Penix goes down then too bad they can’t win the championship against Bama so we’re subbing UGA in because they smoked FSU in a meaningless exhibition game that half the players didn’t even play in. Or better yet, if you lose a game in the regular season you’re automatically removed from the top 25. The only way you can get back into the top 25 is by beating an undefeated team.
Just to clarify my entire last paragraph is sarcastic. It’s a dumb ass idea
One doesn’t need to resort to name-calling because you are upset at someone else’s argument.
You’ve also failed to respond to what I’ve said.
One doesn’t need a fully articulated, exhaustive account of “best” to figure out that team A without its star QB is going to be significantly worse than with its star QB. Or do you deny that losing one’s star QB would make a team significantly worse?
The rest is mostly straw men/red herring type stuff.
The whole thing is straw men. Your statements can’t be proven and either can mine. That’s what makes this system so dumb and why it should be a 24 team playoff. Then we’re done arguing about hypotheticals and the results are played out on the field. Of course a backup QB isn’t going to be as strong as the starter, they likely would have been the starter then. Also dumb to make that argument considering every fan clamors for the backup QB non-stop. So now it matters that it’s the backup QB, but other times the backup QB would have saved the season. As has been pointed out multiple times already the very first playoff was won by a backup QB replacing a star QB so in essence your argument has already been proven false especially cause that backup QB ended up not doing anything later in his career and NFL so the champion “best team” won it all with a 3rd string QB.
FSU’s defense is legit and they would have had 4 weeks to gameplan for the backup QB. There’s nothing to say that they wouldn’t beat Michigan. Michigan had 232 yards of offense against Iowa, not sure I would call Michigan one of the 4 best teams after that game.
I wouldn’t have called Bama one of the 4 best teams before they played UGA. I wouldn’t have called Texas one of the 4 best teams needing OT to beat KSU.
All I’m advocating for is that the champion be crowned on the field just like every other sport imaginable. The system sucks, has always sucked, and they only continue to patchwork fix it. The champion isn’t even sanctioned by the NCAA. The entire system is meant to be exclusive and a popularity contest.
For real? FSU is an undefeated conference champion, unlike Bama and Texas. Putting Bama in over Texas would be obviously absurd given the head to head result of a game this season played at Alabama. Instead the committee decided to screw over a third team.
Why is “undefeated conference champion” some kind of magic bullet that makes one one of the 4 best? Usually it does, but obviously not when the star QB is done for the year.
The “actually this team with a loss is one of the best four” is a permanent excuse to ignore any Bama/Georgia/OSU loss you want and that has never been more clear. People will make that about two loss teams too and inevitably that chicken will come home to roost.
Also Bill C made a good case for why FSU still deserves to be there but it might be pay walled. Bama’s SOS and squeaky wins are not some clear cut case despite the UGA win.
I mean we’ve all seen a Tommy Rees offense in the playoff and it sure isn’t great.
If you qualify this to only include teams whose star QBs would be injured late in the year, then I agree.
I think you’re missing my point. People are mad at the players for making self-serving decisions with NIL/transfers while at the same time those same people like you think that this group of people whether it be committee, coaches or AP decide who is the champion after years of false data showing that the method doesn’t work.
The top 24 actually takes your preferred method of a crowning a champion by taking the AP/Coaches poll that we already have and then have those 24 teams play each other in a winner take all tournament.
A 24 team playoff will help bring some stability to the sport too. Just like in basketball, Jay Wright doesn’t have to leave Villanova to go to Duke to build something big.
They are getting paid and many make more than they can or will in the NFL. The base pay for a NFL rookie is $750k. As far as late round QB picks, over three seasons in the NFL Ian Book made $2.3 million and had to sign contract for his services.
Talk to the current crop of transferring college QBs’ agents who may be advising to them transfer to three different schools in three years to maximize their career earnings in college.
The best thing about college football is the regular season matters. Letting Oregon have a shot at the national title after losing to Washington twice would suck. A 12 team playoff is going to make the regular season so much more boring.
This is an argument I hear parroted all the time when I suggest a 24 team playoff.
Can you tell me why the regular season mattered this year? I know FSU can’t and it didn’t matter last year when Ohio State got in despite losing to Michigan or in 2004 for Auburn or for 2000 Miami who beat FSU but FSU got to play for the NC or 1996 Florida State who beat Florida the last regular season game and then had to turn and play them again in the Sugar Bowl or the numerous other times over the last 100 years where the regular season didn’t matter.
The regular season will always matter in football because games are only played once per week week. I think it’s pretty easy to argue that the regular season actually doesn’t mean squat for 125 of the 133 teams in FBS. After you lose a game or a group of people say you didn’t play anyone, you literally don’t have a chance at the playoffs no matter how well you do in the regular season.
Big games in the season are always prisoner of the moment situations anyways. We all said the OSU/ND game was huuuge and was going to impact the playoff hunt. It didn’t for either team and because ND stumbled against Louisville and then Clemson, OSU barely got credit for winning at the time was the biggest game of the year and maybe since 2005 for ND.
Right. It matters, but not exactly in the way people want it to matter.
The committee made a decision that was patently unfair, illogical, and widely unpopular. Is the rational response:
A) To give the committee more power to make more decisions of this type; or
B) To explore alternative approaches to the model that resulted in this terrible decision?
Please expound on B.
B could include all sorts of things. Is that the rational response to this situation, or is A?
The expected rules for the 12-team playoff give the committee far less power so I’m not sure what we’re arguing about?
They’ll be picking 12 teams instead of 4, right?
In terms of making it in, it’s expected the committee will be picking 7 teams.
Ranking the teams, that’ll be different.
OK, so 7 instead of 4.
So — given the judgment the committee just displayed, do we want to roughly double their power, or not do that?
I don’t agree that the 12-team playoff is doubling their power.
The point of a 12 team playoff is to give the committee LESS decision making power.
FSU auto-bid by winning the ACC.
The 12-team playoff, IIRC, takes the six highest rated conference champions as autobids. So why not make FSU the seventh-highest rated conference champion, due to Travis’s injury, which apparently renders them unable to compete for a national title.
I feel like you’re a snake eating itself now.
🙂
I mean really, why wouldn’t they do that? Their position is that FSU cannot win a national title due to Travis’s injury.
So if we trust them — which you do — why would FSU be in a playoff of any size?
Their position isn’t that FSU cannot win one. It is that FSU is less likely to win one than the 4 other teams.
Now we argue about could and cannot.
Technically, they cannot anymore.
Anyway, so this new system in 2024 offers…
and where in that quote did they say FSU cannot win a NC?
I read “We didn’t think they could”
But of course, we know you are the only one who can come up with the perfect solution to all of this.
Of course they cannot win one now, because the committee decided.
I have never said this. What was that about ignoring people’s points?
Let’s just agree to ignore each other for a bit, OK? I think this needs to cool down.
I don’t think we need to argue about a hypothetical or argue around a position they didn’t make, tbh. We’ll just go in circles.
Couldn’t their logic just be, they’re not one of the best 4 teams without Travis so they’re not in the playoff? The committee might only think Michigan is capable of winning a national title this year, but they’re still bound to pick 4 teams for the playoffs.
Yes.
Why not just make it a 130 team playoff and take all of the power out of the committee’s hands?
I think that’s a good idea, I think teams should play about 11 games to figure it out against an assortment of opponents with some geographic ties, for scheduling convenience.
Oh my goodness that sounds so awful!
I’d rather we just play the season out and let the Associated Press, Coaches, College Football Researchers, Football Writers Association, Harris Interactive, Helms Foundation, National Championship Foundation, National Football Foundation, Sporting News, and United Press just pick whomever they like as champion and sleep tight at night that the dastardly committee no longer has power over this precious sport.
I think the BIG represents the very regrettable evolution of college football becoming top heavy, less competitive with half the teams barely competitive. An overly inflated ego which avoids serious competition during the regular season epitomized by three quarter of Michigan fans wanting to leave the conference with the self-perception that it would crumble without them.
The BIG did not play any SEC of Pac teams and without three wins against the Virginias would have gone 0-4 against the ACC. BFD
Then you have a highly competitive league like the Pac who beat up on each other but we have no idea how they will be in the bowls since only three starting QBs are returning with three going to the NFL. Maybe one of the BIGs QBs enters the draft and most are ranked in the bottom quarter percentile of all FBS QBs.
Imagine how we would feel about the impartiality of the CFP Committee should we have two or more years of the four team playoff and many questioning the impartiality of the Committee. On the horizon is at least some semblance of removing authority from twenty people.
The committee should be outsourced to either Vegas, McKinsey, or some type of actual impartial decision makers. Not people with direct interest in which teams make it in.
lol, lmao even. What the world surely needs is more consultant think
I’m more comfortable with a highly flawed committee than a downright evil one that somehow features playoff games in Dubai.
That’s why I pay no attention to the Coaches Poll which in the past was one of the determinants of playoff/NC teams.
Assuming the same roster will appear for teams is no longer a given with the Transfer Portal early decisions. Players should have to sign two year contracts and transfer window dates should be deferred. If a conference refuse to schedule difficult non-conference games and a conference is highly competitive, the twelve team playoff makes more sense
Vegas is able to adapt by adjusting the spread.
This I agree with 100% for sure. It should be some other entity.
Vegas, noted impartial body in college football, with no monetary stake in the game.
My goodness.
Yes, the fact it’s glaringly obvious that the committee just makes up reasoning as it goes along and always seems to err on the side of potential tv ratings makes the process a farce, and I can’t imagine it getting much better with an expansion. You expand to 12 and then there are arguments over why LSU, Penn State, Oklahoma, or whatever other 8/9 win team in the SEC/B1G blob should be ranked ahead of FSU.
Except let’s be honest, FSU would get smoked by any of the top 4 teams with this QB.
And precisely why they are not in the playoffs.
Good thing that previously eliminated Michigan State, Washington, Notre Dame, and Cincy.
The 4 team playoff and before that the BCS are so disconnected from the regular season because of the 4 to 6 week break between the last game and the playoff game.
Michigan for example has played 13 of the 14 Saturdays since 9/2. They will now go 4 straight Saturdays without playing and instead play their playoff game on Monday, 1/1. I want them to get smoked, but that’s not an accurate representation of the season and imo, a terrible way to decide a champion. Alabama is likely going to look like a different team than they have been all season when Saban and his army of analysts dissect everything.
Looking at their schedule I’m not sure I’d say they actually played most of those weekends.
I think the premise of this post is essentially correct so long as ND’s independent, but, considering how soft our schedules look like they’re going to be in the future, there will never be a 10-2 ND team capable of winning a national championship, so I don’t think this is particularly concerning overall. The closest we ever got in this thought experiment was 2015, which one could reasonably argue was Kelly’s best team, and they got completely handled by OSU in the Fiesta Bowl.
Also I suspect this won’t be a concern for too long because it seems more likely than not that ND is in the B1G within a decade.
Are you saying that you think Bama would have gotten in even if the FSU QB was healthy ?
I’m in no position to say with authority what would have happened, but I think it would be folly to say that the committee would definitely have left Alabama out in such a scenario.
My current tin foil theory is they would’ve dropped Texas before Bama. I also think FSU gets in over Texas if UGA wins.
Texas is in and at 3 because they beat Bama by 2 scores.
The way the committee-head talked about it was the QB injury was basically everything. If he was healthy no way FSU gets left out.
Somewhat related: Still not totally clear, but it sounds like the ACC may have tried to block ND from bowl games altogether or something?
Friends like these, eh?
That story is completely wild. Even though we have not previously heard of anything in the contract saying an ACC team must be prioritized over ND if they won a regular-season meeting (Louisville and Clemson), you can at least see the logic. But the part where ND was apparently not made available to the Pop-Tarts Bowl while NC State, a team ND smothered in their own house, was is more than a little weird.
I don’t really care that much, because there’s a lot I like more about the Sun Bowl – more traditional venue, Nessler and Danielson instead of whatever random people ESPN assigns to the game, higher-ranked if neutered-by-the-portal opponent, not having to see the memes of Marcus Freeman taking bites out of an edible mascot. But it’s definitely a wild story.
That and the Pinstripe bowl flub. May have been one guy misspeaking but it all seems very, very odd.
It’s going to be so nice listening to professional announcers.
Wow out of all of the comments I’ve been shocked by on 18stripes, 2 people in a row enjoying Gary Danielson has to be the most surprising. He’s in the same ballpark as Garrett for me!
Gary is a weird one where to my recollection (haven’t really seen a game of his in years) he’s absolutely horrible calling SEC games where he toes the company line and really quite good when calling neutral games (Army/Navy, Sun Bowl, maybe 1-2 others a year)
I actually prefer the Sun Bowl too (although I kinda wanted to see Freeman eat a gigantic Pop-Tart), but with each passing year, I think more and more that we have got to get out of this ACC deal tout suite.
Has anyone figured a way out? I heard Michigan had like 1000 lawyers on blogs trying to figure out how they didn’t actually cheat. ND has a law school. Can’t anyone find a way????
The SEC shorts team renamed this week’s episodes “ACC shorts.” Oh, and Herbstreit always does the 5 second commercial at the end of each episodes, but instead of showing him they just had one of their actors read the copy over a blank screen.
Given that they had an episode earlier about the SEC being over-rated this year, not surprising. But pretty funny when even they realize this $omehow $eems $trange.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZm3pc5HbsY&t=2s
I disagree that this is bad for the game since it I don’t think it’s simply a matter of the “eye-test” that made this decision. It was because of an injury to a top QB of a team which made it obvious to everyone that the team that went 11-0 was significantly worse than the team that finished 13-0. And it’s not hard to figure out either when a star QB goes down. If he was healthy and this still happened, then I would entirely agree with the argument.
On another note, it works out well that Michigan won’t go against a crippled #4 but get a real team to lose to before getting to the natty.
Sports don’t work like that. We don’t change the requirements for the postseason based on injuries, much less one single injury. The history of college football (and other sports) is replete with examples of backups being even better than injured starters. In fact, the very first college football playoff, in 2014, was won by Ohio State’s third string QB.
College football and basketball do work like this and always have. The sport has never been objective and is actually appropriately applying it’s own transparent guidelines.
The March Madness selection committee has used injury consideration in seeding.
It is also explicitly listed on the CFP Selection Committee Protocol page under section 2. Principles.
This is what we have to deal with until there is objectivity, like in all professional sports, which maybe happens if we get 2 power conferences. It is awful and stupid, but it is what it is and what it always has been. Going to 12 will at least gives teams the chance to make up for the subjectivity.
It’s so weird that they had trouble making people in five conferences happy with four playoff slots.
No college football team has ever been excluded from the playoffs because of one injury. The exact opposite has occurred — 2014 Ohio State.
How on earth can you acknowledge that this is “awful and stupid,” yet say, “Let’s make this playoff model bigger and more powerful?”
Bigger and more powerful reduces the impact of the subjectivity. It’s pretty straight forward.
And just because something very specific hasn’t happened, doesn’t mean it wasn’t explicitly accounted for in the groundwork.
oh ho ho ho ho oh buddy
I know I replied earlier, but I’m genuinely curious I don’t understand how FCS style, 24 team format is worse here?
College basketball does it just fine. ND fans were loving the baseball teams run in 2022 and that’s a 64 team tournament.
Everyone was upset about the LAX snub a couple of years ago. The LAX tourney takes 22% of the D1 teams. Baseball is 21%, basketball is 19%. Next year football will still only be 9% of its teams can “make” the playoffs. It’s been 3% for the past 10 years of the 4 team playoff. A 24 team playoff for CFB would still only be 18%.
I just don’t see how expanding it 24 teams is a bad thing.
I’d argue that March Madness does a better job of rewarding “hot” teams rather than the best teams.
I think football is a bit of a different beast & it’s hard to keep momentum week over week. One team may upset a “better” team on any given week, but to sustain that for a month seems untenable. Chaff & wheat are more easily separated in football.
“okay i know Duke went 19-13 this year but all their five stars are finally healthy and the made the ACC semi finals so actually they’re in”
I disagree on the basketball point and the data says otherwise as well. 1 & 2 seeds win the championship 74% of the time since 1985. 3 seed Florida won it all in 2006. Since then only UConn has won it outside of the 1 or 2 seeds. 2011 they were a 3 seed, 2014 they were a 7 seed and in 2023 they were a 4 seed. Seems more like basketball has a UConn getting hot problem.
I agree with you on football being a different beast. But we see upsets all the time in the regular season. The FCS for example has had multiple unseeded teams (9 thru 24) make the final four or the championship game. They haven’t been able to get over the hump and win one in awhile but doesn’t mean they weren’t deserving of the being the best team. They won those games on the field.
UConn doing that three times with three different coaches is so weird.
Because basketball is not football, and the people who run the basketball committee do not run the football committee.
How do you not understand that having more playoff spots, with automatic bids, would reduce subjectivity? This is not an opinion, it’s simple logic.
But yeah, “oh ho ho ho ho oh buddy” pretty much shows where you stand with regards to logic.
Either way, let me explain it for you.
As long as you have more spots in the playoff than conferences you want to give a qualifier to, then it is pretty simple. Win your conference and you are in. Right there you have an objective way into the playoff. No human has to make any decision about those teams qualifying. If they earn it, they are in.
As I also mentioned, that wouldn’t remove subjectivity completely until we get to a field that can be completely regulated by automatic bids, like professional leagues. Given the direction things are heading, that looks like B1G and SEC, but who knows. Either way, having automatic bids reduces subjectivity.
As it stands with 4 teams and 5 conferences, that cannot be accomplished. Expanding the playoff isn’t the only way to go, but it is probably the fastest.
More spots mostly puts the edge case down on deciding 12 vs. 13 instead of 4 vs. 5 – likely lower stakes but still the same issue. Seems very open to seeding chicanery on the other hand, which I think we already get but there are only three possible permutations each time.
Exactly. It is not fully objective, but reducing the stakes to 12-13 reduces the impact of the subjectivity (i.e. lowers the stakes of the human decision).
No, it doesn’t remove the subjectivity, which is what rankles people, it shifts it around.
Reduces the impact of the subjectivity.
I purposely didn’t say increases objectivity, because I believe that is like saying something is more unique.
In who is the last team out, yes. I have my doubts that we’ll see honesty in ranking 1-12.
Perfection is the enemy of good
bro just let me invite four more playoff teams, I just need to rank the top twenty two in a double elimination tournament trust me this time it only means more good games, baseball does it
So you jus enjoy making the stupidest possible argument
Close, I enjoy correcting other people’s stupid arguments.
What is your argument, maybe I misinterpreted it.
Wait, a minute.
If Notre Dame finishes 10-2 and misses a 12-team field I feel like many of us fans would be a lot more reasonable about it.
If we miss a 4-team field at 11-1 it’s a lot more controversial and less reasonable.
The same principle applies. Those are not the same scenarios. Those are not similar shifting of subjectivity to the same amount at all.
I for one look forward to claiming a national championship on behalf of a 10-2 ND team whose best win is @UNC and finished #12 in the rankings but got pushed out by a lower-ranked conference champ.
let me shorten that for you: “To Michigan”
The famously beloved and above criticism for their dicey choices, March Madness selection committee
March Madness, known for its objectivity, also anyways here’s a Syracuse team that was under .500 in conference,
[Even more famously objective 1993 enters the chat]
“We’ll fix it with the BCS!”
[leaves out Auburn, has atrocious LSU-Bama rematch]
“We’ll fix it with the playoff!”
[incentivizes not playing hard schedules, ruins the bowl season, typically terrible first round matchups]
“We’ll fix it with-“
To sharpen the argument between the choices, the FSU AD said the Committee resorted to relativism vs following their established criteria.
Similarly, potential matchups or injuries should not influence the CFP choices. In my mind, Washington has a better argument to be #1. If they were, would that change the feelings of who should be #4?
Again the FSU’s AD:
FSU Athletic Director Michael Alford Condemns Committee Following Historic CFP Snub
Marist Liufau opts out of the Sun Bowl and declares for the NFL draft. I’m worried he won’t pan out in the NFL, but leaving now makes sense as six-year guys likely aren’t a frequent draw for NFL teams.
Likely that means none of the three starting LBs are returning since Kiser and Bertrand are playing in senior games, although players are technically allowed to return from school from those games now.
I’m not surprised he isn’t coming back, but opting out doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. I don’t follow the draft much these days, but he doesn’t seem like he’s particularly draftable right now (I’d be fine with my team taking him in the 6th/7th).
But maybe for fringe guys, the threat of injury is actually a bigger deal. Jaylon Smith was still a second round pick, but I guess a potential 6th/7th rounder with a recent injury is probably going to have a much tougher time.
I wouldn’t think he’s particularly draftable based on having watched him many, many times, but I’ve also seen some NFL scout/draftnik types be weirdly in love with him.
Yeah, I think he’ll test really well athletically. Hopefully that’s enough to get a real shot.
These views seem to have been the beat writers take for pretty much his whole career, too. Lots of athletic potential.
While he was pretty good this year, it wasn’t quite a season that I think portends NFL greatness. But if he gets an invite to the combine, he could probably get himself drafted.
Jamie U I think said in the last few weeks he thought there was a reason for him to come back because he could actually get better (finally his first full-season healthy I think being part of the equation – with last year being a kind of not 100% from the previous year’s injury kind of year).
Obviously it’s tough to be somewhere for 6 years in college football I suppose but yea hard to see him stick in the NFL even if he somehow gets drafted.
Most comments since Kelly left/Freeman hired? Who’d have thought it be the playoff selection.
I do think the committee created this mess by not dropping FL St. earlier, if they thought having a back up qb would be an issue FL. St. should’ve have been dropped when Travis went down, but they weren’t.
Also I understand all this frustration is about michigan being ranked no.1 (how the hell?), but we shouldn’t be taking it out on ourselves.
Like with Michigan they weren’t going to drop FSU, they were praying for someone else to deal with it, like Ohio State, Iowa, Louisville, Auburn, or Georgia.
FIU speedster Kris Mitchell commits from the portal to join (lead?) the ND WR corp next year.
64 catches for 1,118 yard and 7 TDs just last year in Conference USA.
Bunch of other WRs visiting ND too. Do we think the Athletics Department finally got the university to maybe reconsider things? Or are they all grad transfers?
Kris Mitchell is a grad transfer. Non-WR Riley Leonard is not a grad transfer, but supposedly we’ve “done our homework” on getting that particular Dukie over the hump. As for others, I am unsure.
I think Kris Mitchell might be the left one in this picture. But either way, next uniform discussion in the weekly rambler?
https://www.si.com/college/group-five/cusa/fiu-football-biscayne-blue-jerseys-released-florida-international-jersey-vice#gid=ci02c8b05ae000246c&pid=dsc02582
Those are quite fresh.
WR Beaux Collins (Clem) was class of ’21, so could be grad, but probably undergrad.
WR Joshua Kelly (WSU) is class of 2019, so grad.
DB commit Jordan Clark (ASU) is grad.
It doesn’t really look like we are doing things differently. But we do seem to be attracting some pretty attractive transfers. Maybe it’s just the quality of grad transfers is increasing?
Related to the above. Can one enter the portal now, but then finish the academic year and say graduate if they need one more semester, then actually transfer universities for fall camp? I don’t see any reason anyone would do this, rather than spring ball with their team then transfer, but is it allowed?
Whoa, whoa, whoa now. Stetston Bennett was enrolled at Georgia from 2006-22 and did not graduate. We can not always assume!
Sooo, more yardage from last season has now transferred in than has already transferred out.
Fun day on the interwebs. Sorry Steenalized and ACS for being a jerk at times. Thanks for a good old fashioned heated internet discussion.
Likewise, it’s all good, been doing this for way to long to hold any sort of grudge
Except against Michigan
I’m in Chicago, Michigan grads and fans are a special pain
Roll Tide.
We’re gonna need a very large order of those goofy pom poms Bama fans wave
That’s the best part of the FSU decision. Michigan is a much better chance of being stomped in the playoffs instead of rolling easily into the natty game.
No hard feelings at all, the internet is for arguing!
Aaaand Xavier Watts gets named the nation’s top defensive player, but not a finalist for the nation’s top defensive back.
https://apnews.com/article/bronko-nagurski-award-xavier-watts-notre-dame-27ab6070f1ad152e0625d6f619ffab58
And he’s playing in the bowl game. No decision on the draft yet.
It’s cool he won but he definitely wasn’t even the best defensive back on his own team
The centripetal force acting on college fooball over the last forty years has reduced independents from twenty-three in 1983 to three by next year. The usual rationale is that sacrificing autonomy and the inevitablity for most of the teams to languish in a conference is worth a measure of survival. I’m sure UCLA is hoping for that fiscal redemption that has been has so far escaped Rutgers, Maryland and Illinois.
As an Irish fan proud of and comfortable in our independence, it provides a perceptive that is a combination of the absurdity of conference expansion/contraction with a touch of black humor. Does anyone in Minnesota care if Michigan wins or loses in the CFP? Would Arkansans take up arms if Alabama or Georgia were deprived of their rightful place in the CFP?
It’s a misplaced sense of honor and loyalty from an outsider’s perspective in the pursuit of riches that is comical and inimical to the idea of a university.
The Sun Bowl sold out their tickets in twenty-four hours with a few left on the secondary market. I like the idea we are playing a soon-to-be quasi-independent Oregon State in the (South) West. Don’t fence me in.
Has anyone actually won by jumping between major conferences since the first raiding of the Big East? The only entry into a power conference that has worked out is Utah and maybe TCU, but they came from the MWC.
Utah and TCU have done well for themselves. Louisville is probably a lot happier in the ACC than the AAC but they were only there for a year or two post big east, right?
Mizzou has done shockingly okay and gets nice checks out of it.
I think you’ve pretty much got it. I mean several schools are better off financially for their jumps, of course, but in terms of on-field results, I think Utah, TCU and Missouri are the only ones better off. (I agree Missouri’s being decent has been pretty remarkable.) Louisville had a good year this year but they’ve never been any better than they were in the Big East, even when they stumbled into a Heisman QB.
Compare that with everyone that’s jumped to the B1G, all the Big East-to-ACC moves, Texas A&M, etc.