Sunday, December 7, 2014

Proposal: the easy way out for college football committee

In a little over an hour, the college football championship teams will be decided.
Seems to be there's one easy solution for the committee to make.
In that solution, these would be the seeds.
1. Oregon -- avenged its only loss in a big way against Arizona in the Pac-is it now 12? championship game.
2. Alabama -- No. 1 in the polls for a good part of the season, and won the Southeastern Conference championship game.
3. Florida State -- The only undefeated team and the defending national champion under last year's BCS system. The Seminoles won the Atlantic Coast Conference championship in their typical fashion, by an eyelash. But they did win every game on their schedule, and I believe in the boxing maxim, "To be the champ, you've got to knock out the champ." The committee should give FSU a chance to lose the title, but they also could spare a couple of more eyelashes to win it
4. Ohio State -- won the Big Ten championship game in resounding fashion with the Buckeyes' third quarterback this year.
The matchups would be Ohio State vs. Oregon in the Rose Bowl and Florida State vs. Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.
OK. I hear you howling: What about TCU and Baylor? What about them? What conference championship did they win? Oh, they were Big 12 co-champions? And Baylor beat TCU head to head, so the Bears should have been placed with the top four? That argument doesn't hold water under the championship committee's priority of criteria, which lists strength of schedule higher than head-to-head competition.
By taking deserving Ohio State and Florida State teams, the committee avoids the sticky wicket that would be picking one of the Big 12 teams over the other.
By not rewarding Baylor for playing a soft non-conference schedule, he committee also could send a message to teams to beef up the opponents on their resumes.
Also, by not taking either Big 12 team, the committee would set up a third game with great interest on New Year's Day. A Baylor-TCU rematch in the Cotton Bowl would have all of Texas and most of the rest of the U.S. buzzing.
* * *
I don't like this idea, but I'm resigned to having an eight-team playoff in the near future. That way a champion in one of the five biggest conferences would not be excluded from the playoff. However, there still would be a lot of whining from the No. 9 and 10 teams in that system.
Before that eight-team playoff comes into being, the committee would require the Big 12 actually to have 12 teams. The easiest solution would be to annex Houston and Rice, with woeful SMU as a possible fallback. With 12 teams, the Big 12 would be able to have its own championship game.
The conference made a huge blunder in its marketing as being the conference with "one true champion." Turns out, the Big 12 doesn't have any champion. That is, until one team wins the Cotton Bowl showdown.
Another thing I'd like to know is why college teams have to play 12 regular-season games. I know, I know, money. But when one of the 12 is say Alabama vs. Florida International or Baylor vs. Sam Houston State, that money really benefits only the lower-rung team that's the visitor against a team that could have national championship aspirations.
I'd favor a 10-game regular-season schedule. The 11th game for some teams still could be a conference championship.
Then there could be a 16-team playoff over four weeks, ending at about the same time as in the current format. A bunch of other teams still could play in one of the crappy bowls featuring teams whose only requirement would be having a pulse. The only downside would be from the teams ranked 17th and 18th.

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