So much drama, so few answers to a college football postseason that, now more than ever, is a raging dumpster fire.
This much we know about the annual beauty pageant of a demolition derby: Everyone knows the surest, safest way to get to Valhalla is to win every single game.
Lose, and you’re at the contradictions and consternation of the College Football Playoff selection committee, and the human condition that fuels it.
And by human condition, I mean that absolute absurdity of it all.
If strength of schedule was raised this offseason to the top of the metrics for the 12-member committee, how does James Madison — with the 128th-ranked schedule and without a win over a Power conference team — earn one of the five precious automatic qualifying spots for conference champions?
If winning a conference championship game is a critical metric, why wouldn’t losing a conference championship game be the same?
Indiana won the Big Ten Championship game, and earned the No. 1 seed. Texas Tech won the Big 12, and Georgia won the SEC, and both earned a first-round bye.
But Duke won the ACC, had a significantly tougher schedule and better wins than JMU, yet JMU earned the final automatic bid for the top five conference champions because it coasted through the Sun Belt and Duke lost five games in the ACC.
Ohio State lost to Indiana in the Big Ten Championship game, and fell.
BYU was routed by Texas Tech in the Big 12 Championship game, and fell.
Alabama was routed by Georgia in the SEC Championship game, and didn’t move — and stayed in the CFP as the only (and first) three-loss team.
I ask you, who in their right mind believes Alabama, which lost to Oklahoma at home three weeks ago, nearly lost Auburn, and got blown out by Georgia, should be part of the party?
Meanwhile, there is Texas, which has three wins over the CFP Top 14, penalized for playing a nonconference game at No. 2 Ohio State — and losing by seven points.
Then there’s the curious case of Notre Dame, the epicenter of the contradictory absurdity of the selection committee.
For a month the 12-member committee explained Notre Dame wasn’t the same team that lost to Miami in the season opener and deserved to be among the fortunate 12. The Irish, they say, were playing as well as anyone in the country.
Until Championship Week arrived and Notre Dame wasn’t playing, and somehow fell out. How, you ask? We don’t really know, so maybe committee chairman and Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek can help.
Or maybe he can’t.
This is why no one trusts the selection committee. What in blue blazes does BYU have to do with the Notre Dame-Miami argument?
Because, Yurachek tried to awkwardly explain, the committee never really looked at Notre Dame and Miami — and Miami’s head-to-head win over Notre Dame was never considered — until the two teams were right next to each other in the poll. And BYU’s big loss to Texas Tech made that happen.
Really, he said that.
Look, the process has to change. The idea college football can have a playoff to determine a national champion and 10 teams are evaluated one way, and two teams (Tulane and JMU) are evaluated a completely different way, is the craziest looney of all.
That the CFP can sell Ole Miss playing host to Tulane — a game we saw in September, where Tulane lost by 35 — and JMU playing at Oregon as part of four elite games to begin the postseason, isn’t realistic or productive for the health of the sport.
One Group of Five team is fine. Not preferable, but doable.
A second at the expense of a Power conference champion or a more deserving team, is absolutely mind-numbing. This isn’t the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, where a mid-major can shock a Power conference team because one player gets hot and scores 30.
There’s no comparison, and the fanciful pollyanna idea of anyone selling it is ridiculous.
There will be tweaks to the format this offseason, with or without the move to 16 teams. It should start with a limit on Group of Five teams, and a minimum threshold to earn a spot.
No more gifts, no more automatic qualifications. The gift is reaching the threshold to be considered.
Not rolling into the sport’s marquee event as a raging dumpster fire.
