This year in college football has been wacky. As is usually the case, there are two teams generally agreed upon as the best two, Michigan and Ohio State. Unfortunately, this time they'll play each other in 2 weeks, so one of them will likely be out of the running come Thanksgiving. Which will leave a mess if things continue to go the way they are going. Fortunately, things never do in college football.
There are several games left that can clear up the glut of 1-loss teams (plus Louisville) clamoring for a crack at the national championship:
Ohio State-Michigan: duh
Rutgers-Louisville/West Virginia: A loss by Louisville shuts up the Big East and its fans as no one will make a case for Rutgers to play in the title game, even if they beat both Louisville and West Virginia.
Texas-Texas A&M: Texas hasn't played very well in big games this year, and A&M is quietly 8-2 thus far. As the last regular season game and with a chance to play spoiler (potentially) A&M could take down the 'Horns. Probably not, but hey, it could happen.
USC-Notre Dame/Cal/Oregon: If USC wins all 3 they deserve to go to the national championship, hands down. Wins over Arkansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Cal, Notre Dame, and Washington State would make them the only team in the country with 6 wins over top 25 teams. None of those other teams have a shot without a lot of help (Oregon having no shot), but USC has their chance. A case can be made that USC has the toughest schedule in the country.
Arkansas v. LSU/Tennessee: Win both games and Arkansas is in the SEC title games against Florida, win that game and they deserve a shot with wins over LSU, Tennessee, Florida, and Auburn. It'll be tough because they rely on McFadden and LSU and Tennessee both play solid run defense. If Arkansas loses both, Auburn goes to the SEC championship for a rematch against Florida. The winner of that game has the best shot at making it in as a one loss team, unless USC runs the table (which I doubt they will). I probably shouldn't discount that Florida-South Carolina game coming up this weekend, if SC gets a reliable QB in there who will throw the ball to Sidney Rice, they can give Florida fits.
Florida-Florida State: Florida is definitely more talented than FSU, but a rivalry game is always a challenge.
Those games all take place in the next month and somewhere in there the national championship picture will be cleared up fairly well. This year has the playoff nuts screaming "Playoff! This is why we need a playoff!" but they don't see why it wouldn't help. There has been one year when there was a "controversy" because 3 teams finished unbeaten, back in the 2004-05 season, when USC beat Oklahoma in the title game, but Auburn and Utah both finished undefeated as well. Of course that season, USC was better than any college team in the last decade other than that '01-02 Miami team that included Clinton Portis, Frank Gore, Willis McGahee, Najeh Davenport, Bryant McKinnie, Jeremy Shockey, Kellen Winslow Jr, Andre Johnson, Mike Rumph Sean Taylor, Philip Buchanon, Ed Reed, DJ Williams, Jonathan Vilma, Vince Wilfork (my goodness Butch Davis was a monster recruiter).
A playoff system every year would cheapen a season like last year when everyone wanted to see USC-Texas and only USC-Texas. A playoff would have given us 2 or 3 unnecessary USC-West Virginia, Texas-Penn State games, delaying the inevitable. You see, by not having a playoff, we are guaranteed that the team that wins the title can legitimately claim to have been the best team all season. In college basketball, this rarely happens. Last season UCONN was generally considered the best team, yet the title game was UCLA-Florida, but both of those teams started slow, and hit their stride in about February, which isn't a bad thing when you play a 30-35 game season, but in college football you get 11-12 games, so you have to be great from the outset, or you are at the mercy of the system. Remember back to the aforementioned 01-02 season: Colorado got hot in mid-October, and rode Chris Brown and Bobby Purify to a stunner over then #1 Nebraska and Heisman winner Eric Crouch by 35 points the day after Thanksgiving, then beat Chris 'can't win the big game' Simms and Texas in the Big 12 title game, but an early season home loss to Fresno State reminded us that this was just a team on a streak, and not necessarily that great, which bore itself out when they got blown out by Joey Harrington and Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl some 4 weeks later.
You have to have it from the beginning in college football.
An 8 team playoff this year would likely give us OSU, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Louisville, USC or Cal, and likely one of Notre Dame-Auburn-West Virginia. Now, of those teams, in my opinion, Auburn, Notre Dame, West Virginia, and to some extent Cal and Texas, deserve no shot at the title. There are 4-6 teams that could potentially be the best, but 2 or 3 teams would backdoor their way in, get a fluke big play, a fluke injury and all of a sudden we have Louisville-Notre Dame as the championship, which just about every fan (other than homers for those two schools) would agree would not be a match-up of the two best teams.
So, with a playoff being impractical, we work with the system we have. I have devised my own system of how to pare down the teams to determine who should play in for the title in the absence of 2 clearly superior, unbeaten teams:
1. No home losses
2. No losses by more than 14 points
3. Win at least 2 games against top 25 teams, with at least one on the road
Applying this system, right now we have:
Michigan, Florida, and USC
Ohio State and Louisville can get in the mix too if they run the table.
I think that is reasonable. (Texas, Auburn, and Notre Dame fans will be bemused, but when I see L 24-7 @ home, L 27-10 @ home, and L 47-21 @ home respectively....take a hike, that's not good enough)
So, in summation (for now, because 21 waking hours have made me weary, even though included in there was a Madden2006 Super Bowl victory in a 35-21 classic against the Cowboys) this is the time you should look forward to every year if you are a college football fan. The season is just starting in some ways.
I'l hold back on repeating my rant against preseason polls and preseason Heisman Watch until next time.
2 comments:
grr. I've been choking on bile for the last two days with your talk for "make benefit/glorious/football" and such. And it's not that I disagree with you much at all. My fundamental difference stems from the placement of the one loss teams. In no way should USC be ahead of Texas and the SEC one-lossers. Granted, they beat Arkansas, a scary-good team, and they beat Nebraska, a sometimes scary-team in a weak Big XII North, but other than that, who? And they lost - granted, not a home, but you're penalizing that Texas loss far too much. Sure, the 'horns lost at home, but remember, that was the second week and it was against the #1 team in the country. USC has looked beatable most of the season (remember the Washington game? hell, if they hadn't blown their clock management, USC could easily be a two loss team).
So, I guess, to paraphrase, I'm fine with your rankings in principle and I'm even fine letting Cal have that third slot. And if they're third, then Texas has to be a top-5 team. And Florida rounds out that five. Who cares about the Big East? And USC is a team that has had some weak games against weak teams. But if they run the table, then there is a legitimate argument about the best one-loss team in the country. If not, as with all the one-loss teams, it's moot.
I'm rambling. It's Tuesday and I'm already tired of this week.
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