Since the dawn of time, humanity has been faced with unanswerable questions.
Do you pour cereal before milk? Should ketchup be stored in the refrigerator or the pantry? If pizzas are round, why are they delivered in square boxes?
Every year, the benevolent elders of the College Football Playoff Committee are faced with a similar philosophical conundrum: Which four teams deserve a playoff berth?
To narrow their search for worthy teams, the committee exclusively focuses on college football’s power-five conferences.
These conferences are the Southeastern, Pacific-12, Atlantic Coastal, Big Ten and Big 12.
Fortunately, the Pac-12 did everyone a favor this year and remained irrelevant. No. 12 Stanford (9-3) and No. 10 Southern California (10-2) will meet in the Pac-12 championship game, but neither team boasts a worthwhile resumé, so the committee can scrap both from playoff consideration.
That leaves us with nine teams in the remaining four conferences that have have a legitimate claim at one of the coveted playoff spots.
Let’s start with what we know.
No. 2 Auburn (10-2) and No. 6 Georgia (11-1) will be playing for the SEC crown, while No. 1 Clemson (11-1) and No. 7 Miami (10-1) will play for the ACC title. To put it simply, the winners will have a seat at the table, while the losers will be watching the playoffs from their living room couches.
Two playoff spots down, two to go.
No. 4 Wisconsin (12-0) and No. 8 Ohio State (10-2) will play for the Big 10 championship, while No. 3 Oklahoma (11-1) and No. 11 Texas Christian (10-2) will compete for the Big 12 championship.
Any one of those four teams will have an argument to be included in the College Football Playoff should they win their conference championship, but the pecking order isn’t as clear as you may think.
If Wisconsin and Oklahoma take care of business in their championship games, they will fill in the final two playoff spots.
However, if Ohio State and/or TCU win their respective conference titles, our good friends in Tuscaloosa will not only find themselves back in the playoff conversation, they’d find themselves favored ahead of the conference champions.
There’s little doubt in anyone’s mind that No. 5, 11-1 Alabama team without an SEC title is more deserving of a playoff spot than an 11-2 TCU team with a Big 12 title, but is that same Alabama team more deserving than an 11-2 Ohio State team with a Big 10 title?
I’d say absolutely.
Alabama boasts a better record than Ohio State against power five conference teams with a .500 or better winning percentage. It should also be noted that the Buckeyes have an ugly 31 point loss against a lackluster Iowa team, while the Crimson Tide’s only blemish is a 12-point blunder against Auburn.
But shouldn’t conference champions receive favor over teams that lack a conference title?
I wrote a column making that case last year, but it seems that members of the College Football Playoff Committee don’t read The Daily Reveille.
The committee chose an 11-1 Ohio State team to fill the last playoff spot rather than an 11-2 Penn State team, despite the fact that Penn State won the Big 10 and had a head-to-head victory against the rival Buckeyes.
By that same logic, Alabama should receive a playoff bid instead of Ohio State despite the Tide’s lack of an SEC championship.
That’s what I call poetic justice.
Of the remaining nine teams, the Buckeyes are really last on the totem pole.
If both TCU and Ohio State win their games, I expect the committee to pick the Horned Frogs instead of the Buckeyes since TCU will have beaten an Oklahoma team that beat Ohio State earlier this year.
This might all seem a little confusing, but rest assured. College football always seems to work itself out in the end.