The College Football Playoff system and its accompanying 13-member committee that divvies out rankings, bowl money and associated TV revenue proved its colors since it first barfed out its rankings.
It is a corporate welfare organization that takes care of Power Five interests, nothing more.
It isn’t a competitive answer to a collegiate national championship.
It isn’t a scientific or even a human brain-based system of determining a national championship.
It isn’t reasonable or fair and doesn’t pretend to be.
It is the SEC Invitational or something like it. It’s arrogant, puffed up and rewards royalty over acts of achievement.
The fact that Group of Five Cincinnati has consistently been dropped away from the coveted four-team playoff week after week in favor of one of the elite dozen that is always there, is proof that an outsider, a non-P5 program, will never, ever make the playoff.
Don’t just take my opinion here in the Rockies. National voices across the country have been in harmony for weeks that the head-scratching rankings that came out the past month were stunning. They were way out of whack with the AP poll and Coaches’ polls, which are the general consensus about who is who.
ACC commissioner Mike Aresco told SEC media specialist Paul Finebaum this week, “I never thought I’d say this, but if this continues, let’s bring back the BCS and the computers. Because it would be a fairer system than what I’m seeing now.”
"I never thought I’d say this but if this continues, let’s bring back the BCS and the computers. Because it would be a fairer system than what I’m seeing now." -AAC commissioner Mike Aresco feels the CFP deck is stacked against his teams pic.twitter.com/4qWqiWZdHM
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) December 16, 2020
Nicole Auerbach, a senior writer for The Athletic and Big Ten Network analyst, broke down the weakness of some P5 wins against streaking Group of Five teams like Cincinnati and Coastal Carolina, who had played more games, established more proven film.
Auerbach states, “Everyone has known for years that this setup is stacked against Group of Five teams. Many have surmised that brand names play into the process, at best on a subconscious level, at worst in a more malicious context. But when the selection committee puts a 4-0 Ohio State team into its first top four of the season despite the Buckeyes playing half as many games as the teams they’re being compared to, those suspicions seem to be confirmed. And using the phrase ‘eye test’ as a catch-all allows for that kind of subjectivity to decide the fate of these teams.”
Seth Emerson, also at The Athletic, explains the “unfairness” of the current system.
“It stinks, but yes, that’s the result,” he says. “The players at Cincinnati and Coastal Carolina have also done everything they could do, beating everyone they played on the field this year. And yet they will be penalized for not playing in a Power Five conference because college football is the only major sport where it’s preordained that certain teams and conferences just aren’t good enough and won’t get to compete for the national title.
“Which is foolish any year. And especially this year, when those ‘little’ conferences did more than some bigger ones to be deserving of being in the playoff.”
Joel Klatt at Fox Sports says those who cry for an expanded eight-team playoff forget that the same bias would still remain in a system created to keep the Group of Five from the actual playoff money and notoriety.
Also, those that scream "EXPAND TO 8" as a solution to the clear brokenness of the @CFBPlayoff aren't using their brains...While an expansion could be necessary, the exact same problem of P5 bias would remain...Evidence of such was delivered earlier with @GoBearcatsFB at #9
— Joel Klatt (@joelklatt) December 16, 2020
Tim Brando is a legendary sports commentator now at Fox Sports. His passion for college sports is off the charts as he’s broken down teams, players, leagues and title chases over the years. Brando tweeted this week, “TRUTH ; @CFBPlayoff is flat out WRONG and I’ll no longer recognize it as a Playoff. I’m done with it! ‘Eye test’ code for Pure Playoff Privilege. It’s not a CFB Playoff it’s a Power Five Invitational and from this point forward I’ll call it that! @GoBearcatsFB dissed beyond belief!
Locally, there are many BYU fans who believe in their hearts if BYU had won at Coastal Carolina on short notice, they’d somehow be in a New Year’s Day bowl game instead of the Boca Raton Bowl on Dec. 22.
Hate to break it to you, but with this committee and its priority of keeping all the big money for P5 teams and conferences, many of which refused to play in September and October and are hemorrhaging money, it never would have allowed an independent non-P5 program to bank that big of a check.
Plain and simple.
Get over it.
BYU lost to undefeated Coastal Carolina on the road in a brave short-week move and dropped five spots. Florida lost its second game, this one at home to a struggling 4-5 LSU team, and dropped one spot. Cincy didn’t play last week and dropped two spots after having played eight games. Ohio State didn’t play at all last week and stays No. 4 as a playoff team, having only played five games.
You see the trend? It’s a caste system in college sports. That’s how it works.
As CBS Sports columnist Dennis Dodd explained in a tweet, “Noted: The Group of Five signed off on this system that gives them 15% of the CFP revenue and has a 13-member committee pick teams. They’ve got six years left on a system they approved.”
But at the time, what other choice did the Group of Five have? Nada.
The only remedy is to cut the cord on the political grasp P5 conferences, TV networks and big bowls have on this sport and turn it into something akin to the NCAA Basketball Tournament, with seeding, which right now has non-P5 Gonzaga as the favorite to be the No. 1 seed.
But that would be asking too much, would cost the corporate welfare state of college football way too much guaranteed milk and would make too much sense.