They’ve been playing college football since 1889, when women were fighting for the right to vote, Vincent Van Gogh was painting “The Starry Night” and the French were putting the finishing touches on the Eiffel Tower.
In the 136 years since then, earth-shaking progress has been made with the arrival of cellphones and electric cars and the forward pass and movies in your living room, and yet the most difficult problem in the universe remains unsolved: college football’s ongoing search for an equitable way to choose a national champion.
You wouldn’t think this would be that difficult — it’s not as if they’re trying to cure cancer — but it is. The powers that be in college football are using their tiny brains to reinvent the wheel, of course. Lots of sports have long since figured out a way to crown a champion in a way that’s fair. But college football just can’t get it right. Those guys are still scratching their heads trying to figure this thing out.
For decades they chose the national champion the same way you choose the president: voting. No, really. Ask your grandpa.
A few years ago they decided on the revolutionary idea of having two teams play for the championship. Hooray! And how did they choose those two teams out of the more than 100 teams that play the game? With a vote.
Same problem.
Predictably, this led to heated debates.
Finally, a few years ago they came up with another revolutionary idea — "Hey, I know, let’s have a playoff!" Alas, it included only four teams, which enabled us to continue our national pastime of complaining about all the deserving teams that were left out of the party.
The NFL, with just 32 teams, has a 14-team playoff; the NCAA, with 130 teams, had a four-team playoff. What could go wrong?
Ta-dum, in 2024 the playoff was expanded to 12 teams. This was it! This was the answer. Hallelujah!
Hold your applause. The selection committee announced this year’s 12-team field last Sunday and … it fell flat. Look at this field … is that really the best they could do?
It merely incited more arguments.
Let’s begin here: Whose bright idea was it to award automatic bids to teams from inferior leagues? In this case, it’s Tulane, champion of the American Conference, and James Madison, champion of the Sun Belt Conference. If you can name two other teams from those conferences, put a star on your forehead (hint: North Texas State, Navy, Texas San Antonio, Temple, Charlotte, Georgia State, Troy, South Alabama, LA-Monroe, etc.).
It’s in the rules: The five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked teams will be in the playoff. If fewer than five conference champions are among the top 25 in the rankings, no problem! They’re invited to the playoff anyway.
So, it shakes out like this: They go to all the trouble of having weekly rankings, but then they ignore them when it counts. Just because Team A is ranked ahead of Team B doesn’t mean Team B can’t be in the playoff and Team A stays home.
Tulane, ranked no better than 20th, is in; Notre Dame (11th) and BYU (12th) are out; James Madison, ranked 24th, is in, but Texas (13th) and Vanderbilt (14th) are out.
Got it?
Won-lost records don’t matter much either, but name brand and reputation do. Alabama is somehow ranked ninth, with three losses. Alabama is in the playoff. BYU has two losses — both to the No. 4 team in the country, Texas Tech. BYU is going to something called the Pop-Tarts Bowl. That’s the reward for an 11-2 season.
Why is Alabama in?
Because they’re Alabama.
Maybe it was the terrible impression that BYU left on voters with the 34-7 loss to Texas Tech in the Big 12 championship game. Well, that doesn’t wash. Alabama lost to Georgia in the Southeastern Conference championship 28-7, a game in which ‘Bama had minus 3 yards rushing and 211 yards total offense.
Well, at least football fans have the other bowl games to watch some of the top teams that were snubbed. Well, not quite. Notre Dame threw a tantrum when the school wasn’t selected for the playoff and said the Fightin’ Irish will not play in a bowl game, thus killing a BYU-Notre Dame matchup between the 11th- and 12th-ranked teams. The Irish took their ball and went home.
The bowl system and the playoff system: still a mess.
College football officials should go back to the drawing board and start over. Maybe they can figure this thing out in the next 136 years.
