"Expand the field!" "Eight team playoff!" "This team got screwed!" and finally, "It's not FAIR!!"
Every year after the playoff is announced, the same people grab a microphone or a pen and start telling us we need to change the system. Every single time it has come down to one simple argument: Team "A" deserved to be in the playoff and Team "B" took their spot. That is not a good enough reason to change the entire system.
It is my opinion if you have four teams, eight teams, or thirty-two-ish at-large teams (basketball) there will always be a team or two that gets left out. They have a name for it: Bubble teams. It's part of the process and expanding the field won't solve the problem, but the whining continues.
Trying to find fairness in this years football playoff is a lesson in futility. There is unjustness in a normal season with full schedules and interleague play. If you are raising your voice about a broken system based upon this year's result, you are being ridiculous. The pandemic turned this season into a mess. It's like the Kentucky Derby in the pouring rain. It's ugly, it favors the mudders, and punishes speed, but it all counts just the same.
If college football scrapped every rule, every bowl game, every tradition, etc, and just started with a blank slate, I doubt the new system we would create would look anything like what we have now. However, that's not going to happen. These traditions built the game into the greatest sport in the USA. It is idiosyncratic and messy, but nine times out of ten the best team wins the title. Since that is the goal of any playoff, I would say it is doing what it's supposed to.
FYI, Ohio State doesn't deserve to be in. It's not going to matter because Alabama is going to maul everyone and the system will, once again, have proven itself, even in a pandemic.
Every year after the playoff is announced, the same people grab a microphone or a pen and start telling us we need to change the system. Every single time it has come down to one simple argument: Team "A" deserved to be in the playoff and Team "B" took their spot. That is not a good enough reason to change the entire system.
It is my opinion if you have four teams, eight teams, or thirty-two-ish at-large teams (basketball) there will always be a team or two that gets left out. They have a name for it: Bubble teams. It's part of the process and expanding the field won't solve the problem, but the whining continues.
Trying to find fairness in this years football playoff is a lesson in futility. There is unjustness in a normal season with full schedules and interleague play. If you are raising your voice about a broken system based upon this year's result, you are being ridiculous. The pandemic turned this season into a mess. It's like the Kentucky Derby in the pouring rain. It's ugly, it favors the mudders, and punishes speed, but it all counts just the same.
If college football scrapped every rule, every bowl game, every tradition, etc, and just started with a blank slate, I doubt the new system we would create would look anything like what we have now. However, that's not going to happen. These traditions built the game into the greatest sport in the USA. It is idiosyncratic and messy, but nine times out of ten the best team wins the title. Since that is the goal of any playoff, I would say it is doing what it's supposed to.
FYI, Ohio State doesn't deserve to be in. It's not going to matter because Alabama is going to maul everyone and the system will, once again, have proven itself, even in a pandemic.
