We are just a couple hours away from the final College Football Playoff Rankings being announced and the official play pairings becoming official. Thank God because in the less than 24 hours since Championship Saturday ended, ridiculous debates and insane mental gymnastics have been rumping rampant. Apparently all of a sudden wins don’t matter and the only thing that matters is who should or who we think would win a game. Where was that argument in 1993?
To recap for those who enjoyed a relatively stress free day of eating cheeseburgers yesterday, everyone who should have won, won. Oklahoma handled Texas, Clemson stomped Pitt, Ohio State took care of Northwestern eventually, and Alabama came back from a 14 point deficit with their starting quarterback injured for the 4th quarter to take out Georgia.
If you thought Georgia losing would mean that the only debate would be who should be in between Oklahoma and Ohio State, you were wrong. Apparently according to ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit, Georgia’s choke job valiant effort should actually push them UP to #3 from their current 4th position in College Football Playoffs. Yes, Herbie thinks that Georgia should be rewarded for losing to Alabama and move up in the rankings.
Amazingly, Herbstreit isn’t the only one. Many talking heads in the college football media seem to think that not only should Georgia not fall out of the top 4 even though they have now lost to the two toughest opponents that they have faced, but they should move up. Georgia is a very good football team but they are now 1-2 against the current top 10 and 2-2 against the top 25. Notre Dame on the other hand is 1-0 against the top 10 and 3-0 against the top 25 (and Stanford will probably move into the top 25).
Honestly, I can’t even believe that we are having this debate. In what world does a 2 loss team get ranked ahead of an undefeated team that has beaten 10 power 5 opponents, 12 FBS opponents, and have at least 3 wins against the top 25? It’s almost like Herbie and the other ESPN cronies are trying to drum up more drama for the CFP Selection Show to improve ratings. Nah, the folks in Bristol would never do something like that, would they?
At least Chris Fowler is not trying to add anymore fuel to the fire.
Enjoyed the passionate CFP debate with @KirkHerbstreit about the Top4! I understand the UGA “eye test” & “best 4” argument. Just think the results have to matter most and conference titles count. I’d go @AlabamaFTBL @ClemsonFB @NDFootball @OU_Football in my bracket.
— Chris Fowler (@cbfowler) December 2, 2018
The only debate that should be left at this point, is who is #4 – Oklahoma and Ohio State. And again, this should not even be a debate. Ohio State lost by 29 freaking points to Purdue a month and a half ago. That game was played and should mattered. Oklahoma on the other hand has lost one game this year by 3 points to the same team that played in the Big 12 Championship Game against them – Texas.
This is the only time that “quality losses” should ever be taken into account in the rankings – when you have two comparable teams with similar resumes without common opponents. So if you had to pick between two 12-1 teams and one of them lost by 29 to an unranked team and the other lost by 3 to a top 20 team, who would you pick? Seems pretty obvious to me.
Now, there will still be debate among those that don’t want to reward Georgia for losing by 20 to LSU and then playing tough against Alabama that Oklahoma should move ahead of Notre Dame in the final rankings. To be honest, this possible scenario should be a worry for Notre Dame fans today even though it shouldn’t be.
Notre Dame has been ranked ahead of Oklahoma the entire time and the Sooner beating a team that they already lost to once this year shouldn’t push them ahead of the Irish. With Oklahoma’s win yesterday, they now have the same number of wins over top 25 teams as Notre Dame but it took them one more game to do it. They are tied with 10 wins over Power 5 programs too. But again, it tooks the Sooners 13 games to do it when it took the Irish just 12 to accomplish the same feat.
The college football world will know at 12:30 today just how the committee views all of this, but to me it is pretty clear that the rankings should be:
- Alabama
- Clemson
- Notre Dame
- Oklahoma
Should that be the case, Notre Dame would play Clemson most likely in Dallas at AT&T Stadium on December 29th since Alabama would most likely not be forced to play the 4th seeded Sooners so close to Oklahoma. If Notre Dame were to slide to 4th and face off against Alabama, Dallas still could very well be the destination since Dallas is technically closer to Alabama than Florida. There is still a chance that Notre Dame ends up in Miami on December 29th as well though.
The ESPN Championship show starts at 12:00 with the official pairings for the playoffs coming at 12:30. The entire show will last four freaking hours though. So buckle up Irish fans, we find out our fate in a couple hours.
The Committee must now do its job again. Picking 4 teams to get in the playoffs will be easy (always is) since there are at least six or seven deserving teams this year. But their real job is quite difficult: Who do we hose this year…who can we get to bend over? That’s their real job…always has been…and always will be as long as there is one too few spots to cover all the Power 5 Champs to begin with…much less any other deserving teams. So go at it boys…find a weak coach, a weak AD, and/or a weak commissioner and get after it. Do the “job” you were created to do.
BGC ’77 ’82
Here is my thoughts on playoffs, pretty simple. Win all your games no matter how many you play. ND may not have slways looked dominant but they won them all. A win over s lose, done deal. If you list s game during your season you cant complain at end of season.GU wants to stay in but lost 2. OU wants in but lost 1. OSUwants in but lost 1. Win all your games and you dont have anything to say.
AP: Works for us…funny how that never works for UCF (not meaning “funny ha-ha”…meaning “funny-twisted”)
BGC ’77 ’82
How do you spell Haters?Irish in playoffs
I think you actually just spelled it.
The eye test is laughable… pretty sure it doesn’t involve any bias.. because committees are always above board.
The Georgia fake punt said it all, sealed their fate to be an also ran. The Irish should be #2 considering soft Clemson schedule. Before the playoffs and after the bowl games all the winners were waving their fingers proclaiming that they were #1. Funny to see OSU get that last minute td to try and sneak in playoff picture. Thank you Purdue.
Once again, ESPN’s pet football team, Alabama, gets exposed when they have to play a half-decent team. They were barely able to beat one-loss Georgia in the last couple of minutes, but once again, Herbstreit has not only anointed them the equivalent of the ’85 Bears, but now feels their other overrated SEC team, Georgia, is somehow the ’85 Patriots. In line with all their other moronic moves in the past few years which has cost them billions of dollars as true sports fans leave them for more knowledgeable venues, ESPN has tied its wagon to the SEC and their cheerleaders scream for them in their half-empty stadiums in efforts to get the SEC anointed the best. ESPN did the same to the B10 in basketball when they signed the Fox contract and have continually put down the league to build up their own pets. They’re losing billions each year as fans leave in droves and yet their “experts” such as Herbstreit and Desmond Howard (remember his predictions last week?) keep on spouting their moronic crap.
The whole acc conference is a joke. Clemson just did beat Texas A&M. They played 2 sec teams an each one had 600 yds of offense on Clemson. Clemson should be down the with ucf
1. Bama
2. Clemson
3. Oklahoma
4. Notre Dame
I find it very difficult to decide between OU and OSU. I think they should both play each other next week at a neutral site to determine the 4 seed. Congrats to Notre Dame for a Fantastic season. Time to Shock Clemson.