The Good, Bad, and Ugly of the CFP Committe..
Written on December 7, 2014Now that the College Football regular season is over and all the Big Five conferences have made their cases for inclusion in the Final Four, here is my assessment of the situation…
The good, and there are many. The buzz created every week rivaled or even surpassed that of the NFL. Every week college football was discussed at much greater length than in any previous years. The weekly discussions have gone much deeper into the rankings than ever before all the way to 12th as in the early weeks when the first CFP rankings were released. With greater interest came more relevance to those schools that in the past were only important to the corresponding alumni. This type of buzz has created millions more dollars in television revenue and millions in viewership because much more has been riding on these games than ever before. Just look at the prime time viewing on #6 Baylor and #9 Kansas State or #5 Ohio State and #13 Wisconsin. Those games would have only been of interest to the residing alumni and college football enthusiasts such as myself. The increase in motivation for those schools involved has been doubled because of the high stakes involved and big money that could be generated from participation in the new College Football Playoff Series. This brings me to the Bad and the Ugly.
The bad is obvious, with the inclusion of more teams in the conversation there are more victims that will feel slighted by the final outcome. This year we have 6 deserving of four spots! I find it down right laughable how so many are clammering for an eight team playoff system before the first final four has even be held. Stating how wrong it is for those deserving to be left out. Four is just fine! The addition of another round would put this amateur sport one game shy of equaling its professional superior.
Now the ugly… The thought never crossed my mind until I watched the Ohio State/ Wisconsin game last night. I saw a Wisconsin team I hadn’t seen all year. The Badgers were beaten by the Buckeyes like the FCS school Kent State was back in September. No other respectable, some what decent program had lost to Ohio State that bad! I watched a completely impassioned, uninspired team go through the motions very poorly last night to the point that I became physically ill. When I realized the obvious, I was so mad I couldn’t sleep without medication. Politics had major influence in the new system… Wisconsin had laid down so Ohio State could make the strongest case possible to be in the College Football Playoffs! This morning confirms it! It’s a known fact by everyone The Ohio State University Alum travel better than anyone else. By the close margin they were trailing TCU and FSU in the rankings they needed to have an all world performance against a highly ranked worthy opponent. Wisconsin was the perfect patsy. with their incredible play down the stretch they had everyone saying “if they had finished the LSU game”, then the Badgers would have been in the discussion for the final four ahead of OSU. Now, all of the sudden they forgot how to execute their devastating run attack, which saw a record setting 409 yards rusher a few weeks ago, to the point of complete incompetence in the biggest game of the season… C’mon Man! I believe Barry Alvarez, the Athletic Director of Wisconsin who is on the CFP Committee, needed them to accommodate the bloated ego of the Big Ten Conference so they could reap the benefits and the money that will be garnished from competing in the first ever National Championship Playoffs. After all, the Big Ten has a rich history of great football champions and the ACC and Big Twelve alum just don’t travel anywhere close to The Ohio State fanatical masses.
Let’s see if anyone in the media feels the same way. This should be a great debate week in college football history.