The 2016 Playoff Committee Is Redefining Reality

The new CFB Playoff rankings are out, and I just want to say that the CFB Playoff committee is good at its job. The problem with everything is not the CFB Playoff committee. The problem is the terms we allow the committee to use to define our college football champion. We have already discussed this in great detail, but let’s re-visit briefly.

The committee’s task will be to select the best teams, rank the teams for inclusion in the playoff and selected other bowl games and then assign the teams to sites.

Are Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson and Michigan — the current top four — the four best teams in college football? Probably so. Like, if you played a 1,000-season simulation, those four teams would probably win the most games 90 percent of the time. That’s a good way to determine the four best, I suppose.

But the fun thing about sports is that, you know, it’s not a simulation. That is the point. Simulations are not real life, and in real life a great Ohio State team can go on the road against an average Penn State team and get beat. In real life Penn State’s fans get to riot through the night for taking down mighty Ohio State and potentially traipsing to the Big 10 title game.

This is what makes sports our greatest reality show.

And now the CFB Playoff committee is trying to redefine the sport. Not by their weekly actions but by their original intended purpose. We have entered a scenario (a somewhat likely one) in which Alabama, Clemson, Washington, Ohio State and Penn State could all win out and Penn State would get left out of the CFB Playoff even though it won the Big 10 and beat Ohio State head to head.

Like, everyone agrees that this will happen. Maybe it won’t, but it appears that we’re headed down that path. Like I’ve been saying for the last year … why even play the games?

Here’s the rub for me — as Kirk Herbstreit was opining about three-loss USC getting into the CFB Playoff on Tuesday night as their QB switch from earlier in the season was discussed as a reason to get in the playoff (!), I thought, well why not just take the best composite recruiting rankings from the last four years and let those four teams play in the Playoff? What in the hell is a best team? The most talented? The most pros? I don’t even know anymore. Sad!

This tweet is spot on.

Not to be a contrarian on USC, but isn't the point of a human-based committee to get the four best teams, not the four most deserving?

— Ben Axelrod (@BenAxelrod) November 23, 2016

The criteria change, too, because of preconceived biases. The criteria are a moving target. If you’re Oklahoma State, you’re a “best team” by winning your conference and proving you are playing above your talent level. You have to prove something. If you’re Ohio State or Alabama, the perception is that you do have the most talent (BECAUSE YOU DO) and any losses are given a free pass because these are the preconceived “best teams.” You just have to not disprove something more than once or twice.

Do you see the insanity here?

Again, the committee isn’t wrong. Ohio State is one of the best teams. They have maybe more talent than anyone but Alabama. They play lights out almost every weekend. But again, this is not a recruiting contest. You should not have a starting point ahead of other schools because of the way you recruited or because of your history, but here we are.

If Alabama loses, it’s because they had a bad day. They’re still one of the best teams, trust us. And they are! But why not just skip the season and play-off the top four crootin’ schools? You’re taking away the democratic allure that as long as you win them all (Western Michigan) or win your conference (Oklahoma State and Penn State), you get to play for a title.

This is the issue with having a subjective committee — it turns into ice skating or gymnastics. It takes away this element of mystique that allows each player on all 128 teams to think in September, if we just win them all. Is it fun to argue about? Yes. But it’s also tiring and not a great way to determine a champ.

And it takes away from the greatest thing sports offers: The unknown. You are bending reality into simulation and coming out with the four best teams. That sounds great, but we love college football for reasons that involve some of the greatest teams ever assembled not getting to play for it all because they were knocked off by Desperation U.

This will all end soon, too. The CFB Playoff committee is a last grasp of the old regime at holding on to a past of subjectivity and silliness. The future is coming and it looks like five conference champions and three wildcard squads.

Ohio State should be in a playoff because of the nuance of losing the exact wrong game at the exact wrong time (this is a rare instance of this happening, I think), but so should Penn State (if it wins the Big 10) and Oklahoma State (if it wins the Big 12). The eight-team playoff is coming, and Ohio State’s inclusion over PSU (or the Big 12 champion) might just speed up the process.