Alabama football contends with Ohio State for the last college football playoff spot. Ohio State is the Big 10 champion, but their overall record has flaws.
Sorry, conference executives. It’s true: conference championships are archaic and proven to be so by Ohio State defeating Wisconsin for the Big 10 title. Wisconsin fell to 12-1 for the season, while OSU becomes the champion with two overall losses. Good for OSU, but why should the victory have any bearing on them passing higher ranked teams for the playoffs?
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Why should Alabama football suffer standing outside the college playoffs being ranked 5th before Saturday, when OSU’s victory showed more of Wisconsin’s weakness than the much lower ranked Buckeyes’ strength?
OSU’s regular season victories are only noteworthy because of the past, as opposed to this season. Their one-point win over Penn State was more relief than celebration.Sure, OSU beat Michigan, but the Wolverines were not even ranked. The big win over Michigan State, ranked 19th, meant nothing, just like the decisive victory over unranked Illinois.
After the Penn State game, the Buckeyes were just happy that they did not receive a second loss, after Oklahoma embarrassed them at home 31-16.
The following week, that embarrassment was just a bad dream compared to OSU’s 55-24 loss to unranked Iowa. No disrespect to Iowa, who earned the victory in glorious fashion, but the Buckeye fans are still haunted by that Hawkeye nightmare.
Iowa finished third in the Big 10 West, meaning OSU’s loss to them looks more like an ominous black hole of doubt rather than a mere speed bump. Adding the first loss, and it makes for extensive evidence as to why conference championships are obsolete for calculating football playoff formats.
The same could be said for the Southeastern Conference. How could Auburn be ranked in the top four in the country when they had two losses? One was to Clemson, who lost to Syracuse in a much weaker Atlantic Coast Conference. The other was to LSU, who only proved that they were not dead and buried by beating Auburn in the first place.
Auburn’s victory over Alabama put them in the SEC Championship only because of the Clemson loss not counting against them.
Many people agree that anyone can beat any team on any given Saturday. If teams with weaker records can win conference championships, then why should the championship mean anything to the overall scope of the playoff berths?
Since many Alabama football doubters like to stress ‘strength of schedule’ to say that Alabama does not deserve a playoff berth, let us look at OSU again. Who did they beat? Who did they loss against?
The Buckeyes’ loss to Oklahoma and Alabama’s loss to Auburn cancel each other out. Both Oklahoma and Auburn were highly ranked in the country. If not for Georgia’s revenge in the SEC Championship game, Auburn would still be ahead of the Sooners in the playoff rankings.
Alabama only lost once while being ranked number one in the country for the entire regular season. OSU lost twice, once to a team that demanded respect and ripped it from the Buckeyes by the end of the game.
Even in the Big 10 Championship, it wasn’t like OSU looked dominant over Wisconsin. They only beat the Badgers by six points in a nail bitter. They squeaked out a victory like they squeaked into the national championship picture: by the skin of their teeth.
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Does the committee really want to see Oklahoma beat the snot out of Ohio State again, this time in the playoffs? Does the committee want to risk Clemson, who still have a lot to prove, losing to a team that may or may not deserve to be there? Does the committee want to see OSU’s offense sputter against Georgia’s fierce defense and make for an uneventful game?
OSU making the playoffs, simply so that the Big 10 has a representative and that there would not be two SEC teams, seems an injustice. The committee should want top talent fighting for the national championship, not a team that gets in just because they were lucky to win a conference championship.
Alabama did not even make the SEC’s championship game, but does anyone actually question a one-loss team on their worthiness? Especially one that was the number one team in the country for almost the entire season.
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What’s more important: the conference or the national championship? If the committee wants to make sure that the playoffs are as exciting as they can be to viewers, they need to start worrying more about putting top matchups together, including Alabama, and stop worrying about Big 10 fans feeling snubbed for their weaker champion not getting into the playoffs.