Our glorious National Championship is but a few minutes completed, but the vultures won't wait. That's why I'm getting out in front of the issue now, to dismantle the foolish, ignorant and just plain moronic arguments waiting to be spewed out in the ensuing week.
In the next few days, you will read a column (or five) about the College Football Playoff. It will appeal to your emotions, it will attempt to confuse you with false equivalences, and it will ignore decades of physical and historical evidence to promote an argument that is rife with hypotheticals and logical leaps. This is the Expand The Playoff column.
Sure, the article will say, the College Football Playoff is great. It's been an unqualified success in its three years of existence. Why wouldn't you want more of the same thing? Capping the field at four teams is unfair to the players and robs the fans of more great, meaningful matchups at the end of the year.
Sure, the article will say, the current system is better than the old one, when computer algorithms determined a mere two teams to play for a title, but a human committee has biases and inconsistencies in its selections. Rather than let stuffy old coaches and athletic directors pick the Playoff, let the teams settle things on the field - the way it should be.
Sure, the article will say, the bowl system works now, but look at how star players like Stanford's Christian McCaffrey and LSU's Leonard Fournette pulled out of their team's games this year to avoid injury prior to the upcoming NFL draft. If this practice becomes widespread, interest will decline, and the whole system will collapse! Better to expand now to prevent that cataclysmic outcome.
You'll also see try-hard columns on the purity and worthiness of the FCS and lower-division playoffs, along with comparisons to the greatness of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, to prove an expanded Playoff is what FBS football really needs. Oh, if only major-college football could finally have the real champion it deserves every year!
These tired and inaccurate arguments can only exist in a vacuum separate from our own reality. Once the self-satisfied, pearl-clutching authors of these pieces step back from their computers, their respective visions immediately collapse under the truths of the real world.
An eight- or 16-team College Football Playoff might appear to be a less exclusive, fairer method of selecting a national champion. In reality, all it provides is a watered-down field that destroys the integrity of college football's regular season - you know, the very thing that differentiates it from every other American sport, amateur or collegiate. The rest of the supporting arguments are simply hogwash.
The BCS system was flawed, everyone knew that. Picking two teams semi-arbitrarily to play for a championship was always absurd. Four is clearly a better number. So why wouldn't eight (or even 16) teams be a similar improvement? The answer, which goes to the very heart of why Playoff expansion is wrong-headed, is this: THERE ARE NEVER EIGHT DESERVING TEAMS WORTHY OF PLAYING FOR A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. In many years (2016 is not one of them), there are more than four. But leaving out one or two teams that may or may not have merited inclusion is ALWAYS better than taking multiple unworthy teams.
That's the problem with the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Although it's certainly fun to watch low-ranked squads try to knock off one- and two-seeds, it's not quite as fun when UConn goes 9-9 in Big East play and then wins 11 straight postseason contests to win the title. That's your National Champion? The team that finished tied for ninth in its own conference? College football doesn't - and shouldn't - allow for a scenario where an inferior team can get hot at the end of the year and render everything that came before meaningless.
This is, of course, the aforementioned "difference" of college football: that the regular season matters above all else. College football isn't the NFL, where everyone plays a balanced, roughly equal schedule. College football scheduling is highly unequal, and because of its size and scope has always revolved more around regional (conference) bragging rights than national ones. That doesn't mean the contemporary focus on National Championships is wrong; it simply means a balance has to be struck between the game's roots and its future. This isn't an appeal to tradition, it's a seasoned observation and understanding of how the sport functions.
To that end, the 2016 regular season worked exactly as it should have. Did you think there were teams left out of this year's field that deserved to get in? Perhaps Big Ten champion Penn State (who beat Ohio State), two-loss Michigan (who beat PSU), 9-3 USC (who beat Washington), or Big 12 champ Oklahoma? Here are the answers, respectively, as to whether those teams deserved inclusion: No, No, Hell No, and Please Be Serious.
Penn State eliminated itself from Playoff in September, when it lost to a Pittsburgh team that finished 8-5 and got throttled 49-10 by Michigan. Not worthy. Michigan blew it by losing two of its final three, including an offense-less slopfest at Iowa in which the two teams combined for less than 450 yards. Not worthy. USC? The Trojans started 1-3 and lost to Alabama 52-6 in the opener. Not worthy. Oklahoma was out after Week Three, when the Sooners suffered their second double-digit loss of the season. Not worthy.
The same was true in 2015, when Iowa, Stanford, and Ohio State were left out. Iowa played a tremendously weak schedule and lost the Big Ten title game; Stanford lost twice, including a late-season loss to an unranked Oregon squad, Ohio State lost to the only quality opponent (Michigan State) on its schedule. All three were unworthy.
2014 had the closest thing to a true controversy, as Big 12 co-champions Baylor and TCU were left out in favor of Ohio State. Yet the Bears and Horned Frogs both played weak schedules and didn't help their causes by staging a defense-optional 61-58 shootout in their meeting. With the Big 12 lacking a title game to resolve things, neither was worthy.
In fact, there are precious few seasons (hey, 2007) in the history of college football where a legitimate case could be made for anything other than a four-team playoff, and in many years a single Championship game would have sufficed. If a team is arguing that it should be the fourth and final team in the field over another squad, it has already proved to be unworthy of the Playoff. The only teams deserving of consideration are ones that can reasonably make a case they should be number one, not number four. Need proof? Every team selected for the Playoff to this point has had zero or one loss. Anything more has - and should - disqualify you in FBS football.
The idea that a larger Playoff would be more "fair" is simply ludicrous. Fair to who? What is fair about forcing the top seeds (Alabama and Clemson, for example) to play one or two extra games - during which valuable players could be injured - against teams to which they have already proved (in the regular season) to be superior? That's the opposite of "deciding things on the field"; rather, it's giving unworthy teams a second chance the top seeds won't be afforded.
That's not to mention the massive logical fallacy playoff expansion proponents miss: that requiring more games against quality competition virtually ensures a darkhorse or mid-major team will never win the National Championship. A 2016 Colorado or Western Michigan could conceivably win one or even two games in upset fashion over blue-bloods; there's no chance they take three or four consecutive contests against that level of competition, especially considering the kind of attrition to injuries we would see. How fair, indeed. It's stupid, and it glosses over the biggest problem with the FCS playoffs.
Ken Goe at The Oregonian (linked above) has been beating the playoff expansion drum longer than most sportswriters, and while he's hardly the only columnist out there who favors expansion, he's certainly the most radical, calling for a 24-team field a la the FCS - a "real playoff", in his words. Well, if the FCS playoff is so balanced and superior, surely there must be a variety of teams who run the gauntlet - what's that? North Dakota State won five straight titles from 2011-15, and Appalachian State took three straight from 2005-07?
And surely, given that Ken follows the FCS so closely, he's aware of the injury issues that plague that tournament, as the eventual championship participants are often simply the healthiest ones remaining after the nation's top teams go head-to-head for a full month. Promoting a 24-team Playoff would be ignorant and irresponsible otherwise, right?
And finally, there's the idea that the very bowl system is in peril thanks to the injury-concern withdrawals of a couple of star players. Truly, the only reason fans would fail to travel across the country en masse is because their favorite player decided not to risk his professional future in a glorified scrimmage! Of course, the fact is that bowl attendance declining has much more to do with the cost involved compared to staying at home and watching the game in comfort.
And yet despite several years' worth of declining bowl attendance, the number of bowls has mysteriously continued to rise. There were 40 bowls (plus the title game) in 2016, up from 36 the previous season. That's 80 teams, or more than half the country, in the postseason, far more than what's reasonable. Bowls are supposed to be a reward, not a perfunctory event after every mediocre 6-6 season. It would be a good thing for college football if we lost a good 10 bowl games; perhaps it would make the occasion meaningful again.
The College Football Playoff's current four-team format won't always be the right size in every season. Some years - like in 2014 - there will be a decent gripe about leaving out a major-conference champion. Some years - as in 2005, with USC and Texas - there will be two unbeatens and no other deserving teams. And yet a four-team field will be the best option the vast majority of the time, and that's exactly what college football should want.
Consider the general proposal put forth for a 16-team Playoff: automatic bids for each conference champion, plus six wild-cards. That's a reasonable-sounding setup, until you consider some of the Group of Five teams that would receive automatic bids in that scenario. The Sun Belt winner has NEVER finished with fewer than three losses. Playing in the Sun Belt! San Diego State has been on a great run the past two seasons, but the Aztecs had three losses this year in the Mountain West. Same for Western Kentucky in Conference USA, and Temple in the American. It's all well and good when you get a Western Michigan that goes 13-0 out of the MAC; it's a significantly different situation when you're bypassing good major-conference also-rans for awful mid-major champions.
An eight-team field isn't the worst thing in the world, but as I already explained above, it would inevitably include teams that had no business playing for a title. The eight teams would certainly include all the Power Five champions and three wild cards; in that scenario, why would it be "fair" for a non-league winner (like say, 2016 Michigan) to win a Championship over an Ohio State team to which it had already lost? Ohio State's conference championship-less bid this year will be the exception, not the rule; the Buckeyes got the spot for playing a difficult schedule and finishing with only one loss - and a fluke loss at that.
That's the beauty of the four-team Playoff. It allows for a quality bracket of the most elite, deserving teams while preserving the soul of college football: the importance of the regular season. That's the aspect of the game from which the sport draws its passion, its excitement, and yes, its tradition. Expanding the postseason to unworthy teams would only serve to sap major college football of that which makes it unique - that unpredictable, bizarre, and ultimately delightful regular season.
Monday, January 9, 2017
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Clemson - Alabama, Round 2
24-16 through the 40 bowl games isn't horrible, but my record was certainly marred by a few bizarrely off calls, including Baylor manhandling Boise State, Washington State's Holiday Bowl flop and Houston seemingly lacking motivation against San Diego State. No matter. The National Championship - excuse me, the College Football Playoff National Championship Game presented by AT&T - is here, and there's plenty to discuss. First, though, a couple tidbits about the previous bowls.
The bowl system has never been a perfect indicator of regular-season quality; I included a large disclaimer to that effect in the first of my postseason posts. No one can predict which teams will lose a head coach days before the game, have an off-field scandal, or simply fail to show up. Still, the bowls offer a referendum on the season that preceded it, particularly in confirming or refuting the narrative surrounding the alleged strength or weakness of the Power Five conferences. On that note: wow.
It would appear the Big Ten's newly bestowed status of "Nation's Best Conference" was, erm, a bit inaccurate. The league finished its bowl schedule 3-7, easily the worst of the power conferences, with a win over Western Michigan as the only (relative) feather in its cap. Yikes. Five of the top six teams in the Big Ten lost, including the top three, with the capper Ohio State's 31-0 blanking at the hands of Clemson. So no, the Big Ten did not surpass the SEC in 2016.
The ACC, meanwhile, is rightly proud of its 8-3 record heading into Monday's title game, but let's pump the brakes a little on the celebrating. These results don't mean the league has suddenly become a juggernaut just because it has traditionally been humiliated in the postseason. Look closer at the wins: Boston College, North Carolina State, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech all beat nobodies, and the three losses (from Pitt, UNC and Louisville) were all ugly in one way or another. Credit Florida State for that nice game against Michigan and Clemson for that shellacking of Ohio State (notice the conference at whose expense those victories came, by the way?), but this isn't some all-time performance by the ACC.
So that leaves us with just one game in the third year of the Playoff system (which, it feels somewhat unnecessary to note, has been an unqualified success). The "Plus-One" model, even now under fire for not including three- or four-loss teams in an eight-team format, needs no defending. I have no doubt the greed that rules collegiate athletics will one day push the field to eight or even 16 teams, so for now, let's relish the most perfect playoff the sport is ever likely to see.
CFP National Championship Game presented by AT&T
Clemson (13-1) vs. Alabama (14-0)
January 9, 5:00 p.m.
We're back, and so are the squads from last year's very exciting title game. This is a strange contest to predict, much more so than it appeared it would be throughout the course of the season. Alabama seemingly has everything going for it: a new, more dynamic presence at quarterback in the form of Jalen Hurts; another terrifying defense, now outfitted with experience against Clemson's offense; a new round of elite young talent at the skill positions AND a brilliant O-line, and 14 games' worth of finding a way to win (and usually dominate) against a strong schedule.
The Crimson Tide opened the year with a monstrous thrashing of a USC team that, while not cohesive at the time, matured into one of the nation's best by the end of the year. After falling into a huge hole (again) at Ole Miss thanks to some impressive work by the SEC's best passer (Chad Kelly), Bama came back for a quality win, then defeated four consecutive ranked opponents (Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas A&M and LSU). The Tide won all four of those games by double digits, and only the LSU game (a 10-0 defensive battle) was closer than 19 points.
Alabama closed the year out with blowouts of two more ranked foes (Auburn, Florida), then handily defeated a game but outclassed Washington team in the semifinal. Through 14 contests, the Tide have defeated nine ranked opponents. That's remarkable, and tops even LSU's stunning run in 2011, when the Tigers went 13-0 with eight wins over ranked teams - before losing to Bama in the BCS title game. Make no mistake, if Alabama wins this game, it will go down as the greatest team in college football history.
Why then, am I so concerned about the pick? Clemson's pedigree in 2016 certainly doesn't measure up. The Tigers almost lost at Auburn in the opener, well before their hosts had made a mid-season transformation into a quality team (yet still one that Bama would defeat with ease in November). A wake-up call? Not so, given that Clemson nearly lost to Troy one week later. After a 4-0 start, the Tigers faced off against new media darling Louisville, and appeared posed at halftime to record a huge statement win with a 28-10 lead. Instead, their inconsistent play almost did them in, as four second-half turnovers actually put the team behind before a late goal-line stop saved the day.
It appeared Clemson had finally figured things out, but just two games later the Tigers won at North Carolina State in overtime only because the Wolfpack shanked a short field goal as time expired. After a bye, the team should have been ready for rival Florida State, but ending up winning a tight game largely because of a pair of atrocious phantom penalties. Clemson's luck finally ran out against Pitt, but the Tigers still seemed like a shoo-in for the playoff with an ACC Championship - another contest the team nearly threw away, this time thanks to an inability to stop Virginia Tech's offense.
No player personified his team more in 2016 than Clemson QB Deshaun Watson, who entered the year as the Heisman front-runner and ended up as essentially a legacy finalist (the voters embarrassingly saw him finish second) after regressing in almost every category as a passer. Watson's completion percentage, yards per attempt and QB rating all went down in 2016, while his interceptions increased. He rushed for half as many yards as he did in 2015 and displayed some truly strange decision-making, as seen by his three multi-turnover performances in close wins (and another in the loss to Pitt) to win my annual Stanzi award.
To recap: Clemson won just four games against ranked teams to Alabama's nine; unlike the remarkably steady Crimson Tide, the Tigers were wildly inconsistent all year despite holding a massive talent edge over the majority of their competition; Clemson finished with one loss to Bama's zero, and all of this came with the Tigers playing an inferior schedule. This should be an easy call, right? Alabama is going for history as the first team to ever finish 15-0 and could cement its place in the annals of college football with back-to-back championships (and five in eight years). Clemson should stand no chance.
Yet I find myself torn. Clemson, at its peak, was always the biggest threat to Alabama this season. I mentioned as much in my preview of the Fiesta Bowl last week, even as I picked Ohio State to beat the schizophrenic Tigers. Clemson hadn't had a performance like that all year, and it's suddenly made this contest seem much tighter than expected. Can the Tigers' defense put together another brilliant effort and confound Bama's offense, now abruptly under the direction of Steve Sarkisian and not the mercurial, departed Lane Kiffin? I'm sure Nick Saban had his reasons, but it's obviously highly unusual for a team to change play-callers just before playing for a national championship.
Perhaps it's foolish to expect a squad that hasn't strung together two quality performances against good teams all year (or even played two consecutive games against quality opponents) to suddenly do it now. Alabama is the better team on both lines - the most important aspect of the game - features a punishing ground game, and has the best defense in the country. There's no way the Tide would struggle to stop Watson for a second time... right?
But Watson has Mike Williams at receiver in this game, a luxury he didn't in last year's championship, and the Tigers may be peaking at just the right time. That shutout of the Buckeyes was an eye-opener. If Clemson can slow down the Tide's rushing attack and force Hurts to make more than a small handful of plays, the Tigers have an excellent shot at making Bama play from behind. That's about all a team can ask for against the collection of athletes the Crimson Tide have assembled.
In the end, the pick doesn't change. Alabama has been too good, for too long, to not trust to finish this thing off. Tide defensive tackle Jonathan Allen is the nation's best defensive player, and the efforts of his front line should go a long way toward slowing down the Tiger running game, so integral to all the ball fakes and play-action Clemson runs. With its superiority on the offensive line, Bama should run the ball effectively, shortening the game and keeping its offense on the field for long stretches. That's the outcome that makes sense. But Clemson's performance last week is enough to throw some real doubt into the equation. Did the Tigers wake up just in time? It's going to be fascinating to see how both teams adjust after last season's contest, and should be another competitive game worthy of the National Championship.
The bowl system has never been a perfect indicator of regular-season quality; I included a large disclaimer to that effect in the first of my postseason posts. No one can predict which teams will lose a head coach days before the game, have an off-field scandal, or simply fail to show up. Still, the bowls offer a referendum on the season that preceded it, particularly in confirming or refuting the narrative surrounding the alleged strength or weakness of the Power Five conferences. On that note: wow.
It would appear the Big Ten's newly bestowed status of "Nation's Best Conference" was, erm, a bit inaccurate. The league finished its bowl schedule 3-7, easily the worst of the power conferences, with a win over Western Michigan as the only (relative) feather in its cap. Yikes. Five of the top six teams in the Big Ten lost, including the top three, with the capper Ohio State's 31-0 blanking at the hands of Clemson. So no, the Big Ten did not surpass the SEC in 2016.
The ACC, meanwhile, is rightly proud of its 8-3 record heading into Monday's title game, but let's pump the brakes a little on the celebrating. These results don't mean the league has suddenly become a juggernaut just because it has traditionally been humiliated in the postseason. Look closer at the wins: Boston College, North Carolina State, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech all beat nobodies, and the three losses (from Pitt, UNC and Louisville) were all ugly in one way or another. Credit Florida State for that nice game against Michigan and Clemson for that shellacking of Ohio State (notice the conference at whose expense those victories came, by the way?), but this isn't some all-time performance by the ACC.
So that leaves us with just one game in the third year of the Playoff system (which, it feels somewhat unnecessary to note, has been an unqualified success). The "Plus-One" model, even now under fire for not including three- or four-loss teams in an eight-team format, needs no defending. I have no doubt the greed that rules collegiate athletics will one day push the field to eight or even 16 teams, so for now, let's relish the most perfect playoff the sport is ever likely to see.
CFP National Championship Game presented by AT&T
Clemson (13-1) vs. Alabama (14-0)
January 9, 5:00 p.m.
We're back, and so are the squads from last year's very exciting title game. This is a strange contest to predict, much more so than it appeared it would be throughout the course of the season. Alabama seemingly has everything going for it: a new, more dynamic presence at quarterback in the form of Jalen Hurts; another terrifying defense, now outfitted with experience against Clemson's offense; a new round of elite young talent at the skill positions AND a brilliant O-line, and 14 games' worth of finding a way to win (and usually dominate) against a strong schedule.
The Crimson Tide opened the year with a monstrous thrashing of a USC team that, while not cohesive at the time, matured into one of the nation's best by the end of the year. After falling into a huge hole (again) at Ole Miss thanks to some impressive work by the SEC's best passer (Chad Kelly), Bama came back for a quality win, then defeated four consecutive ranked opponents (Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas A&M and LSU). The Tide won all four of those games by double digits, and only the LSU game (a 10-0 defensive battle) was closer than 19 points.
Alabama closed the year out with blowouts of two more ranked foes (Auburn, Florida), then handily defeated a game but outclassed Washington team in the semifinal. Through 14 contests, the Tide have defeated nine ranked opponents. That's remarkable, and tops even LSU's stunning run in 2011, when the Tigers went 13-0 with eight wins over ranked teams - before losing to Bama in the BCS title game. Make no mistake, if Alabama wins this game, it will go down as the greatest team in college football history.
Why then, am I so concerned about the pick? Clemson's pedigree in 2016 certainly doesn't measure up. The Tigers almost lost at Auburn in the opener, well before their hosts had made a mid-season transformation into a quality team (yet still one that Bama would defeat with ease in November). A wake-up call? Not so, given that Clemson nearly lost to Troy one week later. After a 4-0 start, the Tigers faced off against new media darling Louisville, and appeared posed at halftime to record a huge statement win with a 28-10 lead. Instead, their inconsistent play almost did them in, as four second-half turnovers actually put the team behind before a late goal-line stop saved the day.
It appeared Clemson had finally figured things out, but just two games later the Tigers won at North Carolina State in overtime only because the Wolfpack shanked a short field goal as time expired. After a bye, the team should have been ready for rival Florida State, but ending up winning a tight game largely because of a pair of atrocious phantom penalties. Clemson's luck finally ran out against Pitt, but the Tigers still seemed like a shoo-in for the playoff with an ACC Championship - another contest the team nearly threw away, this time thanks to an inability to stop Virginia Tech's offense.
No player personified his team more in 2016 than Clemson QB Deshaun Watson, who entered the year as the Heisman front-runner and ended up as essentially a legacy finalist (the voters embarrassingly saw him finish second) after regressing in almost every category as a passer. Watson's completion percentage, yards per attempt and QB rating all went down in 2016, while his interceptions increased. He rushed for half as many yards as he did in 2015 and displayed some truly strange decision-making, as seen by his three multi-turnover performances in close wins (and another in the loss to Pitt) to win my annual Stanzi award.
To recap: Clemson won just four games against ranked teams to Alabama's nine; unlike the remarkably steady Crimson Tide, the Tigers were wildly inconsistent all year despite holding a massive talent edge over the majority of their competition; Clemson finished with one loss to Bama's zero, and all of this came with the Tigers playing an inferior schedule. This should be an easy call, right? Alabama is going for history as the first team to ever finish 15-0 and could cement its place in the annals of college football with back-to-back championships (and five in eight years). Clemson should stand no chance.
Yet I find myself torn. Clemson, at its peak, was always the biggest threat to Alabama this season. I mentioned as much in my preview of the Fiesta Bowl last week, even as I picked Ohio State to beat the schizophrenic Tigers. Clemson hadn't had a performance like that all year, and it's suddenly made this contest seem much tighter than expected. Can the Tigers' defense put together another brilliant effort and confound Bama's offense, now abruptly under the direction of Steve Sarkisian and not the mercurial, departed Lane Kiffin? I'm sure Nick Saban had his reasons, but it's obviously highly unusual for a team to change play-callers just before playing for a national championship.
Perhaps it's foolish to expect a squad that hasn't strung together two quality performances against good teams all year (or even played two consecutive games against quality opponents) to suddenly do it now. Alabama is the better team on both lines - the most important aspect of the game - features a punishing ground game, and has the best defense in the country. There's no way the Tide would struggle to stop Watson for a second time... right?
But Watson has Mike Williams at receiver in this game, a luxury he didn't in last year's championship, and the Tigers may be peaking at just the right time. That shutout of the Buckeyes was an eye-opener. If Clemson can slow down the Tide's rushing attack and force Hurts to make more than a small handful of plays, the Tigers have an excellent shot at making Bama play from behind. That's about all a team can ask for against the collection of athletes the Crimson Tide have assembled.
In the end, the pick doesn't change. Alabama has been too good, for too long, to not trust to finish this thing off. Tide defensive tackle Jonathan Allen is the nation's best defensive player, and the efforts of his front line should go a long way toward slowing down the Tiger running game, so integral to all the ball fakes and play-action Clemson runs. With its superiority on the offensive line, Bama should run the ball effectively, shortening the game and keeping its offense on the field for long stretches. That's the outcome that makes sense. But Clemson's performance last week is enough to throw some real doubt into the equation. Did the Tigers wake up just in time? It's going to be fascinating to see how both teams adjust after last season's contest, and should be another competitive game worthy of the National Championship.
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