Honestly, there has only been a few times where there was a huge outcry about a team being snubbed in the College Football Playoff. Typically they get it right even if there are a few disagreements from those who feel left out. That will likely not be the case when the Playoff expands to 12 teams soon.
Usually the top four teams are fairly easy to identify because the criteria is so strict that you are debating a small amount of flaws between a small amount of schools. But when you are starting to split hairs between teams with multiple losses across a variety of conferences then it could get really dicey.
Going into this week's championship weekend, Georgia, Michigan, TCU and USC are pretty much universally agreed to be the schools most deserving of receiving the four berths. If they all win their conference titles this weekend, there will be no drama from the Selection Committee. Of course, if any of them lose then there will be a lot of debate about who deserves to get in, but that pool of prospects will revolve around a couple of candidates.
Now let's look at how chaotic the 12-team format will make this process. For starters, the top ranked six conference champions are guaranteed a Playoff spot. Typically that would be the champs from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC plus the top ranked Group of 5 champ. Typically. The other six berths go to wildcard teams. Forget that we have the championship games on Saturday for a moment and just look at those six wildcard teams according to the current rankings. It would have Ohio State (ranked 5th), Alabama (6th), Tennessee (7th), Penn State (8th), Kansas State (10th) and Utah (11th) in the Playoff. The "first four out" would be Washington, Florida State, LSU and Oregon State.
LSU could state that they have beaten Alabama. Florida State then says, "yeah, but we beat LSU". Washington really hasn't beaten anybody except Oregon and Oregon State. Factor in the fact that the "next four our" consists of Oregon, UCLA, South Carolina and Texas and you realize the Pac-12 just has a cycle of who beat who. Meanwhile, South Carolina beat Tennessee and Clemson (who would be Playoff teams in this scenario) in back to back games.
Now let's add those championship games back in and assume those games' favorites (Clemson, Michigan, TCU, USC and Georgia ... along with Tulane) win those conference titles. That adds losses to Kansas State and Utah (who are holding onto Playoff spots) as well as LSU (in that "first four out" scenario). Now how do you cut that? Kansas State, Utah and LSU would have four losses. Could Washington or Florida State work their way back in? Or could Utah (who currently is the only school to beat one of the current Playoff placeholders) cry foul that they had to beat USC twice to get a playoff spot. Would losing a conference championship be held against you as a normal loss?
Now, think about an upset.
Imagine Purdue, who isn't ranked anywhere in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, beats Michigan. First off, would they then become one of the six highest ranked conference champs? Probably, though it would make for an interesting conversation if we had two really stout Group of 5 champs ... like last year with Cincinnati, Louisiana and Utah State. Second, that would then vault Clemson into a first round bye. Yeah ... 8th-ranked Clemson. What if Kansas State upsets TCU? Then Kansas State would also likely receive a bye. How far would Michigan and TCU fall? Michigan couldn't possibly fall below Ohio State who they spanked in Columbus just last week, right? That's also a huge deal because four schools get to host first round games so how they rank will be extremely vital.
Right now, Clemson is ranked 9th and Penn State 8th which means Clemson would have to travel north to play a cold weather game instead of in the warmth of South Carolina. Hey, that's part of the deal and something I am looking forward to ... but let's break down why Penn State would be ranked ahead of Clemson for a moment.
Both Clemson and Penn State have two losses. Clemson's were to South Carolina (18th) and Notre Dame (21st) while Penn State's were to No. 2 Michigan and No. 5 Ohio State. Clemson has beaten Florida State (13th) and NC State (25th) while Penn State has beaten zero ranked teams. Sure, Penn State lost to better teams than Clemson but they haven't beaten anybody either. Clemson also in this scenario would be ACC champions. That must be a huge tiebreaker when considering who gets to host this game. Penn State finished 3rd in their division.
The NCAA tournament has 68 teams and has similar debates about who gets No. 1 seeds, who got left out of the dance and where teams were seeded. Even a 12 team format in football will have those exact same debates except there will be the added drama of byes and home field games. Of course, the debates mean that we care and that their event and sport are being discussed. That's always a good thing.
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