Speaking of Sports

By John Fragodt, Sports Reporter

Wow, what a weekend it was for college football last weekend.  My son and I watched several of the games and we debated who should earn the four spots in the College Football Playoffs.

We couldn’t come to a consensus so I could feel for the selection committee’s task; no matter how they did their job, it would leave at least one or two schools complaining about the decision.

Going into the last weekend of games, the top eight teams in order were Georgia, Michigan, Washington, Florida State, Oregon, Ohio State, Texas and Alabama.

At that point, Alabama needed a miracle to make the playoffs.  Well, Oregon lost and Ohio State did not play.  Texas also won big, but Florida State barely won its game using a third-string quarterback.

Michigan and Washington came through with wins, punching their tickets to the CFP, but Alabama threw a wrench into the decision when it held on to beat Georgia in the SEC championship.

Now, who was going to make it to the CFP?  I went with Michigan, Washington, FSU and Texas, thinking how could you take FSU out after they won and finished undefeated playing in a Power 5 Conference, while my son felt Alabama would for sure be in there and FSU might not make it.  He was right!

Alabama slipped ahead of FSU, which dropped one spot despite winning the ACC and having another team (Georgia) ahead of it in the rankings lose.  Ohio State and Georgia also just missed out on the playoffs, while other teams like Penn State, Oregon, Clemson and others sure would have liked to have had another chance.

The College Football Playoff (called the Bowl Championship Series at the time) used to involve just two teams from 1998-2013, but switched to four teams in 2014.  Before 1998, the national rankings would determine a “mythical champion” for the season, but it was not recognized as the actual champion by the NCAA.  The intention of the CFP was to eliminate any controversy with the teams selected and most times it does a pretty good job, but not always, including this season.

And so, the CFP will increase to 12 teams next year.  Too bad it didn’t happen this year. 

If you went with the top four teams for the CFP and gave them a bye, the four first-round games would be something like:  Oklahoma vs. FSU, Ole Miss vs. Ohio State, Penn State vs. Georgia and Oregon vs. Missouri; some very good games I’d like to see.

The winners of those four games would play the four bye teams in the national quarterfinals.  Of course, there would probably still be some controversy, but any team left out of the top 12 team national playoffs really can’t complain because under the old system they wouldn’t have had a chance.

One thing’s for sure, college football is a great sport (a lot of times, better than the NFL) and whether its under the format used this year or the one to be used next year, there will certainly be a lot of excitement on the road to determining a national champion.