I think that phrase "4 best teams" is too hard to objectively define, and is misleading. The 4-team playoff is perfect, unless the entire FBS were were overhauled. In the current CFP we have learned that bad quality losses hurt.
- Alabama. 0 quality losses.
- Clemson. 0 quality losses.
- Notre Dame. 0 quality losses.
- Oklahoma. 1 quality loss to #14 Texas.
- 3 quality wins over #14 Texas, #23 Iowa State, #16 West Virginia.
- Ohio State. 1 bad loss to unranked Purdue
- 3 quality wins over #12 Penn State, #7 Michigan, #21 Northwestern
- Georgia. 2 quality losses to #1 Alabama and #10 LSU
- 3 quality wins over #9 Florida, #14 Kentucky, #24 Missouri
- Michigan. 2 quality losses to #3 Notre Dame, #5 Ohio State.
- 2 quality wins over #21 Northwestern, #12 Penn State
- UCF. 0 quality losses.
- Florida. 3 quality losses to #4 Georgia, #14 Kentucky #24 Missouri.
- 2 quality wins over #10 LSU, #18 Mississippi State.
- LSU. 3 quality losses to #9 Florida, #1 Alabama, #19 Texas A&M.
- 2 quality wins over #4 Georgia, #18 Mississippi State
There is the complete picture. Our eyes tell us that Georgia is one of the four best teams in America. They held a lead over #1 Alabama for 40 minutes. If we use the optics argument, then we begin to devalue the other 11 or 12 games and the story that evolves over those 3 months. This is why I do not like a tournament style playoff. Look at the NFL and MLB. Once your team makes the playoffs, they go into cruise control and teams no longer care about the score. The games get boring, because only the playoff qualifying games matter. In the FBS, every single game matters to the top 10 teams. For those top 10 teams, the playoff is basically single elimination. If multiple teams have one loss, then the quality of loss matters. As we can see, with a 4-team playoff we do not have to worry about justifying good losses against bad losses. In this case, Oklahoma gets into the top-4 because Ohio State loss to an unranked Purdue. Georgia is out because they have two losses. Everyone else in the top-6 other than Ohio State has 0 or 1 quality losses. That right there nullifies the common argument for expanded playoff.
Yes. At 9:45am Sunday morning it is time to face "the real world" and prepare to reenter that "imperfect world" we live in. The "realistic"/"facts-based" breakdown above lays it all out here, shows the way:
The "loser" in the SEC Championship Game will in most years be PUNISHED for playing in far and away The Best Conference In College Football. You'd LIKE to see that turned on its head every now and then: This is one of those years when an honest, beholden-to-NOone "Committee" would prove its mettle and include Georgia--because they deserve it!
But they won't. As Finebaum is making the point on ESPN right this moment, last night's loss was UGA's BEST MOMENT OF PROOF in their season that they belong in the final playoff. But the only way to do that and not have a 1st round REMATCH is to bump them to #3 for that loss--and that is (classic) "POLITICALLY UNTENABLE" for a "Committee" that clearly treads an eggshell-lined road in its very existence.
Thing is, this flies in the face of the very reason for HAVING this Committee in the first place. Their ignoring their own self righteous claims and choosing to support and ratify their own hypocracy, if squarely faced, can only be ultimately and properly responded to with their disolution in favor of an expanded playoff format that takes it OUT of ANYONE'S POLITICAL influence and/or false ethical claims...At least in THIS WAY a SORT of justice might prevail here, finally: Their own moral cowardice and misuse of appointed power is lost, abolished in response to the very misuse of that power that has ensued.
However, I am NOT necessarily a proponent of playoff expansion. The one thing that still separates Major College Football from all other fan-centric sports is HOW MUCH EACH GAME MEANS, throughout the season. We do NOT want to lose that: Add too many teams and games to some big-numbers cash-fest AFTER that season plays out and (while you mostly eliminate the "problem" we are concerned with here--whether a deserving participant is being unfairly eliminated OFF THE FIELD) you soften the fatal MEANING of each regular season game. Do we WANT our league's distinction as "Better than Y'ALL!" to be lost in favor of "more teams in, most years"? Do we wanna join "all the rest" out there, where the whole IDEA is simply "to get IN", into "the Real Party" at the end. Not me. I don't even hardly FOLLOW the NFL anymore during the regular Season. Haven't watched a whole NBA reg season game in DECADES. And I don't know ANYONE who follows any other College sports team BUT football on a game-by-game basis. And so on.
No. I say, "Be careful: DO NOT mess with the 'Saturday: Live or Die" nature of EACH NCAA in-season Major College Football Game". When it comes to any decision affecting that, best to err on the side of caution.
The "tower of Babel" goes on over there on my big screen, the "moment of (questionable) TRUTH" now fast approaching. All the predictable bs pouring forth from all the by now predictable sources. It is amazing to me how certain individuals come to be virtual shills for power interests. There's a lot of money and job-related prestige attached to and/or entangled among all of this; I cannot help but think of that while certain of these individuals pound away loudly and repeatedly on spurious arguments as to "what the Committee MUST do!" , and I can't be the ONLY one who is long since sick of the whole deal--and that goes double, QUADRUPLE for those two complete IDIOTS between the moderator and Paul Finebaum...I (somewhat purposefully) forget the name of this brush-cutted doofus (directly beside the modererator--(MacElroy!) he is an Urban Meyer/Ohio State syncophant...has that morning show with Marcus, whom I DO like and WISH was here instead...at least we'd have a lighter-hearted, less polarized discussion in advance of what will CERTAINLY be a "controversial" decision)--and that mohawked ignoramus doesn't belong there at ALL...Instead, as it is we have a panel of Yapping Heads dominated by corporate apologists. They are "Money Mouthpieces"; only Finebaum is there with a knowledgeable AND heartfelt POV.
In the end, this supposed "underlying tie-breaker point" concerning the "value of the Conference Championship" will be the Committee's "safe OUT". Never MIND that this effectively makes the SEC Championship Game a PRE-Playoff ELIMINATION GAME. We'd be better off from a strategic, aim-for-the-POST-Season standpoint to ELIMINATE our own once-groundbreaking SEC Championship Game. But we won't do that--rightly, since we DO stand PROUDLY "alone and ABOVE" the rest. So the ONLY way to someday make this "FAIR" is to somehow reorganize the OTHER Conferences to make THEIR Championships "Elimination Games" too.
Until then, this is just the latest "imperfect resolution in an imperfect world". Too much money, prestige and POWERFUL INTERESTS are involved to see a "fair and logical" resolution anytime soon.
Jesse Palmer just came in at the end and summed up the "sane and even-handed" argument nicely--and all the rest except Finebaum now condescendingly dismiss his starkly in-opposition and contrasting-in-its-intelligence statement.
Sooners in at #4--sadly, I think. If Ohio State--COMPLETE travesty.