With the playoffs less than 3 days away, it is time for the Odyssey to vent. A number of talking heads have opined that expanding the playoffs to 8 teams would be a significant improvement. What hogwash!!
Let’s take a look at teams 5-8 if we had an expanded playoff. All have proven themselves as not being college football’s best team — we have the quaint notion that the best team should be crowned not the hottest team or the one with the most opportune draw.
Michigan — a fine team but one whose offense went dormant for large stretches of their games against Wisconsin, Ohio State and Iowa. They lost their last 2 road games. National champions do not do such.
Oklahoma — Your two losses were decisive and the Big 12 was underwhelming. Two Heisman finalists can not hide that you do not have a defense.
Penn State — This is a hot team — but not necessarily a great team. Granted, their linebacking corps was decimated early in the year and was a large reason for their 49-10 slaughter in Ann Arbor. However, national champions are not 2-time losers with a 39-point loss on their resume
USC – Terrific second half of the season but three losses including 52-6 to Alabama. C’mon. Could Sam Darnold make that much difference against the Tide? I do not think even Jesus Christ could make up for the 46 point difference.
Some of the proponents of an 8-team format favor the highest ranked Group of 5 team to be one of the 8. OK, but that would have meant Western Michigan against Alabama in the quarterfinals?!?!
One of the proponents of an 8-team playoff had Ohio State as the #3 seed and Michigan as the #6 seed. A rematch? Archrivalries lose some of their juice if they are played more than once a year.
Proponents of the 8-team playoff do not address the logistical issues of another round of games during the holiday seasons and the problems created for large amounts of fans who may not want the added expense or travel of another round.
Two mediocre St. Louis Cardinal teams have won the World Series in the past decade. One Connecticut team that won the NCAA tournament was the #9 seed —-in the Big East tournament!!! The other UConn men’s tourney winner was a #7 seed…Color me old fashioned but I like the ENTIRE season to count.
The bowl system, while bloated, offers many teams the fun impetus of going into the off season riding the tide of a win…In an expanded playoff, 4 more excellent teams would wind up their season with a loss. In the current playoff setup, there are 3 excellent non-playoff matchups: USC-Penn St Michigan-FSU LSU-Louisville
Do not FURTHER MESS with the sanctity of college football’s regular season. IN most other sports, the regular season is not that meaningful…Let’s keep college football special and deeply differentiated from other sports.
The ODYSSEY wishes you a very, very happy new year!
FFF
Well said
George Ling
i’m a little late to the game, but with all the various bowl games that start around the middle of December, couldn’t we drop another round of playoff games into four of them? (I haven’t thought this through, so maybe this is a dumb idea)
Sonny
Well put, sir, well put. I’ll cenltiray make note of that.
Christina
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Brent Gladson
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