College Football Playoff party can be ruined by SEC and Notre Dame
The first College Football Playoff rankings are out, and as many suspected, the SEC already occupies half of the four slots, with Notre Dame jumping into a third. This is a nightmare for the rest of the nation.
We love the College Football Playoff … don’t we? I mean, it’s better than the BCS by a longshot. And the polls? Who wants to leave deciding a national championship up to sportswriters who can’t even bother to cast their own votes half the time?
Yes, the College Football Playoff is a wonderful thing. Imperfect but easily embraced.
The only continued gripe with the playoff format is the limited number of invitees to the party. With just four slots available and seven possible entrants – five Power-5 conferences, the Group of Five representative and Notre Dame – we’ve seen at least one big conference left out of the playoff picture every year since its inception.
This year’s initial set of rankings from the committee have posed what could be a nightmare scenario for most of the nation.
There are two SEC teams in the top four – No. 1 Georgia and No. 2 Alabama – and Notre Dame lurking right there at No. 3. That means the distinct possibility exists of having two SEC teams and Notre Dame in the final top four teams when calendar flips to December.
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It’s far from a done deal. It’s only November. There are all sorts of permutations and consternations which can be gone through to come up with an endless number of four-team combinations, but the relative ease with which this particular combo can be achieved should have a lot of conferences concerned.
If both Georgia and Alabama win out, and go into the SEC championship game undefeated, it would take a laborious argument keep the loser of that game out of the top four (unless it was an absolute blowout massacre). If Notre Dame is still in the top four at that point, how do you justify bumping them out?
Think about it. Four slots. Two to the SEC and one to Notre Dame – meaning three of the Power-5 conferences would not be in the playoff. It would be a big party with the most limited guest list ever seen.
There’s something which would have the masses screaming for playoff expansion in a big hurry.
Which conferences should be the most worried? At this point, nearly all of them, but some more than others.
The Pac-12 should definitely have concerns. Right now, every team in the conference has a loss, and even the winner of the Pac-12 Championship game could possibly have two or even three losses. No. 12 Washington is the only one-loss team left in the conference, and they’d be a longshot at best to make the top four.
The Big 12 is nearly in the same boat, with no undefeated teams left, and a conference championship game which could leave the winner with multiple losses.
In the Big Ten, it’s a bloody mess. Lots of good teams, but everyone is beating everyone else. Cannibalization may be the playoff downfall of the Big Ten, and even if No. 9 Wisconsin stays unbeaten, their relatively weak schedule will work against them.
ALSO READ: Making a case for Penn State in the CFB Playoff
The ACC has Miami and Clemson as its two best hopefuls. Should the Hurricanes stay unbeaten, they’d have an outside shot of getting past a one-loss Big Ten team like Ohio State. Clemson – who entered the rankings at No. 4 – is still the conference darling, but that loss to Syracuse…ouch.
As things stand right now, the ACC and Big Ten have the best shot at getting that final spot should things play out with Georgia, Alabama and Notre Dame. But regardless of who’s in and who’s out, a lot of conference commissioners will be talking expansion during the winter and spring meetings.
Even more fun, beyond just the four conferences fighting for one possible playoff spot would be the backlash in college football fan-world. Alabama and Notre Dame are two of the most nationally disliked teams there are, and Georgia isn’t far from that list, with many fans feeling the Bulldogs are constantly overrated.
You put those three in a playoff, and leave out the likes of Ohio State, Oklahoma, and others, and you have some college football riot material on your hands. The SEC/Notre Dame-conspiracy theorists will be everywhere, and playoff committee ties to President Trump’s Russian contacts will be found in some secret dossier.
The FBI would be called in to investigate every keystroke and shredded document ever connected with Nick Saban, Brian Kelly and Kirby Smart. It would be Playoff-gate, and would unite the Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill for the first time in years.
The only happy coach and fans would be Baylor, where everyone in Waco would say “thanks for the distraction”.
‘Muricah! We may not care about much else, but we won’t have any shenanigans in our college football postseason.
Next: CFB Playoff Top 25 Bold Predictions
One thing is for sure – Auburn, who may be the biggest playoff roadblock for both Georgia and Alabama, just gained a lot of new fans in the other Power-5 conferences.