Baylor football: Can Bears avoid repeat of 2014 playoff snub?

No. 14 Baylor football is off to a promising 7-0 start in 2019. Will the events of 2014, though, come back to haunt the Bears in this year’s CFP hunt?

Baylor should leave Stillwater, Okla. after an impressive 45-27 Week 8 victory against the hometown Oklahoma State Cowboys, feeling confident. The win catapults the Bears to a No. 14 ranking, its highest position since 2015 and the numerous off-the-field issues then-coach Art Briles.

But the events from 2014, the season before, are what should remain fresh in the minds of Big 12 fans, especially the ones based in Waco, Texas.

Five years ago, the College Football Playoff was in its first year of existence. Of the newly-minted “Power Five” conferences, it was obvious that at least one would be left out of the four-team playoff, the first for the FBS level of college football.

Florida State entered the postseason as the nation’s only undefeated team, although Ohio State would defeat Oregon in the eventual national title game, 42-20. What was interesting about the first College Football Playoff lineup, though, was the controversy that surrounded the bevy of one-loss teams vying for inclusion.

Heading into the final week of the season, both Baylor and fellow Big 12 member TCU had one loss. The other prominent one-loss teams included Alabama, Oregon, and Ohio State. Baylor owned the head-to-head tiebreaker against TCU courtesy of its 61-58 win against the Horned Frogs. At that point, there was no Big 12 conference championship game (in the wake of the league’s move to 10 teams).

Baylor was ranked No. 6 in the penultimate CFP poll and finished as the No. 5 team on the outside looking in. TCU, which was ranked No. 3 the week before, won its last regular-season game against Iowa State, 55-3 — and was moved down three spots to No. 6 in the final rankings.

The Bears finished the regular season as the first team outside of the CFP, despite a No. 4 ranking in the AP poll that same week. Though it’s possible that the Big 12 planned to implement a conference title game either way, it was clearly a move to help its teams as “the 13th data point” when lining up against the other Power five conferences (which all have conference title games between two divisions at the end of the regular season).

For the 2019 Bears, the important takeaway from the events of five years ago is that the brand of your program matters. Ohio State replaced the Bears in the final week as the fourth team in the first CFP. Baylor had defeated No. 9-ranked Kansas State the day before, 38-27 and dropped a spot. TCU had defeated the Cyclones by 52 points (and was demoted from No. 3 to No. 6).

Do you think a one-loss team with an interlocking “OU” or a Longhorn on its helmets would have suffered the same fate?

The Bears and the Horned Frogs were battling perception in 2014, and this year’s Bears will likely find themselves doing the same if they finish this year’s regular season well. Baylor still faces OU and Texas, and would likely face one or the other at a neutral-site Big 12 championship game if they win one or both of these games.

The human tendency to compare the Bears against the most storied programs in college football, such as Florida, Notre Dame, or Ohio State, happens with AP voters just the same as it happens in a CFP committee room. It’s clearly what cost one or both of these teams a spot in the CFP at the expense of one-loss Oregon, Alabama, and Ohio State in 2014.

The Bears enter Week 9 action as the second-lowest ranked undefeated power conference team (Minnesota is No. 17). Seven teams with one loss are currently ranked ahead of the undefeated Bears.

For Baylor, the message from the CFP and from AP voters is simple: win out, and you’ve got a shot to play for a national championship. If you’re in a pack of one-loss teams at the season’s end, however, don’t count on receiving a fair shake.