It is once again time to get mad about a college football playoff bracket. Every year ESPN and its TV show, made by a committee that talks ball while on break from planning the human instrumentality project, design a 12-team playoff seemingly beholden to no rules, no standards, nothing that could pin them down with any consistency beyond a love for good Q ratings. It doesn't particularly matter what specifically has people mad this year, as it always boils down to the same thing: there are no clear guidelines to determine who does or doesn't get into the playoff, and therefore they can just kinda make it up as they feel like it.
This time around Notre Dame got the short end of the stick. In years past it has felt like they have benefitted from being independent. This year was the first time they were seemingly punished for it. The committee can say they put Miami in because of the head-to-head win over the Irish, but it sure feels like the Canes got in to keep the ACC happy by not completely shutting the conference out. But Notre Dame wasn't alone in griping: BYU also got a raw deal for the crime of apparently not being better than Texas Tech. Meanwhile a three-loss Alabama doesn't even budge in the rankings after getting drubbed by Georgia. The argument that teams shouldn't be punished for playing in conference championships apparently doesn't apply to BYU. In the aftermath of it all, we still can't even say that the committee has gathered the 12 best teams in football this year.
Now, I've been kinda hip to the playoff scam for a while. The M.O. was set with the four-team playoff—the committee goes out of its way to complicate the decision-making process and then claims that it simply has its hands tied by such a limited bracket, making expansion the only solution. Even with a 12-team playoff they're still running the same game, feigning constraints that can only be fixed by expansion (and they will get it). In truth, there are not and have never been 12 great football teams in any year, and the real problem here is one of poor design.
I don't like to be here, positioned as if I am defending Notre Dame or Miami or even BYU. And I definitely don't want to be in a position where I'm downplaying the Group of Five schools. But it wasn't that long ago that Cincinnati had to go undefeated two years in a row just to get a chance to be blown out in a playoff game, and now we're at a point where two Group of Five schools, neither of which technically has their head coach anymore, are in the playoff over Notre Dame and BYU.
All of this is because of the automatic bids, a safeguard for conferences to guarantee themselves spots in the expanded playoff field to protect their economic interests. Any further expansion will only lead to more automatic bids. Whether it's the bowl system or the playoff system, college football is more political than meritocratic. It's all about lobbying, just like everything else in this country. Notre Dame got screwed and they're being typical babies about it, but really they're just getting the campaign ready for next year's election. Half of the first round of this playoff is going to be unwatchable, and Alabama vs. Oklahoma might be unwatchable for different reasons. So the playoff isn't even delivering the good television that it was supposedly designed for. But the committee loves the drama, loves its little weekly selection show where it can set the country's tails a-wagging by dangling its playoff spots in front of the cameras. The only thing they like more than the drama of the show is the drama of its wake, which will only give them more spots and more power.
