FBS Playoff
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2014 12:08 pm
Two things occurred to me as the four playoff teams were announced. One is that I haven't heard a peep from all the naysayers, Colin Cowherd being one of the more well known among that group, about how a playoff would make the regular season less meaningful. If anything, it made the regular season much, much more interesting and meaningful than it was in the pre-playoff era.
The other is that I think the selection committee sort of took the easy way out by picking Ohio State over Baylor and TCU. It's much easier to justify taking OSU over either of the Big 12 teams, using the fact that OSU had to win a conference championship game as an excuse/justification, than it would have been to pick either Baylor or TCU, over the other. Don't get me wrong...you can certainly make a strong case for OSU deserving to be in the playoff and their win over Wisconsin in the Big 12 title game was very impressive. But it just seems sort of "convenient", the way things played out. It would have been really difficult to choose either one of the Big 12 powers over the other. I know that TCU's "body of work" was generally considered to be stronger than Baylor's, but it also seems that the primary tie-breaker should go to the head to head winner, which of course was Baylor. Selecting OSU over both of the Big 12 teams, would seem to subject the committee to much less second guessing, and I can't help but think that's not just a coincidence.
The other is that I think the selection committee sort of took the easy way out by picking Ohio State over Baylor and TCU. It's much easier to justify taking OSU over either of the Big 12 teams, using the fact that OSU had to win a conference championship game as an excuse/justification, than it would have been to pick either Baylor or TCU, over the other. Don't get me wrong...you can certainly make a strong case for OSU deserving to be in the playoff and their win over Wisconsin in the Big 12 title game was very impressive. But it just seems sort of "convenient", the way things played out. It would have been really difficult to choose either one of the Big 12 powers over the other. I know that TCU's "body of work" was generally considered to be stronger than Baylor's, but it also seems that the primary tie-breaker should go to the head to head winner, which of course was Baylor. Selecting OSU over both of the Big 12 teams, would seem to subject the committee to much less second guessing, and I can't help but think that's not just a coincidence.