So remember yesterday, when right on this here Blob we wrote that the College Football Playoff Four was an easy call unless the committee couldn't quit its SEC addiction?
Well ...
Come on down, Alabama!
(And you people from Florida State, here's a tissue. Not our fault your QB1 got hurt and you play in a conference the CFP has deemed unworthy since Clemson backslid. Them's the rules, chum)
And so we've got Big Ten, the SEC, the PAC-12 and the Big 12 in the College Football Playoff. And the only reason the committee let the latter two in there is because 1) Washington is the undefeated champion of demonstrably the best conference in college football this season, and 2) Texas beat Alabama by 10 in Tuscaloosa back in September. Otherwise Georgia would be in and Ohio State would be in, and all would be peachy keen in the college football universe.
The sport these days is the Big Ten and the SEC, plus one outlier every year to make it look like it's not just the Big Ten and the SEC. That's partly why the CFP will expand to 12 teams next year, so the rest of college football will stop hollering about it.
"My, aren't we cynical this morning," you're saying.
Well ... yeah. It's how I tend to get when someone gets hosed as badly as Florida State got hosed.
The Seminoles did everything the committee says a team's supposed to do to get into the CFP, and they still didn't get in. Just "win out"? Check. Go undefeated in a Power 5 conference? Check. Beat two SEC schools?
Check, and check.
And still, Alabama jumped 'em. If you're Florida State, how does that square? If you were still a top-four team even after Jordan Travis went down, how do you suddenly drop after winning your conference title and holding a potent offensive team (Louisville, which was averaging 31 points per game) to two field goals?
"Well, because Alabama beat No. 1 Georgia," you're saying.
OK, sure. And, OK, so right now Alabama is probably better than Florida State. Hell, Georgia probably is, too. The Bulldogs' one loss in their last 29 game was to a top-ten team, after all. How does that drop them all the way to No. 6?
I mean, if the committee really wanted to be unfair, it would have kicked Texas out, too, and put both Georgia and Alabama in. But apparently that would have been made the pandering look too obvious even for the committee.
The Blob is not much for conspiracy theories, but here's today's Oliver Stone "JFK" moment: That shoehorning an SEC school in there had as much to do with the power behind the throne as it did with the power of Alabama's football team.
The power behind the throne, of course, being ESPN.
Which owns the broadcast rights to the CFP. And which also has a contractual agreement with the SEC.
You don't think the ESPN suits had at least some input into the committee's deliberation, given that? Really?
In any case, Florida State's out and Alabama's in, and, sure, who doesn't want to see the Crimson Tide square off with Michigan in the Rose Bowl? I get the appeal. I even get that the committee might have been afraid of another blowout if it was Florida State-Michigan -- although it's almost impossible to believe the Wolverines would have had the offensive juice to strap a 40-or-50 spot on that Seminoles D.
Best thing about all of this, though?
That it is the last year for the four-team CFP. Because if there were ever a year that exposes what an obvious sellout it is, this is it.
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