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Totally agree with Staples - Let the 12 team playoff begin!
Posted on: January 10, 2023 at 15:19:40 CT
El Zorro MU
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Totally agree with Andy Staples. The 12 team football playoff will provide all kinds of intriguing matchups - it'll be must see TV - and provide us with the best championship game!
Andy Staples: After Georgia-TCU blowout, look forward to 12-team Playoff title-game thrillers
In the system created by college football’s commissioners back in 2012, the blowout on Monday was nearly inevitable. Championship weekend left the selection committee with no real choice. The good news is that a system is coming that should give college football a much better chance to create competitive championship games.
Will there still be blowouts once the 12-team College Football Playoff begins in the 2024 season? Of course. The NFL — a league with strict controls built in to promote parity — held a 12-team tournament that it has since expanded to 14. That didn’t stop the Broncos from starting Super Bowl XLVIII with a snap over Peyton Manning’s head and devolving from there in a 43-8 loss to the Seahawks. Blowouts happen.
But they are less likely to happen when the two teams playing for the championship have run a gauntlet designed to weed out the teams may have benefitted from one circumstance or another to reach that point. This is the part where the traditionalists clock out from their shifts at the rotary phone factory and scream THAT’S WHAT THE REGULAR SEASON IS IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL.
No it isn’t. An ACC schedule, a Big 12 schedule, a Big Ten schedule and a Pac-12 schedule all present different challenges. Heck, an SEC East and an SEC West schedule present different challenges. The contrast in conference flavor is part of college football’s charm, but it also makes it difficult to compare teams at the end.
Fortunately, in two years, more of the best teams can be compared by playing in loser-goes-home games. And the teams that survive to the title game will have done so by proving their worth multiple times.
This year’s version of the CFP was set up for thrilling semifinals and a potential snoozer of a title game. We knew that when the bracket came out and Las Vegas set the lines for the semifinals.
TCU had lost to Kansas State in the Big 12 championship, but TCU also had beaten every team in the Big 12 in the regular season. So the committee couldn’t very well drop TCU below Ohio State, which had not played in the Big Ten title game because it had lost to Michigan.
Ohio State had a really nice win against Penn State and a solid win against Notre Dame, but the Buckeyes’ resume didn’t justify jumping TCU. So instead of an Ohio State-Michigan rematch that either would have restored the faith of Buckeye Nation or plunged it deeper into darkness, Michigan was matched with TCU and Ohio State was matched with Georgia.
Ohio State is one of maybe two teams in the country with a talent level similar to Georgia’s (Alabama is the other). So linemakers predicted a one-possession game in the Peach Bowl. They also predicted a one-possession game in the Fiesta Bowl between TCU and Michigan. They got close on the margins in both games but missed the winner in the Fiesta Bowl.
Of the other three teams in the CFP, Ohio State had the best chance to beat Georgia. Pure talent gives a team a puncher’s chance, and Ohio State played close to its best game while Georgia played a fairly average game relative to its potential. The result was a game decided when a field goal sailed wide left. Meanwhile, Michigan had three trips inside the 2-yard line that resulted in three points, threw two pick sixes and still only lost by six. This isn’t meant to take anything away from a brilliant season for TCU, but from a purely analytical standpoint, that result feels like an outlier.
A Georgia team clicking on all cylinders would have beaten Ohio State comfortably and smashed Michigan or TCU. Neither was built to compete with the Bulldogs if the Bulldogs operated at maximum capability. (And perhaps no one in college football could.) Monday, Georgia clicked on all cylinders and smashed TCU.
But if the new system had been in place this season, Georgia-TCU would have been a semifinal. And the opponent waiting for the Bulldogs in the final might have looked a little more like Georgia. Plus, we’d have gotten some fun matchups along the way.
Here’s how that would have worked.
Because TCU didn’t win its conference title, it would have been pushed to the No. 5 seed. The Horned Frogs would have opened the CFP by hosting No. 12-seed Tulane. If you watched the Green Wave’s thrilling comeback against USC in the Cotton Bowl, you know Tulane-TCU would have had immense potential for drama.
The winner of that game would have advanced to face No. 4-seed Utah. Why would the Utes have been a No. 4 seed? Because the top four spots are reserved for conference champs. So Utah would have been ranked ahead of TCU, Ohio State and Alabama even though the Utes probably would have been a point spread underdog against any of those teams.
TCU-Utah or Tulane-Utah would have been a banger, too. The path to that one particular semifinal participant likely would have produced two closely matched, thrilling games with upset potential in each.
Meanwhile, Georgia would have opened against the winner of Kansas State at Tennessee. We saw Georgia beat Tennessee at full strength, and the Volunteers were not at full strength following a season-ending injury to quarterback Hendon Hooker at South Carolina. We saw what Alabama did to Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl. Georgia would be advancing to the semifinals, and probably fairly easily. But that’s OK. The No. 1 seed is supposed to have the easiest path.
And maybe Georgia plays TCU and crushes the Horned Frogs. Or maybe the Bulldogs are thinking ahead to whatever monster looms in the national title game and they don’t dominate as thoroughly. But they probably advance.
On the other side of the bracket, No. 6 Ohio State would have to open with a visit from No. 11 Penn State. James Franklin’s Nittany Lions always seem to play the Buckeyes tough, and they did that in State College earlier this season. Would a Penn State team that was really clicking at the end of the season have pulled the upset? Maybe. Remember, Ohio State is one of the most talented teams but didn’t always play that way. This format would have been a real test of the Buckeyes’ ability to repeatedly produce an optimum performance. But let’s say the Buckeyes had won. They would have faced Clemson in a quarterfinal.
Meanwhile, Alabama — which lost on a last-second field goal at Tennessee and an overtime two-point conversion at LSU — would have a chance to play its way to a title shot. The Crimson Tide would have opened against USC and Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams in Tuscaloosa. Williams and company would have scored on the Tide, but as Utah and Tulane showed us, USC’s defense likely would have been helpless against Alabama’s offense. The Tide would advance to face Michigan in a quarterfinal.
Clemson probably wasn’t good enough this season to hang with anyone else remaining on this side of the bracket, so let’s advance Ohio State to the semifinals. That would leave a Michigan-Alabama game to determine the Buckeyes’ opponent.
Think about that. Jim Harbaugh versus Nick Saban. The Wolverines with a chance to face Ohio State in a CFP game. The Tide with a chance to claw their way toward a matchup with Georgia that was denied them by Tennessee and LSU. It would have been fun. And it’s tough to predict who would have won. Alabama had Bryce Young and Will Anderson, but the Tide didn’t have the dynamic receivers they’d had the past few years. Meanwhile, Michigan would have been fresh off shutting down a better offense (Ohio State’s). It probably would have been a fun game, and it would have been a TV ratings bonanza.
Speaking of the ratings, the executives of whatever network had the next game (Alabama-Michigan winner versus Ohio State) would have been popping champagne either way. Everyone — from the diehard to the most casual fan — would have been tuning in to watch either Alabama or Michigan against Ohio State in the semifinals.
Most likely, Alabama or Ohio State would have wound up the team playing Georgia in the title game. And maybe it would have been a blowout anyway. But it probably wouldn’t have. We’d probably be catching our breath right now after a thriller.
Just one more year of this four-team nonsense. Then the real tournament begins.
Edited by El Zorro at 15:20:22 on 01/10/23
Andy Staples: After Georgia-TCU blowout, look forward to 12-team Playoff title-game thrillers
In the system created by college football’s commissioners back in 2012, the blowout on Monday was nearly inevitable. Championship weekend left the selection committee with no real choice. The good news is that a system is coming that should give college football a much better chance to create competitive championship games.
Will there still be blowouts once the 12-team College Football Playoff begins in the 2024 season? Of course. The NFL — a league with strict controls built in to promote parity — held a 12-team tournament that it has since expanded to 14. That didn’t stop the Broncos from starting Super Bowl XLVIII with a snap over Peyton Manning’s head and devolving from there in a 43-8 loss to the Seahawks. Blowouts happen.
But they are less likely to happen when the two teams playing for the championship have run a gauntlet designed to weed out the teams may have benefitted from one circumstance or another to reach that point. This is the part where the traditionalists clock out from their shifts at the rotary phone factory and scream THAT’S WHAT THE REGULAR SEASON IS IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL.
No it isn’t. An ACC schedule, a Big 12 schedule, a Big Ten schedule and a Pac-12 schedule all present different challenges. Heck, an SEC East and an SEC West schedule present different challenges. The contrast in conference flavor is part of college football’s charm, but it also makes it difficult to compare teams at the end.
Fortunately, in two years, more of the best teams can be compared by playing in loser-goes-home games. And the teams that survive to the title game will have done so by proving their worth multiple times.
This year’s version of the CFP was set up for thrilling semifinals and a potential snoozer of a title game. We knew that when the bracket came out and Las Vegas set the lines for the semifinals.
TCU had lost to Kansas State in the Big 12 championship, but TCU also had beaten every team in the Big 12 in the regular season. So the committee couldn’t very well drop TCU below Ohio State, which had not played in the Big Ten title game because it had lost to Michigan.
Ohio State had a really nice win against Penn State and a solid win against Notre Dame, but the Buckeyes’ resume didn’t justify jumping TCU. So instead of an Ohio State-Michigan rematch that either would have restored the faith of Buckeye Nation or plunged it deeper into darkness, Michigan was matched with TCU and Ohio State was matched with Georgia.
Ohio State is one of maybe two teams in the country with a talent level similar to Georgia’s (Alabama is the other). So linemakers predicted a one-possession game in the Peach Bowl. They also predicted a one-possession game in the Fiesta Bowl between TCU and Michigan. They got close on the margins in both games but missed the winner in the Fiesta Bowl.
Of the other three teams in the CFP, Ohio State had the best chance to beat Georgia. Pure talent gives a team a puncher’s chance, and Ohio State played close to its best game while Georgia played a fairly average game relative to its potential. The result was a game decided when a field goal sailed wide left. Meanwhile, Michigan had three trips inside the 2-yard line that resulted in three points, threw two pick sixes and still only lost by six. This isn’t meant to take anything away from a brilliant season for TCU, but from a purely analytical standpoint, that result feels like an outlier.
A Georgia team clicking on all cylinders would have beaten Ohio State comfortably and smashed Michigan or TCU. Neither was built to compete with the Bulldogs if the Bulldogs operated at maximum capability. (And perhaps no one in college football could.) Monday, Georgia clicked on all cylinders and smashed TCU.
But if the new system had been in place this season, Georgia-TCU would have been a semifinal. And the opponent waiting for the Bulldogs in the final might have looked a little more like Georgia. Plus, we’d have gotten some fun matchups along the way.
Here’s how that would have worked.
Because TCU didn’t win its conference title, it would have been pushed to the No. 5 seed. The Horned Frogs would have opened the CFP by hosting No. 12-seed Tulane. If you watched the Green Wave’s thrilling comeback against USC in the Cotton Bowl, you know Tulane-TCU would have had immense potential for drama.
The winner of that game would have advanced to face No. 4-seed Utah. Why would the Utes have been a No. 4 seed? Because the top four spots are reserved for conference champs. So Utah would have been ranked ahead of TCU, Ohio State and Alabama even though the Utes probably would have been a point spread underdog against any of those teams.
TCU-Utah or Tulane-Utah would have been a banger, too. The path to that one particular semifinal participant likely would have produced two closely matched, thrilling games with upset potential in each.
Meanwhile, Georgia would have opened against the winner of Kansas State at Tennessee. We saw Georgia beat Tennessee at full strength, and the Volunteers were not at full strength following a season-ending injury to quarterback Hendon Hooker at South Carolina. We saw what Alabama did to Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl. Georgia would be advancing to the semifinals, and probably fairly easily. But that’s OK. The No. 1 seed is supposed to have the easiest path.
And maybe Georgia plays TCU and crushes the Horned Frogs. Or maybe the Bulldogs are thinking ahead to whatever monster looms in the national title game and they don’t dominate as thoroughly. But they probably advance.
On the other side of the bracket, No. 6 Ohio State would have to open with a visit from No. 11 Penn State. James Franklin’s Nittany Lions always seem to play the Buckeyes tough, and they did that in State College earlier this season. Would a Penn State team that was really clicking at the end of the season have pulled the upset? Maybe. Remember, Ohio State is one of the most talented teams but didn’t always play that way. This format would have been a real test of the Buckeyes’ ability to repeatedly produce an optimum performance. But let’s say the Buckeyes had won. They would have faced Clemson in a quarterfinal.
Meanwhile, Alabama — which lost on a last-second field goal at Tennessee and an overtime two-point conversion at LSU — would have a chance to play its way to a title shot. The Crimson Tide would have opened against USC and Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams in Tuscaloosa. Williams and company would have scored on the Tide, but as Utah and Tulane showed us, USC’s defense likely would have been helpless against Alabama’s offense. The Tide would advance to face Michigan in a quarterfinal.
Clemson probably wasn’t good enough this season to hang with anyone else remaining on this side of the bracket, so let’s advance Ohio State to the semifinals. That would leave a Michigan-Alabama game to determine the Buckeyes’ opponent.
Think about that. Jim Harbaugh versus Nick Saban. The Wolverines with a chance to face Ohio State in a CFP game. The Tide with a chance to claw their way toward a matchup with Georgia that was denied them by Tennessee and LSU. It would have been fun. And it’s tough to predict who would have won. Alabama had Bryce Young and Will Anderson, but the Tide didn’t have the dynamic receivers they’d had the past few years. Meanwhile, Michigan would have been fresh off shutting down a better offense (Ohio State’s). It probably would have been a fun game, and it would have been a TV ratings bonanza.
Speaking of the ratings, the executives of whatever network had the next game (Alabama-Michigan winner versus Ohio State) would have been popping champagne either way. Everyone — from the diehard to the most casual fan — would have been tuning in to watch either Alabama or Michigan against Ohio State in the semifinals.
Most likely, Alabama or Ohio State would have wound up the team playing Georgia in the title game. And maybe it would have been a blowout anyway. But it probably wouldn’t have. We’d probably be catching our breath right now after a thriller.
Just one more year of this four-team nonsense. Then the real tournament begins.
Edited by El Zorro at 15:20:22 on 01/10/23
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Totally agree with Staples - Let the 12 team playoff begin! - El Zorro MU - 1/10 15:19:40
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