It’s that time of year again. College football is in full swing and chaos will break out across all conferences and fan-bases. For starters: there are still four teams that control their own destiny. Alabama, Georgia, Notre Dame, and Clemson. Effectively, Michigan sort of does too but not if Alabama loses to Georgia, but that probably won’t happen because Nick Saban never loses to his assistants.
Clemson is the Billy Madison of college football teams
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a luckier team in college football that has inherited such a lousy schedule. Seriously, Clemson plays in a trash conference and has a .01 percent chance of losing a game. It’s not even their fault either, it’s just the luck of the draw, they’re not like Iowa, Baylor or Washington State who scheduled all cupcakes in the non-conference. They have two games left against Duke and South Carolina and an ACC “championship” game, which is just a waste of time. Does the ACC really need to play a game to decide who the best team in the conference is? Do we need a physique competition to decide who has a better body between Channing Tatum and Bob Huggins? (The reason I randomly chose Bob Huggins is because my car broke down in the middle of West Virginia so I just like to blame Bob Huggins for my car breaking down).
Maybe if Clemson played in a man’s conference like the SEC or Big Ten, or hell, even the big 12, they’d at least have a loss. Look at Georgia and LSU. If they didn’t play in the best conference in college football and instead played in the ACC, they’d also have a cake-walk to the playoffs. Put simply, the most adversity Clemson went through this year was against Texas A&M.
The Pac-12 is dead again
I have an odd tendency to root against the Pac-12 because Bill Walton annoys the hell out of me, calling it the conference of champions, even though they’ve really just been the conference of losers. But this year, they’re eliminated. I know Washington State will probably win the conference and is only a one-loss team but their schedule isn’t strong enough for one loss to even be acceptable. The Pac-12 is a totally different game (and time zone for that matter). For the record, I used to blame Pac-12 teams and players getting overlooked because committee members were too busy out drinking the nights they were playing, but this year, the Pac-12 is worse than it was last year, which really says a lot considering I called it a pillow-fight conference last year. No thanks, I’d rather watch Forensic Files at 1 AM on a Saturday night.
The Big 12 is too good for its own good
You know what amazes me about the Big 12? They always seem to go with their instincts and make everything that appears to be better for their conference. For instance, last year, they created the conference championship. Yet, all the conference championship would’ve done was eliminate the big-12 had TCU won. Oklahoma was in anyway. Great move. The best part is, the same exact problem arises this year! West Virginia and Oklahoma will play the last week of the season, and then play again for the conference championship. Imagine if they split their two games!? Bob Bowlsby will smash his TV.
Now, they have too many good teams. They would’ve been better off just keeping the entire conference crappy, instead of just one team (West Virginia or Oklahoma) and just run with it. That’s at least what the ACC has done. The ACC is bad to the point where it helps them. It doesn’t matter if 13 of 14 teams couldn’t beat the Bad News Bears as long as you have one Playoff team.
What if Ohio State and Notre Dame Both Win Out?
This will be the most hotly debated scenario. Ultimately, it depends on what happens in the Big 12. As long as Oklahoma wins out, Ohio State is done,. The committee has already set the precedent that Oklahoma has been better than Ohio State. Ohio State has at best one more quality win against Michigan at most. Oklahoma would have two more quality wins. So, how would Ohio State make the playoffs under that scenario? However, if Oklahoma and West Virginia split a game a piece and Ohio State wins out, Ohio State is a Playoff team.
Should we get rid of divisions in conferences?
I’m starting to trend in this direction. I can’t stand how conferences are split up into divisions which often results in large disparities. For instance, just a few years ago in 2016, Alabama played Florida in the SEC championship game. What was the point of that? The worst conference for this is the Big Ten. Comparing the Big Ten East and Big Ten West is like comparing the Roman Empire to Costa Rica. For example, this year, Northwestern is in first place in the Big Ten West. Northwestern going up against Ohio State or Michigan in the Big Ten championship will be a clown show.
