Editor’s note: shout out to Shannon Sharpe for coining the phrase used in the title of this rant. Check him out on “Undisputed” from [9:30] to noon weekdays on FS1.
I knew the College Football Playoff committee didn’t want to leave Alabama out when they ranked the Crimson Tide #5 after their beatdown at the hands of arch-rival Auburn. It seemed as if the committee got drunk off that Crimson Kool-Aid a long time ago.
Even still, part me thought that there was no way they would put Alabama in — and make it TWO teams from the SAME LEAGUE. With that said, I thought that the committee would indeed have a hard time keeping Alabama out.
After all, Alabama may not have had any sexy wins. Hell, the Crimson Tide’s best win was at Mississippi State! But the difference between the Tide and the jilted Ohio State was simple: the bad losses.
Alabama did not have any bad losses. Ohio State had TWO.
Despite the fact that Ohio State won the Big Ten championship game over previously undefeated Wisconsin, the committee never got over the Buckeyes’ 15-point loss at home to Oklahoma and their 31-point beatdown to Iowa. You can’t fault the committee for holding that against Ohio State. Hell, even if Ohio State beat Wisconsin by 50 like they did in 2014, the Buckeyes still weren’t getting in.
Some dude on Twitter put it best: the committee’s view of Ohio State is like walking in on your grandpa naked in the shower — you can’t un-see it. As much as it annoys me to see Alabama finagle its way into the playoff, a team can’t lose by double-digits (TWICE) and expect to get in, let alone losing by 30 to Iowa.
One has to wonder though, if the committee didn’t want to see the Buckeyes get curb-stomped by Clemson AGAIN. They won’t say it out loud, but I’m willing to bet it crossed their minds as they were deciding between Ohio State and Alabama.
And y’all know this is one big step to expanding the playoff to eight teams, right? There is no way the commissioner of the Big Ten is happy about not only being shut out of the playoff, but the sight of TWO SEC teams in the playoff. If expansion happens, it will hurt college football.
I still love the four-team setup because it makes the entire college football season exciting. The conference championships were essentially quarterfinals. Let’s just hope common sense — not greed ($$$) — prevails and no playoff expansion takes place.
For now, let’s hope that the Alabama Invitational gives us another exciting finish to the 2017 college football season.
Categories: college football, college sports
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