Your Small College Is Never Getting Invited To The College Football Playoff
Only 72 hours ago, college football fans of TCU and Baylor were looking at hotel prices in New Orleans and Pasadena. The Horned Frogs were ranked third in the college football playoff standings and the Bears were ranked sixth, but had one last chance to impress the college football community by beating a highly ranked Kansas State team.
Then Ohio State beat the middling Wisconsin Badgers into the ground and the college football playoff committee saw dollar signs and an escape route.
It’s hard to argue that Ohio State, 12-1, had a better season than TCU or Baylor. The fourth-ranked Buckeyes lost to a putrid Virginia Tech team by double digits at home on Sept. 6, which was by far the worst loss of all three teams. The same Virginia Tech team, later in the season, provided us with this:
Plus, Ohio State competes in the Big Ten–the second weakest football power-five conference. Baylor and TCU play in the Big 12, a conference ESPN ranked in its Power Index as the strongest in the country, ahead of the SEC. The Buckeyes played consistently better throughout the year, but that Virginia Tech loss doesn’t disappear. It can’t. It’s terrible.
TCU, which sported a one-loss record like the Buckeyes and the Bears, had one common opponent with Ohio State. The Horned Frogs slaughtered a top 25 Minnesota team by 23. The Buckeyes beat the same Gophers team by seven. TCU had the best loss of any of the three schools on the road against a top five opponent–and only lost that game by three.
Baylor’s strength of schedule doomed the Bears from the start, but was it that much worse than Ohio State’s? Baylor’s non-conference games included a road contest against Buffalo and two decisive home wins against SMU and Northwestern State. Ohio State didn’t play a true road non-conference game, facing Navy on a neutral field, losing to Virginia Tech at home, and beating down Kent State and Cincinnati. In fact, the adjusted strength of schedule rankings have TCU and Baylor ahead of the Buckeyes.
So why did Ohio State get the four-spot? Money. (Image via Barking Carnival):
TCU and Baylor are small, private schools, and those schools don’t drive ratings. Small schools don’t sell tickets. Small schools don’t sell advertisements. It’s why bowl committees start sweating when pundits predict “Duke” or “Vanderbilt” to their venues.
If your school represents a minuscule segment on this map, chances are, it would’ve gotten jumped, too.
If TCU or Baylor’s name was replaced with “Texas” and Ohio State’s with “Northwestern,” this wouldn’t have happened. Ohio State is a national brand that drives ratings. What do fans in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles want to watch? Alabama versus TCU or Alabama versus Ohio State? The answer is easy. Is it justified? No, but college football is a business, and this was a business decision.
A conference championship game is an excuse the committee will bring up, but having one wouldn’t have bumped either private school ahead of the Buckeyes. Ohio State was always going to trump the small school with a Big Ten championship.
This game also renders the week-by-week college football playoff rankings meaningless. TCU beat Iowa State, a team whose only power-five win came on the road against a bowl-eligible Big Ten team, by 52 and dropped three spots. Ohio State beat an unproven Wisconsin team and jumped into the playoff.
If the four-team college football playoff is a placeholder for something bigger, then maybe small schools have nothing to worry about. But if this is the most “playoff” that college football is going to see, then small schools will never have a chance to compete.
So, if you’re a college football fan at a small school who wants to see his team play for a national championship, transfer. The college football playoff is just a repackaged version of the Bowl Championship Series, and it isn’t going to get better..
Image via Twitter
Middling? Wisconsin was not “middling”. May I remind you that the Buckeyes were 4-point underdogs.
And because this site has a raging anti-B1G (stupid way to write Big 10, yes) boner, I’m lacing ’em up.
10 years ago at 2:16 pmWisconsin, with no big wins, a close win against a bad Iowa team (the one Iowa State beat) and a loss to Northwestern is the equivalent to the Big 12’s 6-6 Oklahoma State.
10 years ago at 2:23 pmBama is winning another natty anyway.
10 years ago at 2:19 pmBama would take Ohio State over Boykin and TCU’s air attack any day. Bama’s only flaws are their kicking game and secondary, which TCU would exploit .
10 years ago at 2:24 pmI hate the B1G more than most, but OSU destroyed a top 10 team in a championship game by a historic margin with their 3rd string QB playing his first game. Of course they deserve to be in it.
10 years ago at 2:20 pmOh, by very bad team you mean having a heisman candidate rb and the number two defense in the nation. A defense OSU just took a giant shit on.
10 years ago at 2:31 pmWisconsin was #13 and didn’t deserve to be ranked that high to begin with, so no, they don’t deserve to be in it.
10 years ago at 2:32 pmDo I think TCU deserved it? You bet. Who do you get rid of though, because it’s not like OSU, Bama, Oregon, or even *shudder* FSU DIDN’T deserve it.
10 years ago at 2:40 pmThat’s why it needs to be an 8 team playoff. 4 teams is fucking retarded
10 years ago at 12:09 amAgreed. The top four teams is entirely too interchangeable but the top 8 is a lot easier to figure out with half as much controversy.
10 years ago at 7:56 pmOhio State also beat #8 Michigan State (at the time). Their two big wins, along with a conference title, made it unjustifiable to have either TCU or Baylor over them. The Virginia Tech loss is long forgotten, as the team has grown much since that game. Losing early definitely helped their cause.
10 years ago at 2:56 pmSolid logic. Don’t count Ohio State’s losses, but count other teams losses.
10 years ago at 3:09 pmA very bad #13 team that also beat Minnesota. Which is apparently pretty hard to do cause TCU did it.
10 years ago at 2:57 pmA better title for this article would’ve been “My team didn’t make the Playoffs and now I’m butthurt”
10 years ago at 2:58 pmSteveHolt is from Texas. Guarantee he went to Baylor or TCU.
10 years ago at 3:57 pmYeah totally. I mean, what other school is in Texas?
10 years ago at 12:18 amRight. But as TCU what more could you do. You’re in the top 4 and beat the shit out of your opponent and drop three spots. If you’re gonna throw weekly rankings in the garbage when it’s playoff time why the hell do you even do them.
10 years ago at 4:48 pmOhio State is the only team out of the top 4 that didn’t play an FCS team, check that but I’m pretty sure it’s correct.
10 years ago at 5:56 pmWhen you know that you won’t be playing for a conference championship, you need to schedule a tough non-conference opponent and/or no FCS team. You need something more than a win against Minnesota to hang your hat on. TCU got lucky that Minnesota was even a quality win because when they scheduled Minnesota, they were dog shit. No 1-loss Big 12 team without a tough non-conference win will EVER play in the final four, I don’t care about the size of your market. I don’t blame TCU for their schedule because they had a couple of down years and likely didn’t want to schedule a tough matchup. Baylor had a weaker non-conference schedule than TCU and they HAVE been relevant for the last 4 years. No excuses for Baylor, they dug their own grave here by pussing out on the schedule and they got what they deserved.
10 years ago at 9:52 pmThe only way a school like TCU or Baylor will be in the playoff is if it had gone undefeated or had a better record of wins and losses, forcing the committee to choose them. It’s sad, but it’s true.
10 years ago at 2:21 pmBasically my take away from this article is that you’re bitching about a group’s success, while relying on very vague metrics to show that your opinion is better, and saying they’re successful because they have some sort of unfair advantage. So what, do you want affirmative action in the CFP’s or something?
10 years ago at 2:27 pmOr, you know, because OSU looks like one of the best teams in the country right now with a third string quarterback who now has his first start under his belt…
10 years ago at 2:28 pmDon’t feel too bad. My big, but awful at football, school will never get invited either. At least you got to experience some wins during the season.
10 years ago at 2:29 pmTo be fair, Ohio State’s loss to Virginia Tech was before VT lost 22 players in their 2 deep roster to season ending injuries and even with that had a top 15 defense. I hate Ohio State, but that was a more quality loss than is given credit. If TCU had lost to any other top 5 team they would have been in but how can you leave Baylor out when they beat TCU and Baylor had a less convincing case than TCU.
10 years ago at 2:34 pmRecency bias. A game in week two shouldn’t be weighted differently than a game in week ten.
10 years ago at 2:51 pm“To be fair, Ohio State’s loss to Virginia Tech was before VT lost 22 players in their 2 deep roster to season ending injuries and even with that had a top 15 defense.”
Obviously I have a biased opinion on the situation, but playing a team at full strength is harder than playing one with 22 players out from injury. It’s not recency bias so much as it’s saying that OSU is being judged for losing to a VT team that had an awful season, but they weren’t that awful in week 2 when they were at full strength.
10 years ago at 4:13 pmWisconsin is unproven? They almost beat LSU @ LSU. And Indiana beat Mizzou @ Mizzou. Big Ten looked pretty good to me this year.
10 years ago at 2:34 pmAs an OSU fan, I’ll be the first to admit the Big 10 is a little weak. But, if TCU wants to continually mention how weak the Big 10 is, and then talk about their great win over Minnesota, that is just idiotic.
Also, don’t talk about how bad the Virginia tech loss was if you didn’t watch the game or follow Virginia techs season afterwards. They were a good team who’s season was destroyed by injuries.
10 years ago at 2:50 pm