When the 12-team College Football Playoff was introduced, it got here with a few key objectives. Among them was to reframe the concentrate on convention championships and actually reward groups that attain the head. Five convention champions are assured spots within the discipline, in spite of everything.
In the primary yr of the system, convention championship video games have delivered in an enormous method. Friday’s Mountain West Championship Game will kick off the most effective weekend of convention championship video games in historical past. The Mountain West and Big 12 are taking part in win-and-in video games. In the ACC, Clemson (Clemson!) should upset SMU to make the sector. Even for the SEC and Big Ten, the winner will earn a pivotal bye, whereas the loser should play 17 video games simply to win a nationwide championship.
For the primary time since 2006, there are not any convention championship video games with a betting unfold of a landing or extra. That yr, there have been 5 title video games. This yr, there are 9. The widest strains come within the AAC and Sun Belt, the place Tulane and Louisiana are 5.5-point favorites in opposition to Army and Marshall, respectively. Every power-conference title recreation sits at 3.5 factors per nearer.
It must be a celebration of the brand new system, however due to some poorly timed feedback from CFP chair Warde Manuel, the weekend is as an alternative vulnerable to being a mockery.
Heading into Sunday’s closing CFP Rankings, No. 8 SMU sits firmly within the discipline, projected because the ACC champion and seemingly protected even with a loss. But make no mistake in regards to the historic significance right here: the Mustangs hope to win their first main convention title (of their first yr as ACC members, no much less) since earlier than the Death Penalty of the Nineteen Eighties.
But on Tuesday, Manuel was requested on a media name whether or not the Mustangs have been vulnerable to falling behind No. 11 Alabama ought to they lose in opposition to No. 17 Clemson in that ACC title recreation. Would, say, SMU go from a first-round bye to lacking out on the 12-team discipline utterly?
“Potentially sure,” Manuel stated. “And they will transfer above groups as nicely. Again, it simply relies on the end result of the sport.”
Wait … what?
The Mustangs, 11-1, are taking part in for a convention championship in a league the place they completed undefeated in convention play. No. 9 Indiana, additionally 11-1, is just not. And No. 11 Alabama is not even shut after going solely 5-3 in convention play and dropping a full quarter of its video games. Suddenly, incomes the consideration of taking part in for a title is a aggressive drawback?
Palm: How may the CFP Selection Committee decide convention title recreation losers?
Granted, the earlier system definitely punished groups at instances for failing to win their convention title recreation. Seven instances since 2014, a title recreation loser fell out of the four-team discipline. In nearly each case, although, a convention title recreation loser was changed by a convention champion. Five instances, they have been changed by the precise head-to-head winner of that recreation.
That’s not the situation right here. If SMU loses to Clemson, the Mustangs can be in comparison with non-champions and groups who solely performed 12 video games.
Incentivizing groups to overlook convention championship video games degrades your entire sport. A convention title recreation is a thirteenth knowledge level, and knowledge factors will be destructive. At the identical time, the CFP committee ought to assume lengthy and exhausting about simply how destructive a knowledge level must be to offset a group that did not even earn that thirteenth knowledge level.
By each measure, taking part in for a championship must be an honor and solely a technique to cap off a fantastic season. The Mustangs, for instance, could be the primary group to transition as much as an influence convention within the BCS/CFP period and win the league.
“If our group all received COVID in the present day and did not play, we’re in,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee instructed On3’s Andy Staples. “We’re in, proper? We do not have one other knowledge level to drop us beneath anyone that is behind us … I believe when you open up that door, you are going to see lots of people do lots of loopy issues.”
Lashlee is just attempting to foyer for playoff seeding, however that is the worst factor conceivable to listen to from the coach of a championship-caliber group. If SMU cannot even get pleasure from a chance to win the ACC with out feeling the stress of an anvil sitting above its head, that is disastrous for the game.
Of course, the committee wants to take care of its flexibility. If a convention finalist loses 59-0 and loses a key participant, it issues. There’s no motive to put the groundwork for screwing over a group earlier than it occurs, although. If one good group loses a detailed recreation to a different good group whereas the remainder of the game is idle, it could be disastrous for that to immediately backdoor a far much less deserving group.
The 12-team College Football Playoff has electrified the game and created extra significant video games than almost any yr in historical past. When the ultimate CFP Rankings are launched, the committee wants to consider the precedents they need to set. If they need to incentivize convention championships as soon as extra to open up the game, they should show it on Sunday.
