There's No Room for Cinderella Teams in New College Football Playoff
You are invited to the biggest party of the year on the condition that you sit in the corner the whole time and don't bring any of your friends. That's the deal. Take it or leave it.
And that's roughly what happened behind closed doors in the making of the College Football Playoff. It's why we are where we are now, with five conferences (SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, ACC) holding all the power and five known as the "group of five" (Mountain West, Sun Belt, American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American) not whining because they're just happy to be invited, sort of.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
It's the dysfunction that explains why we have two undefeated teams so far apart in the rankings. One is Florida State, the defending national champs, ranked No. 3, and likely headed to this year's playoff. The other is Marshall, unranked, with zero chance of getting into the playoff. It also had zero chance before the season even started.
It explains how college football has killed Cinderella.
"We try to eliminate all the noise,'' Marshall coach Doc Holliday told Bleacher Report, "and not get hung up in where we are and what people think about us.''
Ah yes, coach-speak. But did you have a fair chance from the start?
"There's a lot of football to be played,'' he said. "Three weeks left. Maybe we can have this conversation three weeks from now. Ask me about it then.''
This is the no-whining part of the deal. You can argue that Marshall—and Colorado State or Boise State, for that matter—is, in fact, getting all that it deserves. Or you can argue that it isn't. That's not the point.
Look, everyone loves the first week of the NCAA tournament, mostly because the little guy gets a chance against the big boys (at no risk to your bracket). Butler, George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth, Valparaiso. You can name a dozen of them or more.
"What's better than that?" Holliday said. "It's what college is all about."
The truth is, those teams don't bring in big TV ratings all year, don't fill big stadiums. They also don't win the national championship. But they have a fair chance, a ticket into the party as a full guest. It's something about fair play and opportunity.
Marshall could fit that perfectly in college football now.
"At least people are talking about us now," Holliday said. "The last couple years, nobody knew who we were."
College football has never really been about the little guy. But in the past few years, we've seen Utah, when it was in the Mountain West Conference, crush Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. TCU, when it was also in the Mountain West, beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. Boise State beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. In fact, of the 13 non-big time teams that got to play a big-timer in the major bowls under the old BCS, the non-big-timers won seven and lost six.
Now, under the new system, they are being left out. I'm not saying Marshall deserves a spot in the Top Four. But it deserved a chance to get there.
Marshall has beaten just one team with a winning record, Rice. But its conference, Conference USA, is in the same major college category as, say, the Big Ten. And if it runs through a major conference undefeated and can't even get someone to look at it, was it really involved in the playoff at all?
The Associated Press has Marshall at No. 18 and Colorado State, which has lost once, is No. 22. The coaches poll has Marshall 18 and CSU 23.
The playoff poll?
Both are unranked. Minnesota, with three losses, is No. 25.
A few weeks ago, the talk was whether the College Football Playoff Selection Committee would be biased toward the SEC, partly because of the influence of ESPN, which basically funds the playoff and also owns the SEC Network. Even Nebraska coach Bo Pelini told Bleacher Report he wondered the same thing.
The real bias is against the group of five. Five active athletic directors are on the selection committee. All of them come from power-five conferences. Those conferences get big bucks when one of their teams gets into the playoff. And the committee chooses, with whatever standards it wants, which four teams get in.
Holliday says that at least things are better for the group of five now than they were under the BCS, when a team had to be ranked in the Top 12 to get a spot in one of the major bowls. Now, the top team in the group of five automatically gets one of the bowl games right beneath the playoff.
Improvement, Holliday calls it. You might call it hush money, actually.
See, a few years ago, when Utah was undefeated and not getting a shot at the title game, antitrust rumblings started threatening the power five. Some politicians argued that you can't call it a national championship if everyone doesn't have a fair shot at it.
Note that the College Football Playoff is not called the College Football National Championship.
The power five voted for autonomy, and soon will surely be paying players, something the group of five won't be able to afford. But in the making of the College Football Playoff, the power five included the group of five. Why? Mostly to avoid antitrust issues.
The deal, basically, was this: We'll give you a spot in one of the bowls. You don't sue us. And you'll get a little additional slice of the enormous pie we're about to split up. Deal?
Deal. Commissioners of all 10 conferences voted to approve of the playoff.
I saw Sun Belt commissioner Karl Benson at the BCS meetings last year, and he was thrilled just to be included, though he acknowledged the playing field was just slanted even more against him.
Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson looks at it more optimistically. He argues that with conference realignment finally done—he lost TCU and Utah—his conference can now start building toward getting into consideration for the playoff. With the selection made this year on Dec. 7, Mountain West officials point out that on that date in 2004, Utah was ranked No. 5; in 2009, TCU was No. 3; in 2010, TCU was No. 3 again.
Today, that would put the Mountain West in discussion for the playoff.
Holliday feels Marshall has a strong case, noting that it ranks in the top five in the country in scoring offense and scoring defense.
"We don't want anything just given to us," he said. "But there are teams out there (in the group of five) that can play really good football."
Sure, and the best one will be able to celebrate that fact quietly, in the corner.
Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report. He also writes for The New York Times and was formerly a scribe for FoxSports.com and the Chicago Sun-Times. Follow him on Twitter @gregcouch.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
