How Bowl Season Remains Relevant in the College Football Playoff Era

There is a lot of leverage to be had this bowl season. And a lot of leverage to be lost.   

Bowl game results will not fade easily. The conference lobbyists will make sure of it.

If TCU stomps into Atlanta and its offense picks apart Ole Miss and its Landshark defense, the Big 12 is not going to let anybody forget it over the next eight months. Same with Baylor against Michigan State.

TCU will still have quarterback Trevone Boykin in 2015 and will want to be able to remind one and all what it did to the SEC. Baylor won't have quarterback Bryce Petty next fall, but that is not going to stop the Big 12 from claiming it got hosed—as long as its teams win the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic.

If Florida State handles Oregon and then beats the winner of Ohio State-Alabama, the ACC is going to convene its 2015 preseason media event with banners pinned up proclaiming "Not the same old ACC."

FSU had to win some conference squeakers in 2014, and the ACC claimed that it was a better conference than people gave it credit for and that it had closed a wide gap with the SEC-like 'Noles.

It would have proof with another FSU national title. "They had tougher games in conference than with a bunch of Ducks," the choir will sing.

So, for the sake of the ACC, Clemson also better deal with Oklahoma, Louisville has to beat Georgia, and Georgia Tech better show up big against Mississippi State.

Of course, if there is a Big 12 dumpster fire, if Ole Miss beats TCU, the committee will be vindicated. There could be—but probably wouldn't be—less grumbling over the College Football Playoff methods if it turned out it had TCU pegged accurately all along as a fringe contender in 2014. Same with Baylor.

I don't imagine chairman Jeff Long will hop on one of those conference calls with media next November after the release of a Tuesday vote, listen to a question about the committee's incompetency and say, "Well, you think we screwed it up last year, and we didn't." He might not say it, but he might think it.

That's how it is going to work from now on. For a few weeks in August 2015, we are going to reference back to the 2014 bowl season and remind the CFP committee they are imbeciles or they are lucky/smart they got it right. "Did you see Boykin dazzle against the baddest men on the planet, an SEC defensive line? How could those CFP imbeciles have left them out." It's going to happen.

If it wins, TCU is going to roll forward next season with the benefit of the doubt if it is involved in another close race for final four.

There was too much furor over the CFP rankings for us to ignore the meaning of the 2014 bowls. Bowl bias is going to be created, and it is going to carry over. There is no such thing as a clean slate. People are not robots.

What about SEC bias? It lives off past results. It was evident when Texas A&M jumped into the Top 10 after hammering South Carolina. The Aggies didn't belong there. SEC bias lived magnificently when Auburn got in the Top Four with a wobbly defense.

Bias is inherent in college football. Why do you think so many people thought that if the names on the front of the jersey said "Oklahoma" or "Texas," the Big 12 would have been in the final four?

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The SEC is favored in nine of its 12 bowl games, according to Odds Shark. If it goes 6-6 this bowl season, the light will come on to some folks in denial. "Hey, maybe the SEC really is down because it is losing too many junior stars and not developing quarterbacks." That will carry over to 2015. An idea will percolate. Committee members will be out and about. They will hear it, and they will remember it.

I know, the College Football Playoff committee does not issue its rankings until late October so programs have a chance to forge new identities based on the current season, not the previous season or the preseason polls. The CFP also doesn't have to look foolish like the rest of us (me) who thought Oklahoma was a national championship contender or those people (you) who considered Texas A&M a powerhouse or others (SEC fans everywhere) who were convinced the SEC would have two in the first final four.

There will not be a clean slate from 2014 to 2015. It just won't happen. There will be some residue from the 2014 season's bowl games. People are human. They will trace back over their handiwork and say, "Did I discount the Big 12 too much? The ACC?" Damn, I don't want to make that mistake again.

I guarantee the committee is looking for validation with these bowl games and final four matchups. What if they don't get that validation?

The committee thought the ACC was weak. It thought the Big 12 was unworthy. Preconceived prejudices are everywhere in college football, and they are hard to kill. Why do you think Florida State bounced up and down the rankings in 2014?

The Seminoles were expected to win by 38 points in the ACC Championship Game, just like they did in 2013. When they didn't, we thought the 2014 'Noles were far inferior to the national champions of 2013, and the CFP kept scratching its head over these guys in the weekly rankings. There were some automatic thoughts, I guarantee it, that the ACC was weak and FSU, if it was any good, should have plowed through the conference.

So, what if Clemson or Georgia Tech or Louisville win its bowl game? The ACC and the strength of schedule it presents will be looked at in a different light in 2015. I guarantee it.

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Oklahoma wouldn't let us forget it beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl last January. TCU won't let us forget. Baylor won't let us forget, neither will the ACC. If the SEC wins all nine of the games it is favored in, it is going to remind one and all that it is still Goliath.

The perceptions created this bowl season are going to stick around for a while, especially if there are some decisive wins one way or another. Score one more for the College Football Playoff.

Ray Glier covers college football for Bleacher Report. He has covered college football and various other sports for 20 years. His work has appeared in USA Today, The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post and Al Jazeera America. He is the author of How the SEC Became Goliath (Howard/Simon & Schuster, 2013).