This committee system is bunk. A team in a major conference that hasn’t lost in over two years should be 1 or maybe 2. If another dominant team won all solidly with one loss in a squeaker...maybe, maybe they should rank ahead.
The 4 seed is BS in itself as they would have to play the top seed while 2 -3 play each other in the first round. It is not right to make an undefeated team play the harder team. They’d do themselves some favors by playing four good quarters this weekend and moving back up a notch.
There would be three major factions objecting to this arrangement. The first would be alumni, who want to go to tropical bowls to get drunk in the sun. I don't much care about that.
The second would be major conference runners-up, who would think, sometimes rightly, that they are better than some other team that made the cut. I don't much care about that either. Win your league, or stay at home. And if your league has expanded into a miniature NFL, it's past time for it to slim down to a traditional size.
The third objector would be the television networks, for whom the bowls represent a month long stream of advertising revenues. Network greed is the culprit for so much of what ails our sports today, and the mess in college football is no exception.
Unfortunately, network dollars will probably determine the outcome, as the colleges sold out long ago. The only way we will ever get a legitimate playoff is for the SEC to expand to 300-plus teams to absorb all of Division 1. The expanded SEC would then play a 30 game regular season, followed by an NFL style playoff -- and then the colleges would still have bowls after that. And enough fools would still watch that the networks would continue to sell the game.
***It is not right to make an undefeated team play the harder team. ***
The #1 seed playing the #4 seed, and #2 playing #3 is the way things are done in most any sport in playoff situations. It isn’t dependent on whether any team is undefeated or not.
“This committee system is bunk.”
I agree with you. It is better than just 2 teams, based on some computer formula using human polls, however we will never have difinitive championships until we have an expanded playoff.
The difinitive playoff would include all major conference champions, then every team earning the automatic bid would have earned it on the field of play! Win and you are in.
Of course, given that we only have those 5 major conferences, we would be able to allow for 3 at large, somewhat subjective selections. That said, no major conference school could claim to have been “screwed” by a system that gives an automatic bid to the conference championship!
Any computer, or committee system is going to always be filled with controversy!