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The first go-round of the College Football Playoff caught us all off-guard a year ago. We spent most of the time arguing about why Ohio State didn’t even belong in the playoff over TCU or Baylor and then the Buckeyes and go and win the whole thing with back-to-back upsets of Alabama and Oregon.
Much like seeing a movie for the second time, we’d like to think we know a little bit more about how the second version of the playoffs are going to go this year. They start Thursday, with Clemson playing Oklahoma and Alabama playing Michigan State.
Here are some questions we want answered with the second season of the College Football Playoff now upon us:
Does Clemson really deserve to be No. 1? An undefeated regular season is a convincing argument, of course, but we can’t help wonder about their strength of schedule. Clemson ended up playing only three ranked teams – Notre Dame, Florida State and North Carolina – and even had a pretty close call against a very bad 3-9 South Carolina toward the end of the season. In comparison, Michigan State played four ranked teams (4-0 against those teams), Oklahoma played five (5-0), and Alabama played seven (6-1). Of course, those three teams all lost one game during the course of their season. But the playoffs will give Clemson a chance to prove their worth.
Has the committee done its job correctly and fairly? Just two years of a body of work is probably not enough time to make this evaluation, and with biased fans everywhere, it’s hard to get an unbiased opinion. We do already know that the CFP committee is not afraid to make unpopular choices each week with their top four, as we saw when two SEC teams were ranked in the top four in the first College Football Playoff poll released this season. (LSU didn’t stick around long.)
The true answer to this will most likely depend on how the games go on Thursday. Since these are supposed to be the four best teams in the country, close games should be expected. If someone gets blown out badly, there might be some whining over their selection in the first place.
Will the Big Ten win the national championship again? Ohio State was a surprise winner last year and carried its Big Ten banner proudly. By comparative purposes though, if Michigan State were to win a title this year, it might even be more surprising. Most people believe the Spartans are the fourth-best team in this group. They are a 10-point underdog to Alabama in the semifinals and would be an underdog again to either Oklahoma or Clemson in the final. But the Big Ten has surprised us once, and they are certainly capable of doing it again.
If Alabama loses, at what point is the SEC no longer the best conference in the nation? How to decide which conference is “the best” will always and forever be up for debate. Because of the SEC’s seven-year occupation of the national title from 2006 to 2012, the SEC likes to point to championships as the defining marker for conference value. But those championships were not won in a playoff. If winning a title through a playoff system makes for a “truer” champion and if the SEC is again unable to get there this year, what does that say about the conference? Is it any cause for concern? Or is it only cause for concern if the Big Ten wins it all again?
Should we keep the playoffs to just four teams? With five power conferences but only four playoff spots, at least one conference is going to be left out every year, and that’s not even taking into account independents like Notre Dame. Is that right? Is that fair? While the chance at the national title has now expanded from two to four teams, one gets the sense that sooner or later someone is going to demand that it be expanded even further.
Would an eight-team playoff be better? We won’t find the answer to this question this year or next, or probably even in the next few years beyond that. It took us years to get to the BCS system, then another decade to get past that from two teams to four. With eight teams, no Power Five conference nor deserving independent would be left out and there may even be room for some at-large selections. It’s a scenario worth exploring.
Christine Wang is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. She covers Auburn, Arkansas and Ole Miss.
