Call me crazy, but I think the College Football Playoff bracket should be determined on Dec. 8, 2024. That is the day we colloquially call Selection Sunday. At that point, we’ll know the results of every single regular-season matchup and all the conference championship games.
It is incredibly frustrating to have to spend another November arguing the difference between what actually happened on the field vs. what we think we know about various teams. Last year, Florida State won every game on its schedule only to be told by the CFP selection committee that it wasn’t as good as Alabama without quarterback Jordan Travis (but was still somehow better than Georgia?) and couldn’t play for a national championship.
Now here we are in mid-November, and pundits and fans are arguing against the inclusion of 10-0 Indiana because it doesn’t have any signature wins on its resume — in favor of teams like Georgia and Tennessee that have two losses apiece. We shouldn’t pick the Playoff teams in August based on preseason prognostications and the number of five-star players on various rosters. I also don’t think we should say that SEC team X is better than Big Ten team Y simply because of a hypothetical betting line set by Vegas.
Just because the top of the SEC is usually filled with elite teams doesn’t mean that this year’s top-ranked teams are that. Alabama’s loss to Vanderbilt, Ole Miss’s loss to Kentucky and Tennessee’s loss to Arkansas (which lost to an Oklahoma State team that is 0-7 in Big 12 play) show these are not the teams of years’ past.
Hell, Texas is ranked third in the nation with zero top-25 wins. Notre Dame has more wins against ranked SEC opponents than the Longhorns, but fans aren’t pointing their pitchforks at Texas (or even Penn State, who is basically Texas-in-the-North). The ire is directed at Indiana — and this is a particularly dumb time to be angry, considering the Hoosiers are about to play the game that will make or break their season on Saturday, against the Buckeyes.
And Indiana can’t help its schedule. After a decade spent fighting for one to three league wins in the basement of the Big Ten East, the Hoosiers finally got a schedule that was much more manageable for them and one that was balanced based on historical trends. And even so, Indiana still drew a schedule that featured Ohio State and both participants in last year’s national title game (Michigan and Washington). There was no way of knowing last fall when the 2024 Big Ten schedule was unveiled that both coaches would leave and both programs would be in rebuild mode. Indiana can only play the teams on its schedule, and it just so happens that the Hoosiers drew six opponents who are currently the worst six teams in the Big Ten standings.
That doesn’t mean Indiana is not worthy of the Playoff, though. It should matter that the Hoosiers have won every game they’ve played, and that they’ve dominated opponents. They rank second in FBS in ESPN’s game control metric and sixth in strength of record, which means that they are significantly overperforming the average Top 25 team facing their schedule this year. And if they get blown out by Ohio State on Saturday, their case to be in would take a big hit — which would be fine, because games are supposed to mean something.
What teams have done on the field should matter. I am sick and tired of the idea that Indiana would be near the bottom of the SEC standings if it played in that conference. I am sick and tired of the idea that the SEC’s two-loss merry-go-round of teams are inherently better than the Hoosiers (or Penn State or Miami or anyone else for that matter) simply because they’d be favored against them in a hypothetical matchup. If we went by Vegas odds, there would never be any need to actually play any games. Alabama was favored over Vanderbilt by 22.5 points, so that’s all we need to know, right?
The beauty of the 12-team College Football Playoff is supposed to be that we can determine a national champion on the field. In certain seasons over the past decade, there was a chance that the nation’s best team was not among the top four seeds. It’s far less likely that we’ll have a bracket with five conference champions and seven at-large teams that leaves out someone who might actually be the best team in the country that particular season.
Despite the alarmist rhetoric, that’s not going to happen this year. Georgia is well-positioned to make the field after its win over Tennessee. And Texas, a team with no top-25 wins and a lopsided loss to Georgia, would likely not fit that billing if the Longhorns lose to Texas A&M in the regular-season finale, either. Some of the SEC teams in the mix right now already have two losses and might take a third by the end of rivalry weekend. I’m not saying there’s a magic number of losses that should disqualify a team from the Playoff, but we can’t pretend they haven’t happened.
Being one of the best teams in the country is not just a hypothetical that can withstand any number of losses. At some point, if you’ve lost to the only good teams on your resume (and especially if you’ve lost to bad teams), you are simply not one of the nation’s best.
This is why teams suit up and play each other. There’s something at stake. If we want the regular season to be meaningful, then let its results matter — and let that guide the debate.
