Since I’ve enjoyed a watching some really great college football games this weekend – including watching my Aggies upset the Florida Gators – it really annoys me that the Big 10 and Pac 12 are starting their truncated seasons nearly a full month after the other conferences, will play fewer games, but are still eligible for the national championship playoffs. Injuries and weariness weigh heavily in the playoffs of any sports league. It is rarely the best team at the beginning of the season that wins it all. It’s usually the team that has the best players left playing at the end of the season. In this case, teams like Ohio State will end their season with two or more fewer games than the teams they might be playing. When the Big 10 and Pac 12 decided to not have a season, they should have been excluded from playoff contention. The fact that they decided to have a season after all is good for their players and their schools, but they made their choice.
On another note, I think I like the teams playing only conference games. Every game matters and there are much fewer lopsided games.
I disagree. The number of games in a season is not set in College in the first place and there is usually a full month of off time before the bowl games. The ACC and SEC will still have that month. I believe the Big Ten and I assume Pac Ten will have only 2 weeks or so of off time. I would argue that a lot of medium injuries will heal up in 4-5 weeks that won’t heal up in 2-3 weeks. The big ten championship is going to be 12/19. Id’ bet most every ACC and SEC team would prefer to play 10 games in the south than 8 in the north in November and December.
On the other hand, I would totally not feel particularly dis-respected if a 9-1 SEC team was ranked ahead of a 7-1 big ten team, and am pretty confident you will win those types of ‘tie-breakers’ among the selection committee.
The conferences that don’t play defense shouldn’t qualify for the playoff’s
That leaves out the SEC ( this year ) and the consistently awful Big 12 .
Have Ohio state play Penn State then Wisconsin , then Clemson and declare the winner National Champions .