Playoff Jockeying Begins

When the four-team playoff system to determine the college football national champion was established there were plenty of folks predicting two spots for the SEC and two spots for everyone else (little guys need not apply). Of course the season(s) will have to play out but the rest of college football cannot let the SEC be considered so much better than everyone else that its top two teams--heck even three teams--get to play for the national championship--even though we just had that happen three years ago. The key is to continue to offset the excellent job the SEC does promoting itself so that it is no longer given that the cream of the SEC is much better than champions from other conferences. The conference that has done the most to disrupt this notion, beyond what Florida State did on the football field last year, is the Big 12 and the Big 12 program that has been the most vocal is Oklahoma. One year ago OU coach Bob Stoops began the offensive by questioning just how good the SEC was when its bottom teams seem to stink year in and year out. Stoops blamed the writers for believing SEC "propaganda." Although he was correct the media just threw his argument back in his face as sour grapes. Stoops got the last laugh when his Sooners easily won the Sugar Bowl against favored Alabama this past January. then after Alabama coach Nick Saban attributed his team's performance in that game to not being up for a bowl game that did not have national championship implications, Stoops correctly ripped his counterpart for a lame excuse. And lame it was. But, again, these tit-for-tat quotes mean so much more than uncovering motive for a bowl game from last season. It is all about jockeying for the four spots in the playoff. The problem with this system or any system is that the top college football teams play different schedules. So computer numbers can only give us a portion of the picture. And so voters rely on their eyes but that is flawed as no voter can watch every game. How many Auburn games did experts watch last season? They were not expected to compete for a title so you can excuse folks for skipping games 1-3 (wins over Washington State, Arkansas State and Mississippi State). They lost game four by 14 to LSU and so after watching that game you could again excuse voters from watching Auburn's wins over Mississippi and Western Carolina. You get where I am going with this. Since it will be difficult to choose the four teams on years when we do not have four clear cut best teams--that is every year in college football history--the teams and conferences need to win the propaganda war now even before the season starts. And Alabama, who has enjoyed its recent status as king, needs to get the Sugar Bowl defeat out of the picture while OU must do the opposite. And every conference not named the SEC must promote itself better. And of course win on the field consistently through the season.