For weeks, Florida State fans have howled as the playoff committee has continued to drop the Noles after unimpressive performances. However, FSU is still in the playoff each and every week, and with the win over Georgia Tech in the ACC title game, Florida State will be in the top four tomorrow afternoon when the rankings are revealed.
So what if Florida State is 3 instead of 2 or 1, they are in the playoff, and if they are as good as they think they are, then they can win two games and win their second straight national title.
There is a team that is on the brink of being left out that will have a huge argument: Baylor.
Now I don't care at all about the Big 12, which only has 10 teams and plays no conference title game. I don't think the conference is that good. However, Baylor is 11-1 this season and will share the Big 12 title with TCU. Baylor will win the tie-breaker with the Horned Frogs because of their head to head victory over TCU earlier this season, but unless the playoff committee does something dramatic tomorrow morning, the Bears will not be in the Final Four.
Coming into this week, TCU was ranked #3 and Baylor was ranked #6. With no significant upsets on Championship weekend, it seems unlikely that the committee's opinion of Baylor will change dramatically enough to correct this error.
The committee could chicken out of this debate and simply give the number 4 spot in the playoff to Ohio State, who won the Big 10 Championship in convincing fashion over Wisconsin. In that scenario, Alabama and Ohio State would meet in the Sugar Bowl, while FSU and Oregon would face off in the Rose Bowl and both Big 12 schools would be left out of the playoff.
Before the season started, all we heard about was that the committee was going to place a high value on head to head meetings and winning your conference, but in their first attempt at creating a legitimate college football playoff, the committee seems to be abandoning their own criteria.
A week after coming back from a 24 point fourth quarter deficit to beat TCU, Baylor lost on the road to West Virginia. While West Virginia might not be the best team in the country, they are a solid football team who is tough to beat at home. There is no way that you could argue that loss is so bad that it should negate the head to head victory that Baylor holds over TCU.
If you want to talk about bad losses, Ohio State has by far the worst loss of any of the contenders when they lost at home to a bad Virginia Tech team early in the season.
I think the problem with this process has been the week to week rankings. The committee has been forced to give you their stream of consciousness thoughts on the season, before there is complete picture to look at. If the committee decides that Baylor's victory over Kansas State in the final game of the season makes their body of work stronger than TCU, they not only have to drop TCU who won 55-3 and did nothing wrong as the number three team in the country, but they have to move Baylor above Ohio State who won the Big 10 title game 45-0. In this scenario, both Ohio State and TCU would feel like they got shafted.
I think it would just be better if the committee came out at the end of the season and said here are your four teams, have a great Christmas. Of course, that would mean that ESPN wouldn't have their weekly show that creates so much hype and conversation for their network.
Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. I said at the beginning of the season that this would be the hardest task for the committee because they were basically making things up as they went.
Here is how I think it will play out. I think the committee will keep everything exactly like they had it on Tuesday. They really seem to want FSU and Alabama to meet in New Orleans which would put Oregon and TCU playing in the Rose Bowl.
The committee would probably match up Ohio State and TCU in the Fiesta Bowl in a consolation game.
The sport and ESPN is going to get what they want either way, we are going to spend the next week discussing what happens tomorrow at 12:30 pm.
