Ohio State Football: Providing the fix to flawed CFP system

The Ohio State football team is in prime position for the CFP, but the system is flawed and needs to be fixed sooner rather than later. Here’s why.

We are just hours away from the first release of the 2019 CFP rankings determined by the beloved selection committee. But what will be held in the highest esteem this season when considering and evaluating some of the sport’s best?

Will it be the strength of resume? The eye test? Will losses to unranked teams carry heavy weight? Do preconceived notions based on last year’s results come into play?

These are some of the questions the country has been pondering and debating over the past few weeks. Tuesday evening they will begin to be answered as the CFP Top 25 teams are revealed.

What if there was a world where we didn’t have to wonder those questions. Where the subjectivity and ever-changing criteria became concrete and dependable rather than narrative driven and seemingly biased?

There is a way to fix this flawed CFP system and it begins with one certain issue. No system is perfect, but the lasting ones have a solid foundation which this system desperately needs.

FOX College Football Analyst Urban Meyer explained what he believes to be wrong with the system yesterday during their coverage of the day of CFB. Meyer is correct in his analysis and the committee and NCAA should take notice.

One of the biggest problems in today’s world of college football is scheduling. Some conferences are required to play nine league games and not allowed to schedule FCS opponents, while others play eight conference games plus an FCS opponent, sometimes two.

Teams doing the latter are then positioning themselves to only have to go win 1-3 big games each year to be a national champion.

How is it fair to the teams in the Big Ten, PAC-12 and Big 12 when all play nine conference games and marquee non conference matchups, some even on the road.

How dare a team go on the road before league play. The SEC, especially, has gotten away with doing such things to bolster their resumes and then win a big game or two when in reality it’s smoke and mirrors.

Not taking anything away from the talent in those conferences, but in today’s format with a four team playoff there must be uniform scheduling and concrete criteria set in stone by the CFP committee. Athletic directors, head coaches, and teams should have rules to follow when scheduling and as the season progresses so they know what boxes to check along the way.

For example, this season Michigan played Notre Dame in the second leg of a home and home and then also has Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Iowa and Ohio State on their schedule. Ohio State in years prior has played at Oklahoma and at Virginia Tech and has matchups with Oregon and Texas on tap in the future.

All of this takes place while still having nine regular season conference games.

Conferences like the SEC finesse their scheduling by playing in a matchup with a big brand on a neutral site. The premise of playing a “good” team often times just carried by their brand, is masked by a neutral site rather than going home and home with a real Power 5 opponent.

Alabama has been very diligent in their scheduling strategy over the years. During Nick Saban’s tenure the Tide have played two true non conference road games.

The Tide also has their bye week the Saturday before playing rival LSU and then hosts an FCS squad the week before Auburn in the Iron Bowl.

For comparison, the Buckeyes play the Nittany Lions in what is shaping up to be a Top-4 showdown the Saturday before The Game in Ann Arbor in what’s widely regarded as the greatest rivalry in all of sport. Such events would appear to be blasphemy in the SEC, yet they get away with it because more often than not they win the big games.

Being nearly required to be undefeated in college football simply should not be the reality for teams. It’s too difficult to do year in and year out with the grueling schedule some teams have to play while others play their second and third string guys for two and a half quarters.

Whether or not the CFP gets expanded or remains the same, one thing must change and that is the scheduling rules. Teams should either play eight or nine conference games and the rules should be uniform throughout each of the Power 5 conferences.

The playing field would be leveled and the new notions of four “best” or “deserving” would be decided as teams that rise to the top would be considered both the best and most deserving.

What if the committee is left with the scenario of Alabama, LSU and Georgia all having one loss at the end of the season. Ohio State and Clemson go undefeated but Oklahoma and Oregon both win their conferences with one loss.

Plus Penn State is sitting there with one loss to the arguable No. 1 team in the country. What do you do?

All of those teams would be “deserving” of a playoff spot, but what if Clemson played a Power 5 opponent instead of Wofford yesterday and lost. Or the same for one of the SEC schools in place of their FCS game(s).

It would allow for a more direct comparison rather than the subjective and biased selections based on the eye test since there’s no real way to differentiate between the teams in question.

Under that scenario, the CFP would consist of Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia and Alabama. The Tide’s wins over LSU and Auburn would give them the edge over Oregon who lost to Auburn but beat Utah and won the PAC-12.

Fair or not, the Ducks won their conference and avoided the “abysmal” loss that has plagued teams on the bubble in recent years and should be rewarded.

Unfortunately for Oregon, what should happen isn’t always what does happen. It’s time for the flawed, inconsistent system of the CFP to be changed and rebuilt from the ground up with the foundation being uniform scheduling throughout the Power 5 conferences.