Ohio State Football: Is CFP system broken?

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the term same old same old is used to say something has not changed. It is boring and annoying, but you really didn’t expect anything to change. This is an apt description of the College Football Playoff committee.

While they are not boring, the committee is certainly annoying and we really don’t expect anything to change with them. They never fail to deliver us the same old same old each of the last few years.

I’m convinced to be chosen as the CFP committee chairman you must be able to talk out of both sides of your mouth. The latest to hold the position is Gary Barta, the athletic director at Iowa. We’re finding he is as good as any former leader of the committee at double talk.

When the latest set of rankings were released the other day, Barta explained Oregon is in front of the Ohio State football team because of their win over the Buckeyes. That makes perfect sense. He then said despite their loss to Michigan State just ten days previous, Michigan looks like a more complete team and is the reason they are one spot ahead of the Spartans.

Same old same old from the committee. Use one set of criteria for justifying a team being ahead of another, while applying a completely different standard when talking about other teams.

The committee chair also tends to say some things that cause you to scratch your head because they make little sense. Barta pointed to Oregon’s quarterback play as something they like and cites this as another reason why they have the Ducks ahead of the Ohio State football team.

Ok, so, I’m fine with someone saying Anthony Brown is having a good season because it is true. But, to use that as a reason to place one team ahead of another when that other team’s quarterback has a rating thirty points higher makes no sense at all.

C.J. Stroud’s quarterback rating (QBR) is THIRTY points higher than Anthony Brown’s. You don’t use something like this to separate teams when both are having good seasons. The reasoning makes no sense, but it is the same old same old from the committee.

I don’t want to get into claiming the committee is biased for or against one particular conference or another, but there is one other thing Barta said that doesn’t make a lot of sense. When asked about Oregon or the Ohio State football team moving ahead of second-place Alabama, he said none of the teams really did anything to show that order should be any different.

Really? Oregon went on the road and beat four-win Washington in a rainstorm by ten points. Ohio State football played at Nebraska and defeated them by a bigger margin than any other team the Cornhuskers have faced. The Crimson Tide struggled to a six-point win at home against four-win LSU.

A game that saw Bama rush for a grand total of six yards. Even if you take away yardage lost to sacks, they gained a paltry 28 yards on 15 carries on the ground. How Barta sits there and, with a straight face, says none of those three teams did anything to merit a change in the rankings is beyond me. We’ve seen this time and again from the committee. Same old same old.

I’ve said for a few years now that the system is broken. Too much talking out of both sides of their mouth. Too much of the look test. Too much that makes no sense. I’m very much a proponent of a standardized rating system.

One that takes out the human element and is based on a points system. Would it be perfect? No, certainly not. But, it would take away the same old same old we get each year from the College Football Playoff committee. You know what? I may just do one myself and share the results here in a few weeks. Stay tuned, folks.