The College Football Playoff Selection Committee revealed the very first expanded 12-team playoff bracket.
And boy is it a controversial one.
Did we expect anything less? Alabama, which has long existed as a perennial power that almost seemed to hold rights to one spot in the old four-team College Football Playoff format, is beyond upset. The SEC, which believes it’s the best at football only got three teams into the playoffs while the coast-to-coast Big Ten got a Power 4 conference high of four teams in.
The Crimson Tide believe they deserve the at-large spot that went to SMU based on strength of schedule alone. They don’t want to discuss that embarrassing 24-3 loss to a mediocre Oklahoma squad a couple of weeks ago and how that could factor in when the committee weighed them versus an SMU team that made it to the ACC Championship Game this past weekend.
Cry us a river, and in the meantime, start playing nine conference games instead of eight in the SEC.
“I think one of the things I’ve mentioned throughout this football season is, if we don’t take strength of schedule into consideration, is there any benefit to scheduling really good teams in the future?” former Bama coach Nick Saban griped. “Here at Alabama, we’re supposed to play Notre Dame, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Florida State in the future outside the league. Those are great games for fans to see.”
There is no perfect college football playoff format. We can already see that when the next contract is up, the format will likely expand to 14 or 16 teams.
But in the meantime, fans in Texas have something to be excited about. New SEC members Longhorns, who faltered against Georgia in this past weekend’s SEC Championship Game, got in as the No.5 seed and will face 12-seed Clemson in the opening round for the right to face Arizona State in the Peach Bowl.
SMU, which still isn’t receiving a cut of the ACC money as a new member, will travel as the 11th seed to face No.6 Penn State in another opening-round game.
“It’s an exciting time in college football,” UT coach Steve Sarkisian said. “We’re fortunate that we’ve earned the right to be in the playoffs and compete with Clemson.”
