The upcoming college football season will usher in a new era regarding how the sport crowns its national champion. No longer will a handful of esoteric computer models, whose formulae are known only to a handful of programmers, play a part in ranking teams. The Bowl Championship Series, which gave us 16 national champions during its reign, is being replaced with the new College Football Playoff, a four-team tournament that is as close as it’s ever been to determining major college football’s best team on the field, not through polls.
The four participating teams under this new format will be determined by a selection committee in much the same way the field for the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournament are put together. The members of this 13-person committee will include one athletic director from each of the 5 major conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac-12, SEC) as well as former players, coaches and school administrators.
Perhaps the most significant variable the committee will have to take into account when analyzing a team’s body of work going into the postseason is strength of schedule. After all, the caliber of opponents you play and how you fare against them are both pretty accurate measures of worthiness when it comes to being included in the national championship conversation. With schools desperate to pass the end-of-season eyeball test, is this going to lead to tougher non-conference schedules, especially amongst the game’s perennial powers?
Starting in 2016, the SEC is requiring that all 14 schools play at least one non-conference game against a team in one of the other four major conferences. Both the Big XII and Pac-12 have moved to nine-game conference schedules, and the Big Ten has announced that it will be doing the same starting with the 2016-17 season. Much of Alabama head coach Nick Saban’s comments during SEC media days this week focused on the need for teams from power conferences to implement more quality into the out-of-conference opponents they face year in and year out.
Transitioning to 2014, which preseason favorites have schedules that could help them in the eyes of the committee and which ones might get hurt should they be, if I may borrow a term from college basketball, on the bubble? Some of my contenders and pretenders for major college football’s first playoff are listed below.
New College Football Playoff – The Contenders
Ohio State
Credit the Buckeyes for scheduling all four of their out-of-conference games against FBS teams. Trust me, they’re an exception to the rule. They open the season with Navy at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, and then play Virginia Tech, Kent State, and Cincinnati, all at home. Navy is the strongest of the service academy teams, and both the Hokies and Bearcats are teams that could sneak up on OSU if they overlook them.
Florida State
The Seminoles have their Heisman trophy winning quarterback Jameis Winston back and they have a schedule that is no cakewalk by any stretch. Their season opener takes them to the home of the Dallas Cowboys, AT&T Stadium, for a neutral site clash with Oklahoma State, who had their own designs on the national title last year before faltering late in the season. The dud of the slate is a Week 2 mismatch against The Citadel. Notre Dame comes to Tallahassee in October the week before a Thursday night road test at ACC newcomer Louisville. Clemson is looking for revenge after getting blown out at home and road games at the Orange Bowl with Miami are never easy.
The SEC Champion
It isn’t a stretch to come to the conclusion that there’ll be at least one team from the SEC in the four-team playoff, perhaps two. Of my three favorites out of the conference, Alabama, Auburn and LSU, I like the Crimson Tide’s schedule the most. Even though the non-conference opponents are not much to write home about, with Florida Atlantic, Southern Miss, and Western Carolina coming to town, the SEC is always a week-by-week gauntlet that makes it easier for the conference heavyweights to get away with weak non-league contests.
The Tide will have to contend with consecutive road games (with a bye week in between) against Tennessee and LSU, and the Tigers have added seats in the offseason to an already loud stadium, stretching capacity above 100,000. Alabama was most likely a returned missed field goal for a touchdown away from the BCS title game last year, and despite the question marks at quarterback now that AJ McCarron has graduated, there’s really no reason to believe that Nick Saban’s guys aren’t a favorite to represent college football’s deepest conference in the Playoff.
Oklahoma
Similar to Ohio State, the Sooners have no FCS schools on the schedule. They even go on the road to face in-state foe Tulsa, something a lot of big time programs are wary of doing. Tennessee comes to Norman in September looking to reestablish itself as an SEC power. They open Big XII play with three straight games away from home, 2 true road games against West Virginia and TCU, then the Red River Rivalry game with Texas at the Cotton Bowl.
New College Football Playoff – The Pretenders
Oregon
Even though Heisman candidate Marcus Mariota returns for the Ducks, there are two things that compel me to put them in the “pretender” category. Firstly, their schedule will hamper them. Despite an early season home showdown with defending Big Ten champion Michigan State, their other two non-conference games are against South Dakota and Wyoming. Second, Oregon is one of those teams that somehow figures out a way almost every year to stumble against a team they’re favored against.
Michigan State
Other than the road date with Oregon, the Spartans’ non-league lineup is abysmal, with home games against Jacksonville State, Eastern Michigan, and Wyoming. The vaunted defense that propelled them to the Rose Bowl last year has lost seven starters to graduation/NFL Draft. However, if they do somehow escape Eugene with a win and figure out a way to capture a second straight Big Ten title, MSU might end up promoting themselves to where I have Ohio State.
Any Undefeated Non Big-5 Team
This could become the first major controversy of the new system. The Group of Five conferences, as they are called, do have a seat at the table in that the highest ranked team from those conferences is guaranteed a slot at one of the major bowls formerly known as BCS bowls. Should one of these teams go undefeated in the regular season and win their conference title game, will the selection committee consider including that school in the four-team playoff above even a major conference runner-up, especially if it’s an SEC team with one loss?
The only way it would happen is if this trend towards increasingly difficult schedules amongst the perennial powers leads them to be less averse to scheduling teams capable of upsets like Boise State or Northern Illinois. Unless a Group of Five team has one, maybe even two marquee wins against teams from the power leagues in addition to having an unblemished regular season, I don’t see it as a feasible possibility that smaller FBS conference teams have a shot at being included in the Playoff.
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