In all truthfulness I am writing this a couple hours after I just got back from Clemson, South Carolina, where I watched our Gamecocks secure their 6th straight victory this season, beating #12 Clemson in Death Valley. We finished the season off 9-3, with wins over 3 ranked teams depending on how the rankings shake out this Tuesday. This will more than likely have been posted after the rankings release. So much so we might even know how the playoffs officially shaked out. But all I know is that Carolina’s work is done, and it is up to the committee now. In the meantime, I would like to talk about this new playoff format as the inaugural 12-team playoff is approaching from as unbiased a perspective as I can.
Firstly, a ton of good is coming from this. I personally cannot think of a more exciting college football season than this in my lifetime. So many more teams have much more to play for than ever before, leading to the games being much more competitive (with probably some help from NIL and the transfer portal). The addition of eight more teams with a shot to win the national championship has caused pure chaos, and it has been a football fan’s dream. No more Florida St drama about an undefeated Power 5 conference champion getting left out, we have enough room for that. It will probably be even more difficult to pick than usual, but at least the cream of the crop will all be in regardless. Or so we think.
At the time of writing this, Texas is about to beat Texas A&M, finishing SEC play with one loss to a very good Georgia team. This will secure them into the playoffs this year. Sounds like an amazing year and a team that should be a favorite to win it all. Yet it isn’t really that simple. They’ve played two ranked teams; A&M who they are beating tonight, and Georgia who they lost to. That is an extremely low number compared to the rest of the SEC. Georgia might seem great, but they had to go to eight overtimes last night to beat unranked Georgia Tech, AT HOME, and have two losses on the season as well (Alabama and Ole Miss). Both Alabama and Ole Miss have three losses, with Alabama losing to both unranked Vanderbilt and unranked Oklahoma, and Ole Miss losing to unranked Kentucky and unranked Florida. Tennessee is two-loss, but against the only two teams currently ranked (Alabama and Georgia) they went 1-1, and lost to unranked Arkansas as well. South Carolina is three-loss with three ranked wins, but also a loss to unranked LSU. How do you make sense of that? And that is just the SEC.
Looking at the rest of the country, Ohio State just lost to unranked Michigan, giving them two losses. Penn State and Indiana only have one loss apiece, both to Ohio State, but Penn State only has one ranked win, and Indiana has zero. Notre Dame has one loss, but only beat one currently ranked team (Texas A&M) and lost to a mediocre MAC school (Northern Illinois). Miami has two losses, both to unranked teams (Georgia Tech and Syracuse), and has zero ranked wins. SMU only has one loss to a ranked BYU, but zero wins over currently ranked teams. Boise State has one loss as well to the #1 team in the country (Oregon), but only has one ranked win (UNLV). Clemson now has three losses, with zero wins over ranked opponents. The only team I can confidently say has an argument to be the favorite is Oregon, who is the only undefeated team and has three ranked wins. My point in all this being, besides Oregon, no one looks as dominant as teams have in years passed. How the committee is going to fill the 12-team playoff, I do not know. Many teams will be happy; some not so much. All I can say though is that whoever the playoff contains, it is sure to be a great few weeks of college football.
Hey y’all! My name is Nate and I’m a statistics major with a sport and entertainment management minor. I am one half of the show “On the Bench” at WUSC. If you love sports, especially Gamecock athletics, you should give it a listen!