First Quarter: Terms of College Football Playoff Engagement
Oh, you thought the College Football Playoff bids were contentious last year? Get ready for an escalated war of words this season. The posturing actually began last December, when the CFP selection committee had the unmitigated gall to (correctly) not invite Alabama—and it never really stopped. Now we are set for months of in-season politicking and statistical cherry-picking as everyone angles for seven available at-large bids.
This will be a rhetorical battle fought on two fronts: the Southeastern Conference vs. the Big Ten (1), which always simmers but currently boils; and then the SEC and Big Ten vs. everyone else (2), as those two seek to further distance themselves from the Big 12, ACC and others.
These will be the operative terms as the skirmishing begins:
Strength of schedule (3). The SEC has made this its rallying cry, hammering home the point with sufficient fervor that the CFP announced last week that it has “adjusted (SOS metric) to apply greater weight to games against strong opponents. An additional metric, record strength, has been added to the selection committee’s analysis to go beyond a team’s schedule strength to assess how a team performed against that schedule.”
Sounds reasonable. But there is no explanation of how the metrics will be calculated, what exactly was changed or how much those factors matter in relation to others the committee is tasked with evaluating. Primarily, the SEC and Big Ten have assailed the committee’s character and competence to the point of sowing doubt about its ability to do its job. Which is just a great way to start the year.
Here is the biggest problem with SOS in college football: There is a very small sample size of nonconference games against comparable competition. But if we’re really going to base SOS on what happens this season, as opposed to what transpired in past seasons or simple perception (“Arkansas is good because the SEC is good”), then 37 games should have a major impact on conference pecking order.
That’s the number of non-league games between Power 4 conference opponents plus Notre Dame, which equates to 74 outcomes (37 winners, 37 losers). The SEC has 10 matchups against the ACC, three against the Big Ten, three against the Big 12 and two against Notre Dame; the Big Ten plays four against the Big 12, three against the SEC, three against the ACC and two against Notre Dame; the ACC plays 10 against the SEC, seven against the Big 12, six against Notre Dame, three against the Big Ten and two against itself (North Carolina State-Virginia is a non-league game this year); and the Big 12 plays seven against the ACC, four against the Big Ten, three against the SEC and two against itself (Kansas State-Arizona is a non-league game).
Can other non-conference games make an impact on strength of schedule? Sure. The top teams in the American, Mountain West and Sun Belt could be considered quality opponents, depending how the season shakes out. And losses to Group of 6 teams could be factors as well—Stanford wasted no time weakening the ACC’s overall résumé Saturday with its loss to Hawaii.
But primarily, conference pecking order will hinge on those 37 P4 vs. P4 games. We have a loaded slate of those in Week 1, as will be discussed later in The Dash.
Eight vs. nine (4). This will be a moot point by 2026, at least where the SEC is concerned. The league announced last week that it will increase its number of conference games to nine, joining with the Big Ten and Big 12. Expect the ACC to also get onboard with that, although the math is tricky—a nine-game schedule with a 17-team league does not compute. (Games against Notre Dame could factor into league standings.)
But it will be a talking point this year. The Dash expects the Big Ten to keep pounding that point home —especially now that the SEC has essentially conceded that a nine-game slate is better than eight by moving to that scheduling model. The SEC’s best response will be …
Depth vs. quality at the top (5). Traditional power ratings in past years have portrayed the Big Ten as more top-heavy while the SEC was stronger in the middle and bottom of the league. Don’t be shocked if you hear SEC honks talking more about the number of teams ranked in, say, the top 40 of analytics rankings now, as opposed to the Top 25 rankings voted on by humans. If nearly every SEC team is in the top 40, then no losses to those teams can be bad, right? That’s how this game is played.
Expect the Big Ten to assert that its top tier shouldn’t be denigrated based on what the bottom of the league is doing or not doing. If Purdue, Northwestern and Maryland are bad, that doesn’t mean the top third of the league is bad—especially when that league has won the last two national championships.
Clemson, Miami and others in the ACC might be singing a similar tune. Fortunately for the Tigers and Hurricanes, they both have multiple marquee opportunities to prove themselves outside their league—Clemson against LSU and South Carolina, Miami against Notre Dame and Florida.
ESPN vs. Fox (6). The Big Ten vs. SEC is, in many ways, a proxy war being fought on behalf of their primary broadcast partners. Multiple sources told last month that Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti’s push for an unpopular playoff format with multiple automatic bids per conference was driven by trying to get Fox (and other Big Ten-affiliated networks) a more lucrative position in a postseason landscape that is dominated by ESPN.
After last year’s howling, when the Big Ten got four bids and the SEC three, expect the Saturday morning show rhetoric to be ratcheted up a notch. This may be especially true on Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff, which is adding Barstool Sports loudmouth Dave Portnoy.
A lot of people expect Portnoy, a Michigan fan, to serve as a minister of propaganda for the Big Ten, and/or an attack dog going after the SEC. Call it the Reverse Finebaum, if you will, although SEC Network linchpin Paul Finebaum is rarely reluctant to criticize teams in the league he primarily covers.
If the College Football Season Is Going to Be Like This …
Week Zero was supposed to be a light lift, with just five games involving FBS teams. And yet all hell broke loose from sea to shining sea—actually beyond that, from Europe to an island in the South Pacific. The highlights:
Iowa State defeated Kansas State in a Farmageddon matchup in Dublin. After a slop-tastic start, the second half was progressively more compelling and the Cyclones got a win that could resonate all season. But the real action came afterward outside, when a couple of K-State fans got into a fight in a parking lot.
They happened to be the father (Mark) and brother (Anthony) of Wildcats quarterback Avery Johnson (7).
While jokes could be made about this being a moment of family fisticuffs, it had to be a mortifying experience for the QB and the rest of the family. The combatants released an apologetic joint statement Sunday. Maybe they should watch K-State’s Saturday home opener at home—like, in the living room, not the stadium. Ground them for a week.
Next, Dan Mullen (8) had his return to coaching at UNLV after three seasons in the broadcast booth. His 30-point-favorite Rebels barely wheezed past Idaho State, an FCS program that has had two winning seasons in the last 21 years. While third-year coach Cody Hawkins has that program pointed in the right direction, it wasn’t a great first impression for the Mullen Era to give up 555 yards to the Bengals. Always remember, TV analysts are undefeated.
In another debut of a coach coming out of cold storage, Stanford interim coach Frank Reich presided over a brutal loss to Hawaii. The remarkable story of Rainbow Warriors kicker Kansei Matsuzawa is noted at the top of this column, and the fortitude of injured quarterback Micah Alejado was inspiring. But Reich’s oversight of this game will earn him a non-coveted spot in the Dash Fourth Quarter.
Finally, when everyone thought the day’s events were concluded, we had this late-night mess in Montgomery (9): The FCS battle between ranked teams UC Davis and Mercer was stopped due to weather midway through the fourth quarter and it never resumed. The game was declared a “no contest,” with no winner and no loser and no statistics that counted. Davis, which traveled from California to Alabama for the game, was leading 23–17 at the stoppage point, and after roughly 90 minutes they just called the thing off. Thus we have what amounts to the first exhibition game in college football history.
The CFB Playoff As It Stands Now
This is how The Dash CFP bracket (10) stacks up today, before any meaningful results have come in. Next week could (and likely will) look completely different, but we’ve got to start somewhere.
First-round games at campus locations:
No. 12 seed Boise State at No. 5 Clemson
No. 11 seed Miami at No. 6 Ohio State
No. 10 seed Indiana at No. 7 seed Georgia
No. 9 seed LSU at No. 8 seed Arizona State
Quarterfinals:
No. 5 Clemson vs. No. 4 Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl
No. 6 Ohio State vs. No. 3 Alabama in the Orange Bowl
No. 7 Georgia vs. No. 2 Texas in the Sugar Bowl
No. 8 Arizona State vs. No. 1 Penn State in the Rose Bowl
Semifinals:
No. 4 Notre Dame vs. No. 1 Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl
No. 3 Alabama vs. No. 2 Texas in the Peach Bowl
Championship game:
No. 2 Texas vs. No. 1 Penn State in Miami
Champion: Penn State
