Tonight college football will crown its most legitimate champion in at least the past 65 years. From the fragmented polls of 1869-1945 . . . to the NCAA’s “consensus” five-poll system from 1950 to 1997 . . . to the computer/poll composite BCS era of 1998-2013 . . . we’ve arrived to a selection committee picking a four-team playoff field.
It's the best system yet. There can be little debate that the winner of Ohio State-Oregon in Texas tonight will actually be the best team in the country. Any lingering protests from Baylor and TCU supporters who believe their team could have done any better than Florida State against Oregon will be further silenced by another convincing Oregon victory tonight.
The end of the BCS era also means the end of the circular logic that benefited the SEC. From 2006 to 2012 the SEC’s best teams proved their worth by beating one another during the regular season, and then winning the BCS title. Results that did not fit the SEC-is-best narrative, in particular losses by its teams in non-BCS title bowl games, were dismissed as irrelevant because they didn't fit the narrative.
It would have happened this season under the old BCS system, which would have pitted Alabama against Florida State in the title game. The Crimson Tide would have crushed the Seminoles and the national narrative would have crowned the SEC again while ignoring the struggles of the West in the other bowl games. Oregon and Ohio State wouldn't have gotten their shot and they would have had few defenders in the SEC-media-football complex.
The playoffs mean less would and wouldn’t, more did and didn’t.
Ohio State and Oregon did get their chance and they did prove they were better than Alabama and Florida State; now they have to prove themselves against each other. The entirety of the SEC didn't get to ride the coattails of its best team making the BCS title game and beating what, depending on the year, might or might not have been the second-best team in the country. The public did want to see a playoff, as the astronomical TV ratings for the semifinals indicate.
That’s not to say that the SEC wasn’t the best conference for most of the BCS years, or that it’s not the best top-to-bottom league now. Rather, the playoff system allows more teams from other leagues to make their case. Now the national champion, from the SEC or not, can make a stronger claim to the crown than ever before.
I think it will be Oregon, by two touchdowns over the Buckeyes. Now let’s have an eight-team playoff so the next national champion will be even more legitimate than the Ducks.
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