ROWDY TIME SPORTS

I want TCU to get into this college football playoff.

I am not saying this because this school hails from the city I spent the first 14 years of my life in – it’s not about that. Okay, it’s not ENTIRELY about that.

I want it because of the outrage it will spark – and prove what anyone who didn’t spend their developing years hitting people with your helmet-wearing head could see from the beginning: That this newfangled college football playoff system is a joke.

It boggles my mind to think people thought that just instituting a four-team elimination tournament would be so many light years better than the BCS and all complaining about who deserves to get in will vanish. There will be four obviously deserving teams to get those spots every year and that will be that.

Instead, with a week left, we have one unbeaten that people are saying isn’t even worthy of getting in the field at all followed by a glut of one-loss teams so desperate to prove their case that they’re even hiring PR firms for them.

Did we really think there would be no arguments over a four-team field when even a 64-68 team field gives reason for bickering? (What, you thought I was over SMU getting snubbed last year? You poor naive souls.)

So now we have a situation where it looks like TCU will get into the mini-brakcet over a Baylor team that beat the Frogs and can finish tied with them for the championship, rendering head-to-head matchups completely worthless in college football.

It looked even more ridiculous a week ago. Mississippi State was not only looking to get into the field, but looking at a semifinal rematch with conference foe Alabama, who gave them their first loss of the year. Ole Miss squashed any chance of that happening.

But the controversy will not stop by any means. Baylor choosing to get a PR firm to plead their case likely backfired and cost them some votes. Nice to see hubris get kicked in the face like that, but it displays the big issue: When you allow the human element to be the major factor, getting the fair resolution is pretty much impossible.

Whit only four teams getting in, those that miss out can make an even bigger case than the ones who get left out of the basketball tournament that had they gotten in, they could have won it.

So, once again there will not be an undisputed champion in college football this year, even though the one that does win it can trumpet winning this phony tournament as proof that they are. It won’t stop the fans at Baylor, Ohio State and who knows where else from saying they got the screwjob.

And maybe that will be enough to fix the system they rushed into place. Expand the field to at least eight teams. Allow only conference champions to get in, with set tiebreakers for the champion like head-to-head matchups. Establish a completely objective and SIMPLE system for what the best conferences are to determine which champions get the spots: Points per game scored by the conference, in conference games only, seems fair.

Will those that run college football come to their senses and establish something like this? Probably not.

Maybe I need to hire a PR firm to plead my case. Anyone willing to help me take up a collection?

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