two years ago, major-college football finally adopted a playoff system, a historic move that would surely end the annual bickering over who should get to play for the national championship. shockingly, the arguing goes on. with roughly three weeks to go before this season<u+2019>s college football playoff field is announced, there is once again a bottleneck of one- and even two-loss teams with a plausible path to the tournament. (plus, as always, alabama.) what makes this year<u+2019>s race such a gordian knot isn<u+2019>t so much the number of teams still in the running<u+2014>10 in our view (bolded below). the problem is a bizarre series of conference-standings entanglements and inconvenient game results that makes ranking the top four teams a doctorate-level test of logic. if you<u+2019>re of the opinion that the four best teams should make it, then ohio state and louisville , ranked nos. 2 and 5 tuesday in the latest cfp rankings, ought to be in. but neither school is likely to even reach its own conference-title game, let alone win it. in the buckeyes<u+2019> case, that would require no. 8 penn state to lose to rutgers (2-8) or michigan state (3-7); the cardinals would need no. 4 clemson to fall to 22-point underdog wake forest on saturday. if you believe that conference champions ought to have a leg up, fine. just bear in mind that you<u+2019>re in danger of building an inferior bracket. after no. 1 alabama , which is a safe bet to roll to another southeastern conference title, the playoff hopefuls that have a realistic shot at winning their conference are: clemson in the atlantic coast conference; no. 9 oklahoma and no. 14 west virginia in the big 12; no. 3 michigan and no. 7 wisconsin in the big ten and no. 6 washington in the pac-12. (western michigan, though undefeated, doesn<u+2019>t have a realistic shot, being from the lightly regarded mid-american conference.) even if those conferences all played out according to form<u+2014>a huge if, given that three of last week<u+2019>s top four teams all lost on saturday<u+2014>a playoff consisting solely of conference champions doesn<u+2019>t appear operable this year. the big 12 and pac-12 are too weak. oklahoma and west virginia haven<u+2019>t beaten anyone currently in the top 25 (although they face each other saturday), and washington<u+2019>s only such victory came on a controversial punt-return touchdown at utah. so whether you<u+2019>re a conference-champion zealot or a four-best-teams absolutist, your worldview has a bunch of holes in it this season. for the record, the cfp committee adheres to both schools of thought. when assessing comparable teams, the committee says it considers four factors: strength of schedule, head-to-head competition, results against common opponents and whether the teams involved won their conference title. <u+201c>those criteria are not weighed,<u+201d> said executive director bill hancock, <u+201c>but winning a conference championship is significant.<u+201d> he added that the committee can take a non-champion if it is <u+201c>unequivocally one of the best four teams in the country.<u+201d> at the heart of this entire conundrum is ohio state. incredibly, the buckeyes now have the shortest path of any team to reaching the playoff, despite not having a realistic path to the big ten championship game. if ohio state wins at michigan state and at home against michigan to finish 11-1, the buckeyes are almost certainly in, since they<u+2019>re already presumed to be the best one-loss team before even playing the wolverines, the best opponent on their schedule. ohio state also would be in the clubhouse<u+2014>no risk of losing in the big ten championship. but what then of penn state? the nittany lions have a loss to 6-4 pittsburgh and a 49-10 drubbing at the hands of michigan, but they beat ohio state and may well win the big ten. if the buckeyes are in the playoff field, shouldn<u+2019>t a team that beat them head-to-head and won their conference get in too? and if ohio state makes it via the best-four-teams rationale, what about louisville? the cardinals have arguably been equally impressive this season, and their one loss<u+2014>a nail biter at clemson<u+2014>trumps ohio state<u+2019>s. and we haven<u+2019>t even gotten into the potential riddles posed by, say, michigan beating ohio state but losing in the big ten title game. or neither clemson nor louisville winning the acc. the situation has once again exposed the one indisputable truth about this sport: the postseason will always be a matter of intense debate, no matter what system is in place. the football bowl subdivision has quadruple the teams that the nfl does, yet its regular season is 75% the length. irrational biases exist against teams that lose in november instead of september. and too many of college football<u+2019>s games tell us nothing: most major-conference schools waste two or three saturdays a year playing quasi-exhibitions against no-name competition in a blatant money grab. there just are so few data points with which to compare title contenders. put another way: imagine if the afc and nfc title games had to be set 3<u+00bd> weeks from today. write to darren everson at darren.everson@wsj.com
college football is a convoluted mess<u+2014>again - wsj
darren everson