By Hunt Palmer
College football’s talkin’ season continues to border on absurdity.
Commissioners and coaches are taking to ballroom microphones and bloviating ideas and agendas week after week. Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti has drawn the ire of most scribes and fans with his College Football Playoff proposal that resembles third grade homework more closely than a playoff bracket.
Pettiti’s pitch is 4+4+2+2+1+3.
The pair of fours correspond with SEC and Big Ten bids assuring both leagues four qualifiers for the 16-team field. You’ll get no argument from this writer on the merits of the Big Ten and SEC versus other leagues, but the process Pettiti is pitching to get the four auto-bids is unreasonable.
He suggests both Big Ten Championship Game qualifiers are in. Same would go for the SEC. Ok, I follow.
He suggests the third and sixth place teams play for a spot and the fourth and fifth place teams play for a spot.
He’s lost me.
The sixth-place team in a league doesn’t merit a swing at a national title. Not in college football.
The college football regular season has always carried more weight than any in American sport. Petitti’s proposal would all but neuter it.
For reference, last season’s sixth place Big Ten team was an Iowa team that finished 8-5 with a loss to a terrible UCLA team. The Hawkeyes did not play Oregon, Penn State or Indiana, the three Big Ten playoff teams, and lost to Ohio State, 35-7.
A shot at the playoffs for that? No, thanks.
In the SEC, the sixth-place finisher would have been 8-4 LSU, an Ole Miss team that lost to Kentucky (1-7 SEC), South Carolina or Missouri whose best win was a double-overtime home W against Vanderbilt.
Again, no thanks.
How about 2023?
The sixth-place team in the Big Ten was a 7-5 Northwestern team that lost 24-7 to Rutgers and had wins over Howard and UTEP. Tennessee, the SEC’s No. 6 finisher, went 8-4 and was outscored by Georgia, Alabama and Missouri 108-37.
I’m for high-stakes matchups in December to help decide a championship, but we can’t just throw out September and October altogether in the process.
Until we get rid of 65-point FCS beatdowns in the conference and homecoming weekends where Power Conference stadium are empty in the third quarter, nine wins needs to be the absolute baseline for a shot at a national title. Allowing sixth-place teams to do so destroys the importance of playing well in the regular season.
Last year’s Ole Miss team was a great example.
The Rebels loaded up in the transfer portal with high-level players from Florida, Texas A&M and Alabama. The result was seven All-SEC players and eight NFL Draft picks. That team proved when Georgia came to Oxford that it could play with any team in the country.
They also didn’t beat Kentucky or Florida who combined to go 5-11 in the league. Pair with a loss to LSU where the Rebels trailed for 0:00 of game action, and your shot at the playoffs is toast.
That’s college football.
Pettiti is employed by the Big Ten and is simply stumping for his own interests. That’s obvious and understandable. However, reasonable minds can dismiss this charade rather quickly.
Want to play for a title? Finish higher than sixth.
More LSU Sports
