GRAPEVINE, Texas -- Joy filled Ohio as woe flecked Texas on Sunday with the release of the first College Football Playoff field.
The Ohio State Buckeyes, moored at No. 16 in the rankings Oct. 28, finished a long climb into the four-team playoff by snaring the coveted No. 4 spot. Baylor and TCU, Big 12 members whose conference cannot stage a championship game to advance their case with the selection committee, landed on the melancholy fringe at Nos. 5 and 6, respectively.
Ohio State (12-1) will face No. 1 Alabama (12-1) on New Year's Day in one national semifinal, while No. 2 Oregon (12-1) will play No. 3 Florida State (13-0), the defending national champion, in another.
The four-team playoff is the product of an about-face from college football after 16 seasons in which the sport used a composite of human polls and computer rankings to produce the two teams that would meet for the national championship. The shift to the playoff system was an attempt to alleviate controversy, but instead it seems to have merely shifted the angst from the No. 2 and No. 3 teams to those occupying the No. 4 and No. 5 slots, the cutoff this season that divided exultation in Ohio from the tears in Texas.
Ohio State rode its loud 59-0 victory over Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game to a playoff spot and left Baylor (11-1) and TCU (11-1) on the outside as the 12-member selection committee wrapped up seven weeks of meetings near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport It also left Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby to explain the aftermath.
"We're smarting today," Bowlsby said after the final field was revealed.
The final rankings illustrated several changes by the committee from its previous weekly evaluations in the second half of the season. TCU, in particular, slid from No. 3 in the penultimate ranking released Dec. 2 to No. 6 -- even after a 55-3 win Saturday in Fort Worth over an Iowa State team that finished 2-10.
That plunge proved false the long-held assumption that ranked teams could maintain their position simply by winning. Replacing it was a reality in which the committee's evaluations could fluctuate from week to week based on a team's full body of work and strength of opponents. The committee work through then lens when it rearranged Nos. 3 through 6 in the final week from TCU, Florida State, Ohio State and Baylor to Florida State, Ohio State, Baylor and TCU.
"With TCU being No. 3 last week, we did say that those were very narrow," said Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long, chairman of the playoff committee. "It's hard to put just exactly how close they were. It was 3-A, B, C and D, so while the public may look at it and say they fell from 3 to 6, the committee doesn't see the fall as that far."
Long told ESPN after the rankings were announced that a 13th game gave the Ohio State another opportunity to impress the committee and pick up another win over a quality opponent.
Baylor finished at No. 5 while TCU was No. 6. Baylor had defeated TCU earlier this season, with coach Art Briles saying the Bears were the true Big 12 champion based on that victory. Long said the committee weighed the fact that Baylor and TCU were co-champions against other teams that were outright conference champions. TCU had been No. 3 in last week's rankings while the Buckeyes were No. 5.
"It was really about Ohio State's movement up. It was Ohio State's impression, their performance on the field that made a difference to the committee to move them up," Long said. "So it was really about Ohio State and not about TCU. ... Ohio State's performance in a 13th game gave them a quality win over a highly-ranked team that allowed them to move into that fourth spot."
Said Bowlsby: "I would say that human nature is that the most recent thing that occurs, in this case the most-recent achievements, are the most impactful. Ohio State's victory over Wisconsin was complete domination, and in that regard they played their way into the position they now enjoy."
The Buckeyes won most resoundingly Saturday, and that helped them overcome a 35-21 home loss to Virginia Tech (6-6) on Sept. 6 that had plagued Ohio State's perception all fall. That domination of Wisconsin, then ranked No. 13, "spoke volumes" to the committee, Long said, but so did another factor: "that Ohio State's nonconference schedule was stronger than Baylor's."
The Bears played 1-11 SMU of the first-year American Athletic Conference, 6-6 Northwestern State, from the second-tier FCS, and Buffalo (5-6) of the Mid-American Conference; Ohio State's nonconference schedule included FBS Independent Navy (6-5), Virginia Tech of the ACC, Cincinnati (9-3) of the AAC and MAC doormat Kent State (2-9).
Teams from the AAC, MAC, Conference USA, Sun Belt and Mountain West are part of the group of 5 and have only the feintest of chances of making the four-team playoff field.
But the highest-ranked group of 5 conference champion is guaranteed a spot in one of the four major bowls (outside of the playoff) determined by the CFP playoff committee.
This year that team is No. 20 Boise State (11-2), which will represent the Mountain West and the group of 5 in the Fiesta Bowl against Arizona.
The top three teams in the playoff four were "clear-cut," Long said, with Florida State actually rising a notch after beating then-No. 11 Georgia Tech, 37-35, in the ACC championship game. Florida State remains the only unbeaten team among the 128 in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). From there, though, "the discussion about the fourth team was long and spirited," Long said. "We ended at about 1 a.m. We convened again at 7:30 this [Sunday] morning."
The 12-member committee included 5 athletic directors, 3 former coaches and former U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, emphasized it would watch all relevant contests to identify four top teams. That commitment and expertise has not negated the anger from teams left outside the final playoff field.
"We certainly haven't been able to avoid controversy in going from two to four, and we wouldn't avoid controversy in going from four to eight," Bowlsby said.
The controversy that will simmer in Texas is centered on two issues, one broad and one arcane.
By NCAA rules, the Big 12 cannot stage the kind of title game that catapulted Ohio State because it has only 10 teams. "It appears we were penalized for not having a postseason championship game," Bowlsby said, subsequently acknowledging the tough task of the committee. "I wish we could have been advised of that."
The exclusion of TCU and Baylor already has led to talk of reform. In the offseason, the Big 12 could move to add a title game and remove its status as the lone major conference without one. To do so, it would require the conference to add an additional two teams or obtain a waiver from the NCAA.
In a second instance of outrage, more confined to the conference, Baylor Coach Art Briles said he believed it might have hindered the Big 12 that its bylaws declared Baylor and TCU co-champions even though Baylor beat TCU in Waco on Oct. 11.
"If you're going to slogan around and say 'One True Champion,' " as the Big 12 does, Briles said, "and all of a sudden you're going to go out the back door instead of the front? Don't say one thing and do another. That's my whole deal."
Bowlsby spent Saturday presenting conference-title trophies to both TCU in Fort Worth and Baylor in Waco, Texas, and he said the conference would revisit how it declares champions.
Long, however, said, "The fact they were co-champions in the Big 12 had no bearing, no bearing, on the decision" for the top four.
Though they will not compete in the playoff, both TCU and Baylor will play in major bowl games. TCU will square off against No. 9 Mississippi in the Peach Bowl on New Year's Eve, while Baylor will face No. 8 Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl Classic on New Year's Day.
Sports on 12/08/2014