Big Ten adjusts rules to allow Ohio State into Championship Game | Yahoo Sports College Podcast
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Pete Thamel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde discuss the Big Ten’s decision to change a rule to allow Ohio State into the Big Ten Championship Game, even though the Buckeyes have only played 5 games.
Video Transcript
DAN WETZEL: No game this year. And, hey, surprise, surprise, the Big Ten rewrote its rule book to help Ohio State.
PAT FORDE: What do you know? The Big Ten changed its mind? Really?
DAN WETZEL: Nebraska's sitting there going what the hell, man? Like, what-- ah, lesson learned, Cornhuskers. Lesson learned.
Look, I don't even-- I don't even mind they did it. But, like, this whole bit, will they do it? Of course they were going to do it.
PETE THAMEL: Yes.
DAN WETZEL: Do you guys pay attention to this sport at all? It's rigged. It's rigged. I'm letting you know, the phone call is coming from within the house.
[LAUGHTER]
PETE THAMEL: This was the least surprising thing ever to happen. Like I was talking to people at Ohio State this week. They're like, what do you think? And I'm like, what do you think? Come on. Like--
[LAUGHTER]
I wrote this in my column on Yahoo yesterday. Like, the Big Ten hasn't been around since 1896 because they made decisions to benefit Indiana, OK? And I do think there's a perfectly plausible argument for Ohio State. They won the head to head. If they lost to Michigan-- which probably wouldn't have happened-- but if they did, they still would have gone.
So their-- I get they made the rule. It makes sense to rewrite it. Their huge mistake was just not anticipating this and dropping the rule on a Friday two weeks ago when nobody would have noticed or thought about it, and then it just would have been gone. But instead it's just like self-manufactured drama, lack of anticipation, you know, just kind of things we've come to expect from the Big Ten during these COVID times.
PAT FORDE: Yeah. I mean, the facts of the matter that are obviously compelling in Ohio State's favor-- as you mentioned, they could have lost and still been the Big Ten East champion. So from that standpoint, sure.
What it is is, again, the Big Ten setting up a system that is rife with problems and not anticipating the problems that would come from it. You know, going back to when they announced the schedule, then stopped the season, then endured five weeks of absolute hell, and then restarted the season under a very faulty framework of we're going to play eight games in eight weeks with no safety net, and we're going to have really pretty strict protocols on this.
And then, OK, the protocols came into play and probably should have. I mean, I'm not saying they were irresponsibly strict protocols. But they bite the league in the butt. And then, oh, well, we've got to make a decision to try to get our team in the playoff.
So it's just-- it's a very bad look. It's very clumsy. It is absolutely doing a favor to the best team, the loudest team, the angriest team, and the biggest fan base, and that's where we are.
DAN WETZEL: Yeah. It's really like the Big Ten loves rules. They love meetings. They love rules. They're like the middle management of college football. They just-- let's, like-- one thing you learn in life is don't waste time on hypotheticals, right? Like, you know, what if this happens? Like, don't set a rule. [INAUDIBLE] will deal with that if the-- if the time comes.
The one thing this committee-- the playoff committee does, they have no rules. They really don't. They pretend they have all these rules, but they really don't. They come up with anything they want. They basically reverse engineer the logic. They say these are the four teams we want, and if it works out, this time we'll say it's strength of schedule. It's the eye test. It's their record on Tuesday nights. And whatever they come up with, they come up with, and then there's your team.
And so every week they trot out whoever the committee chair is, and people ask, wait, two weeks ago you said this. Yeah, well-- yeah, well, you know, we look at all factors. We like-- they're genius at just never getting bogged down.
The Big Ten got bogged down in this, and they should have never had this rule. And they said, oh well. You know, so I think they did the right thing. I just find it comical that we had to even pretend that they weren't going to do this. Let's not get carried away with, like, we're getting screwed here. Ohio State's the best team.
PAT FORDE: They're the best team, and they're going to get in. And now, of course, what this does also though, this is one more escalation of basically the imperative for Ohio State to win the whole thing. I mean, not the Big Ten whole thing, the whole thing the whole thing because if they don't, then everybody's going to say ha, ha, ha. You guys did everything in your power to bully, finagle, weasel, manipulate your way into the playoff. You better win it. And if you don't, everyone's going to laugh at you.
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