Big Ten, not polls, should decide College Football Playoff teams
The arrival of the 12-team College Football Playoff will create opportunities for the Big Ten Conference. However, those opportunities will be accompanied by headaches and debates. The conference needs to be proactive about solving them ahead of time so that member schools and their coaches and players receive clarity well in advance of a potential playoff debate.
Let’s consider one scenario we might see this season or next season in the Big Ten, a scenario we could see in other power conferences as well: The top two teams set to play in the Big Ten Championship Game are safely in the College Football Playoff. The real debate begins with the third-place, fourth-place, and fifth-place teams. Late in the season, imagine a scenario in which the third- and fourth-place teams are playing each other. The fifth-place team has a slight chance of getting into the playoff, but with two teams ahead of it playing each other, there might be a reluctance to penalize those third- and fourth-place teams for playing each other. The loser of that game might still be better than the fifth-place team. How does that debate get sorted out?
At The Voice of College Football, Mark Rogers and Trojans Wire writer Tim Prangley discuss various scenarios. Mark makes the specific point that the Big Ten would need to resolve these conference-specific disputes, as opposed to a national rankings system or a set of national polls:
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