College Football Playoffs: Will They Actually Determine Who is Best?

A lot has been said about Oklahoma Sooners head coach Bob Stoops recent comments about the College Football Playoffs selection committee, but the one thing that has been harped on is his thoughts on how computers should take more of a role than humans, to eliminate bias and take into account the strength of schedule.

While a lot of people are calling Stoops a whiner for his comments, only taking into account him mentioning Northern Illinois making the BCS bowl last season over teams that really deserved to go, he has some great points.

Two teams really were screwed by human rules when it came to the BCS system last year: the Oklahoma Sooners and LSU Tigers. The Sooners did not make the BCS bowl because Northern Illinois squeaked in based on a rule that states that a non-BCS team gets in if they rank high in polls. LSU did not get in because two other SEC teams made it and there is a two team limit.

Both of those rules are unfair because it keeps the best teams out of the best games in bowl season. The fact is that the College Football Playoffs need to forget about “fairness” to lesser teams and just focus on putting the best teams in the tournament, regardless of any silly limitations.

In another area, others complained because Bob Stoops questioned the SEC being the best conference in the nation by saying it is not the best – from top to bottom. He is right in that area as well, if you look at the computers once again.

Check this out.

The BCS computer rankings for 2012 ranks the SEC as a 35.1 out of 124 for its 14 teams. The Big 12 ranks at 36.9 out of its 10 teams. The SEC has 10 teams ranked in the Top 50, while the Big 12 has only 8.

However, that also means that the Big 12 has 80-percent of its teams in the Top 50 and 50-percent in the Top 25. The SEC only has 71-percent in the Top 50 and 43-percent in the Top 25. When only looking at the top teams in both conferences, the SEC is clearly better. When looking at the conferences as a complete unit, they are very close.

Would the Big 12 be better if they had equal teams? They might be. Last year, the Texas A&M Aggies played in the Big 12, so that gave the SEC a new powerful team, while taking it away from the Big 12, but the Missouri Tigers also moved, so it evens out since they were horrific in 2012. Losing the Nebraska Cornhuskers and Colorado Buffaloes was also an even swap, one good and one horrible.

Right now, it is only talk, but Bob Stoops isn’t complaining and he isn’t whining. He is just speaking the facts as he sees them. Hopefully, the College Football Playoffs will help settle this argument once and for all, unless the NCAA finds a way to screw that up too.