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Ohio State doesn’t deserve spot in final four

 With the inaugural season of the College Football Playoff coming to a close, there are a lot of opinions on the accuracy of the selection committee.
In the final rankings, the committee decided that the top four teams were Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State. The BCS wasn’t perfect and the new CFP system isn’t either, but the question college football fans took to Twitter was whether the committee got the final four teams right. In my opinion, probably not.
The whole reason the CFP was started was to get rid of the bias fans saw in the BCS. In 2008, when Utah went undefeated, fans were angry that they didn’t get to see the Utes in the national championship game. Florida State, who has gone undefeated this year and who sits in the No. 3 spot, will have an opportunity in a sense to compete for the national title. It must eat at the hearts of Utah fans, knowing this system wasn’t in place half a decade ago when their team had the same record the Seminoles have now.
A big measuring stick the committee used in coming out with these rankings was strength of schedule, which could be why the ‘Noles sit behind the Crimson Tide and the Ducks, despite being undefeated. It’s what ultimately kept Utah out of the national championship in 2008 and still is a problem now.
What really baffles me was the big debate between TCU and Baylor. Just last week, TCU sat in the third spot of the rankings while Baylor had a very good shot to sneak in there with a top-10 matchup against Kansas State coming up. Even after the Bears upended the Wildcats, neither the Horned Frogs or Baylor’s name was to be found in the final four spots. This is ridiculous.
Out of nowhere, Ohio State nabbed the fourth and final spot in the CFP, and I’m not sure the Buckeyes deserved it. The Big 10 is known as the worst conference of the Power 5 schools and if any conference were to be left out, I thought it would definitively have been the Big 10.
I also have a slight problem with Alabama being in that ever-so-important number one position. I know the SEC carries a lot more weight than any other conference in college football, but I don’t think that warrants them a top spot. If I had to pick the top team in all of America, it would be Oregon based off of their domination of Arizona — their only loss in conference play — in the Pac-12 Championship.
After the Ducks, I would put Alabama second, Florida State third and Ohio State fourth, although I’m still not sold on the Buckyes.
The College Football Playoff was set in place to fix a broken BCS. While I think it is doing a better job, there is room for improvement. It is only the first year the playoff system has been used so I can understand the difficulties and criticism the committee has to face. Time will tell if the decision to move to a playoff committee was the right choice, but the system will hopefully only improve with each season.
With four conference champions, I feel the committee did a fairly good job, but I do believe that because the Big 12 was leaps and bounds better than the Big 10 this season, that either TCU or Baylor should have replaced Ohio State for that fourth spot.
 
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Committee picked the best four teams in the country 

You just can’t make everyone happy.
As the college football playoff selection drama unfolded, it proved having a playoff creates the same kind of frustration the BCS did. Somebody is always going to feel like they got left out. While there are valid questions and arguments from the teams that were left on the outside, ultimately the committee got it right.
Alabama and Oregon are undoubtedly the top two teams in the nation, and the committee rightfully put them in the top two spots, but things got a little more interesting at the number three spot. Florida State entered the weekend fourth and maybe the most unimpressive of the playoff contenders, but the bottom line is the Seminoles finished undefeated and are the defending champs — there was no way they were going to get left out.
The fourth and final spot is where the debate really began. Ohio State, TCU and Baylor all had cases for the final spot, but the selection of the Buckeyes was the correct one.
The résumés of Baylor and TCU were very similar. The Bears and Horned Frogs finished with identical records and were named co-champions of the Big 12. The committee ended up ranking Baylor ahead of TCU, most likely a result of Baylor’s victory over TCU. But even with the Bears holding the clear tiebreaker, the Big 12 elected to name the two as co-champions, thinking it would help TCU’s résumé. That wasn’t the case, and the co-champion label appears to have hurt both TCU and Baylor’s chances to grab a spot.
Going into the final weekend, TCU was ranked third, but probably never should have been that high. The Horned Frogs jumped the Seminoles without much of a logical reason and after Baylor, Ohio State and Florida State beat top-15 teams, they all rightfully jumped ahead of TCU.
The committee has no one to blame but themselves for causing the controversy of TCU’s drop. But what people who disagree with the final rankings need to understand is that despite the rocky path the committee took, they did get the final rankings right in the end.
With TCU dropping to sixth, Ohio St. and Baylor were left to contend for the final spot. Ohio St. had been ranked ahead of Baylor since week 13 in the CFP rankings. Because of this, Baylor needed the Buckeyes to stumble in order to jump ahead of Ohio State. While the Bears took care of business against No. 9 Kansas State, it wasn’t enough, as Ohio State obliterated No. 13 Wisconsin 59-0.
The playoff hopes for the Buckeyes essentially hung on the arm of the preseason third string QB Cardale Jones, and he was able to deliver in impressive fashion and lead his team to the conference championship and the playoffs.
The change at quarterback didn’t affect the Buckeyes or the perspective of the committee, and it was clear that Ohio St. had the most impressive résumé of the three teams. The Buckeyes had a better strength of schedule, had more wins against top 60 teams and had a much tougher out-of-conference schedule.
Baylor and TCU alike needed a 13th game to give them an edge. A Big 12 championship game could have provided the missing ingredient for one of these teams to get in.
Yes, the Big 12 got the short end of the stick, but Ohio St. is the right team to have in the playoff. Though the first year wasn’t perfect for the committee, in the end, they selected the best four teams in the country.
 
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