The Debate Over Clemson, Georgia, and Oklahoma for BCS Final Berth Would Have Sucked

Ohio State vs. Alabama was annoying, but at least there were relatively sound reasons each team did not belong in the CFB playoff: one wasn’t a conference champion, the other gave up 55 points to Iowa. But it could’ve been way worse: Because we have a four-team playoff, we were spared of what would have been a fingernails on the chalkboard debate about which two teams of Clemson, Georgia, and Oklahoma belonged in the BCS Final.

Imagine what the last 48 hours would’ve been like. Clemson, the team that is ranked first overall, lost to Syracuse. Other than that, though, they’ve been a steamroller. Georgia’s big wins were Mississippi State at home, at Notre Dame and versus Auburn, a team they’d lost to a few weeks earlier, in the SEC title game. Oklahoma had four big wins — TCU twice, Ohio State, and Oklahoma State — but their loss was against Iowa State, a team who’s pesky but isn’t quite as good as Auburn.

Pundits online and on television would’ve gone around and around in circles, making emphatic cases for two teams and against the third in a game of musical chairs that doesn’t actually have an incontrovertible answer. Coaches would’ve been called out by name for bad or biased votes, and there would’ve been about 829100342 bad jokes about computer math. Thankfully, this is not the world we live in, and everybody who complained that the four-team playoff would devalue the regular season was overruled.

Now, hopefully, Urban Meyer, Ohio State, and the Big Ten will form the martyr we need to yield an 8-team playoff.