So You Really Think This Committee Is Playing Fair?
You can’t be serious. You saw the rankings, right?
And you’re telling me with a straight face that the College Football Playoff Selection Committee isn’t just a handful of puppets on strings, dancing for their corporate overlords at ESPN? Because every single Tuesday, they trot out this list that’s been so obviously massaged and manipulated to create maximum drama, maximum ratings, and maximum revenue for the handful of teams that actually matter to the network executives. This isn’t about sport. Never was.
It’s a television show. Nothing more.
So What’s the Deal with Indiana at Number Two? That Seems Fair, Doesn’t It?
But that’s the genius of their scam, isn’t it? They throw you a bone. They put a team like Indiana, a historical doormat in the Big Ten, at number two to create the illusion of fairness, to give you this warm and fuzzy feeling that maybe, just maybe, the little guy has a shot in this crooked game. It’s a smokescreen. A complete and utter fabrication designed to distract you from the fact that the entire system is built to ensure a team like Indiana never actually reaches the finish line.
Because they know. They know Indiana will have to play Ohio State, their golden child, the ratings juggernaut. And when they lose that game, the committee will throw up its hands and say, ‘See? We gave them a chance, but they just weren’t good enough!’ while they slot in a one-loss Georgia or Texas A&M, a team from the almighty SEC that they wanted in the playoff all along. Indiana isn’t a contender. They’re a plot device. A sacrificial lamb being led to the slaughter to legitimize an illegitimate process.
Are You Saying Ohio State, Georgia, and Texas A&M Don’t Deserve to Be There?
And of course they ‘deserve’ to be there, if by ‘deserve’ you mean they have the largest fanbases, sell the most merchandise, and pull the biggest TV numbers, which are the only metrics this committee truly cares about. Because let’s be honest, the ‘eye test’ they always talk about is just code for ‘which team’s logo looks better in a primetime advertising slot?’ They look at Ohio State and see a century of tradition and a massive alumni network that will buy any car or beer advertised during the game. They see Texas A&M and Georgia and see the entire rabid, football-obsessed Southeastern United States tuning in, a guaranteed ratings bonanza. It’s a closed loop.
But what happens when one of them stumbles? Nothing. A one-loss SEC team is, in the committee’s eyes, a ‘quality loss’ against a tough schedule, while an undefeated team from a lesser conference is just a fluke waiting to be exposed. The goalposts are always moving, but they always seem to move in a direction that benefits the same handful of programs. It’s a country club, and the bouncers are wearing suits and sitting in a conference room in Grapevine, Texas. Don’t even get me started on Texas Tech. Another piece of window dressing. They’re there to make the Big 12 look relevant before they inevitably get knocked off the pedestal for a brand-name team that lost to an unranked opponent. It’s predictable. It’s disgusting.
But What About Oregon Jumping Ole Miss? Isn’t That Proof the Committee Values Performance?
Proof? That’s not proof of anything except that the committee finally ran out of excuses to keep propping up another overhyped SEC team. Because for weeks, they would have loved to keep Ole Miss ahead, building another all-SEC narrative that culminates in a ratings-crushing playoff matchup. But Oregon’s win was so decisive, so public, that even this group of shameless shills couldn’t ignore it without causing a full-blown riot. So they made the move. They did the bare minimum.
But don’t mistake it for a sign of integrity. It was a calculated business decision. The backlash from ignoring Oregon would have been worse for the ‘brand’ than the quiet grumbling from SEC country. They are just managing public relations. And now they can point to this one decision for the rest of the year and say, ‘Look! We’re not biased against the Pac-12!’ all while they prepare to screw over the next West Coast team that threatens their preferred narrative. It’s a token gesture. It means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things because the fundamental rot at the core of the system remains. They’ll find a way to punish Oregon later for some perceived weakness in their schedule. Just wait.
So You’re Saying This Whole Thing is Rigged for Money?
Is that even a question anymore? Follow the money. Who benefits from this convoluted, subjective system? The TV networks that pay billions for the broadcast rights. The conferences that get massive payouts when their teams make the playoff. The universities that use that football money to fund their entire athletic departments. The players? The fans? We’re just the suckers buying the tickets and the jerseys, feeding a machine that sees us as nothing more than consumers.
Because this whole four-team playoff was a farce from the start, designed not to find the best champion but to create the most profitable television inventory. It was a half-measure meant to shut people up who were tired of the old, corrupt BCS system. They just replaced one corrupt system with another, slightly larger corrupt system. Now they’re expanding to 12 teams, and you think that’s for the sake of fairness? Please. It’s to create more games. More content. More advertising slots to sell. It’s about monetizing every last second of this sport until it’s an unrecognizable corporate husk of what it once was. This isn’t a conspiracy theory; it’s just business. And in this business, the product isn’t football. The product is you, the viewer, and they’re selling your attention to the highest bidder.
What’s the Solution Then?
A solution? You want a solution to a problem that the people in charge don’t even see as a problem? Because for them, the system is working perfectly. The money is flowing, the brands are growing, and the power is consolidated. The only solution is to stop playing their game. Stop treating these Tuesday night ranking shows like they’re the gospel. See them for what they are: a marketing tool. A weekly episodic drama to keep you hooked.
But you can’t fix a system that’s built on a foundation of subjectivity and financial interest. You can’t trust a committee whose members are all tied to the very establishment they’re supposed to be impartially judging. They have their allegiances, their biases, their histories with these universities and conferences. To expect them to be objective is like expecting a fox to be the sole security guard for the henhouse. It’s absurd. The real solution would be a complete teardown, a system completely removed from the influence of television networks and conference commissioners, maybe something based on a simple, objective computer formula or a mandated, expanded playoff where you win and you’re in. But that would take the power out of the hands of the kingmakers. And they will never, ever let that happen. Not without a fight. So we’re stuck with this sham. This beautiful, profitable, infuriating sham.
