There are a bunch of tweets out there from college football reporters who seem to think that Penn State got an easier playoff draw than Oregon:

Oregon is the #1 seed and will play the Ohio State/Tennessee winner. Penn State is the #6 seed and will play Boise on a neutral field if they get by SMU at home. So the semifinal path for Penn State requires winning two games while the Ducks need to win one game. Has anyone actually considered that? It’s as if the first round bye means absolutely nothing to these people. The “reward” that Oregon received was automatic qualification to the quarterfinal round with Georgia on the other side of the bracket.

You also have to ask yourself why Ohio State and Tennessee were seeded 8th and 9th. That happened because one lost to 7-5 Michigan and one lost to 6-6 Arkansas, two bad losses that kept them out of their conference championship games. So let’s not act like Oregon is facing some invincible juggernaut in their playoff opener.

As far as Penn State, first, if you’ve watched even five minutes of the James Franklin era, you know that nothing is ever easy. Their best win this season was at home against 9-3 Illinois, whose best win was either Michigan or Rutgers. The Nittany Lions threw away a winnable home game against OSU and lost the Big 10 title game despite scoring 37 points. They needed overtime to beat USC on the road, squeezed past Minnesota by a point, and required a comeback to defeat Bowling Green at home. They’ve won some blowout games, but their 11 wins were not entirely comprehensive thrashings.

Second, SMU isn’t some pushover. People are looking at them like a basketball mid major that has no business being here, maybe because of a subconscious thing where your brain still associates them with the American and not the ACC. The Mustangs lost two games on late field goals, smoked an 8-4 TCU team, beat 8-4 Louisville on the road, and hammered a Pitt team that was 7-0 at the time and still had a healthy Eli Holstein under center. They’ve got a slippery QB who makes plays and can do some quirky off-schedule stuff to keep defenses off balance. They aren’t the 2001 Miami Hurricanes, but they’re not fodder either.


Third, beating Boise in Glendale isn’t some given. Ask Oklahoma, TCU, and Arizona. Oregon needed a walk-off field goal to beat the Broncos at home while giving up 192 yards and three scores to Heisman candidate Ashton Jeanty. Boise smoked Wazzou and beat UNLV twice and they have a quarterback who doesn’t throw a lot of picks or make a lot of mistakes. If you’re thinking that Jeanty will be facing a real defense that includes Abdul Carter and company, note that Ohio State ran for 176 yards in Happy Valley and Oregon went for 186 in the title game, so it’s not like the PSU front has been some immovable object.

This isn’t to shit on Penn State, because they’re really good, and deserve their seeding, but don’t overlook SMU and Boise. They are both solid teams.

There’s a saying, that “people will always find something to complain about.” It’s true. In this case, with 12 teams getting in, they’re complaining about the seeding of those 12 teams. That’s the main gripe going around. They’re also arguing that team #13 got snubbed. “Alabama should be in!” Even if Alabama was 7-5, Tide fans would be calling for their inclusion, because it’s Bama. That will always be the situation. If there was a 74-team playoff, people would write social media posts saying that team #75 got snubbed. They’d post tweets saying the Ohio Bobcats definitely deserved it more than San Jose State.

But isn’t this the whole point of the playoff? To find out who the best is? They’re going to play a bunch of games and we’ll see who comes out on top. If this was the old BCS system, we’d probably be watching 13-0 Oregon vs. 11-1 Notre Dame in the championship game. And if this was the four-team playoff, one of Texas, Penn State, Georgia, or Ohio State would be out, because the glut of two-loss teams makes for a murky picture beyond Oregon. At least in this case there’s not some uber-controversy. Instead, it’s just common myopic bitching.

Photo: NCAA