hunter ford

Tonight is a historic night for college football.  Finally, a true champion will be crowned.  The absolute best teams in college football will play for it all in Dallas.   Or maybe not.  Texas Christian University fans will probably tell you that, if their Horny Toads had been allowed in the mix, they might be the best team.  They did whup up on one of the better SEC teams in a major bowl game after all.

I don’t envision the College Football Playoffs staying at four teams for too long.   But it really won’t matter if the CFP is expanded to eight or 16 or 32.  Some team will always feel left out.   The Ohio State Tree Nuts and the Oregon Disney Copyright Infringers will play tonight for the title.

Either Donald Duck or Bucky Buckeye will go home happy.  But only one.   Texas Christian, Georgia Tech, and all of the SEC East football teams can sleep well tonight knowing they won the last game of the year, with visions of better things dancing in their heads for next year.

There is something to be said about going out on a good note.  That’s why the bowls are still important.

And here is what Coach Bryant had to say about playoffs and bowls

10 thoughts on “Bear Bryant had something to say about playoffs”

  1. I thought the best team in college football in 2014 won the national title this year.

    tOSU was clinically exceptional again against Oregon, like they were almost the entire season. They were characteristically good across 2014.

    Yes, Alabama could have probably made a championship-caliber roster this year from injured players alone. But Ohio State earned every bit of that ugly new trophy and they did it with fundamental football against one of the most unconventional football programs of the 21st century, among others. I’d love to watch the Buckeyes play the Horned Frogs, but I’m willing to give tOSU the benefit of the doubt. They’ve earned it.

    I hear you though. As an Alabama fan, the college football playoff took away a relatively easy national championship right from our hands. Make no mistake, Alabama would be crowned the 2014 national champions under any previous rule set.

    Still, Alabama wasn’t the best team in the nation this year, certainly not by the end of the season. The fact that this year’s squad even got close is being misunderstood and overlooked en masse.

    It’s difficult not to see Saban’s best fundamental football team is yet to come. For one, he hasn’t yet had a natural, elite pro-style QB, and perhaps now he has QB depth like Alabama has never seen.

    But for the next 9 months of darkness, boredom and 6,000 games of baseball, at least we can say this 2014 season went out on a high note for the sake of the sport.

    Until A-Day, then. Roll Tide.

  2. Nope

    I agree that Ohio State was the best team this year. They will e monstrous again next season. Perhaps we will get a rematch, that would b interesting.

    I hope the CFP stays at four. To me that’s enough. I wish the championship game can be moved from Monday night though, it is an inconvenient time.

    All playoff systems have problems and the best team doesn’t always win. Think of top seeds being upset in NCAA tourney and NY Giants beating undefeated Patriots in Super Bowl.

    And I agree with you. Alabama should be proud that it won an SEC Championship and was in the first ever CFP. Not a great team, but those were great accomplishments fr this particular Tide squad.

    Without looking it up, I don’t believe any team has repeated as SEC champs since Tennessee in the late 1990s. Hopefully Alabama will be strong enough next year to contend for both SEC and another CFP appearance.

    ROLL TIDE

    1. The CFP will stay at four.

      For now.

      I’m with you. Frankly, the BCS was enough, if not completely misunderstood and fans misguided.

      That’s not to say the 4-team playoff isn’t better or that I’m not glad it’s here, but the timing is already leading legions to assert with even more conviction that the SEC’s reign was tained and even illegitimately caused by bias more than anything else.

      It’s untrue, but people are still convicted.

      So we have a playoff now…right when Urban Meyer begins his Saban-esque reign at tOSU, right when USC is about to break through, and 3 years before Michigan makes everyone at least pay attention to them again. It will make all SEC conspiracy-theorists convince themselves that the SEC titles they forgot about in the last decade are false, a product of a greedy, money-grubbing cable network whose bias tainted every championship won by the SEC.

      The irony, of course, is arguing against them for having only 2 teams when the same argument can be made against only having 4 teams, 8 teams, etc.

      However, this year isn’t the one to change it. Yes, the same people will be furious enough to change it to 8 teams (don’t forget, the fans’ collective whining is the reason the playoff got a fair shake after only the SEC and the ACC supported any notion of it and the other 3 conferences publicly bashed it).

      But this year of the playoff, it was too good. Maybe TCU should have been in, but that would have been for the wrong reason. Then again, maybe a top-4 team shouldn’t let anyone score 61 points on them.

      Still, 5th place will always cry, and it will never sound as loud as 3rd place did in the BCS. Besides, the 4-team system worked. Two teams that in any other season wouldn’t have played for anything ended up playing for everything and against each other.

      The matchups were genius, and perhaps only possible with a playoff. I would frankly be surprised only if tOSU and Alabama don’t meet again in the 4-team playoff.

      And that’s the kind of stuff it will take to get people mad enough for any serious talk of an 8-team playoff. The BIG12 not having enough teams to have a conference title game won’t be the reason to have an 8-team system, not now, not ever.

      If any SEC team gets in next year and wins it, that won’t be enough, either. If any SEC team gets in and wins it two years in a row, people will talk and some of them will complain.

      But outside of two SEC teams getting into a 4-team playoff AND the “snubbed” teams blowing out high-rated teams in their bowls like TCU did against Ole Miss, there simply isn’t enough to listen to.

      The 4-team playoff is here to stay, at least a decade or so I’d say. In my honest opinion, it worked so well this year that it almost gives me peace as we look forward to the darkness that is the non-football season. The committee who was bashed weeks ago for their final top four now look like heroes, geniuses of this brilliant step in college football history.

      After all, we only need 8 teams because people want so badly to include the conference winners from one too many conferences, one of which isn’t complete enough to compete for a position in the first place.

      Think about it. What if we had an 8-team playoff? Then both TCU and Baylor have to be in, right?

      But they didn’t play an extra game against the best opponent in the other respective division of their conference.
      That might not sound so bad…until you replace “BIG12” with “SEC.” Then it would be bedlam.

      And there’s some poetic justice to that this season, a season with zero undefeated teams and no absolutely clear victors talent-wise across the board. There simply wasn’t a perfect team in 2014. tOSU is teriffic, but there were so many nearly-teriffic teams this year. It feels like mixing together the cold porridge with the hot porridge to get just the right temperature rather than cooking it right to begin with.

      That’s not to say tOSU doesn’t deserve it; they do, absolutely. But remember, earlier this season we were watching teams from Mississippi thinking they were elite, we watched the best team puke a flu dump against an awful VT team (at home, no less), and we saw top-ranked teams end the season instead with 5 losses or more, not to mention the only undefeated team going into the playoff having more question marks than a “Dear Abby” anthology.

      I loved it.

      And they’re still talking about the Crimson Tide regardless.

      Roll Tide.

  3. Nope,

    Good stuff. And wouldn’t you know it? The fourth spot team won the first ever CFP???

    The thing about college football is that it is almost impossible to have all the best teams play each other. Who is to say G Tech couldn’t have made a run in an expanded playoff?

    RTR

    1. Let me guess:

      Saban told him to find another job.
      He’s not a good coach.
      We didnt need him.
      He’s an overrated recruiter.
      He’s got baggage.

      Does that just about cover all the responses?

      1. @princesspeachy

        I’m confused.

        Don’t you care more about Steele going to LSU?

        No spinning it, peachy. Lance Thompson is leaving Alabama and the truth is it’s because Alabama is doomed. We’re all slowly learning the truth about Alabama and Nick Saban both being overrated. Now that they’ve been completely exposed, everyone at the Capstone is jumping ship. I’ll be surprised if Alabama even comes close to winning another football game in the next 31 years.

        Then again, everyone else with any coaching change is in just as much trouble, from Oklahoma to Clemson to Auburn to TAMU to tOSU to Oregon to USC to Georgia to Michigan to LSU to, well, wait, it’s pretty much everybody every season you dull little whiner you.

        Oh, peachy. I just can’t quit you. Never leave again. You’re my Seinfeld.

        1. Where did I say Alabama was in trouble? Im just curious to see how Bama fans spin this. And so far ive seen every excuse ive posted used by Bama fans on this switch. It is truly amazing to watch the spin. Reminds me when he left for Tennessee. And then Bama fans had to stop hating on him when Saban hired him back.

          Went something like this:

          At Alabama: he was an awesome coach and one of the best recruiters in the nation
          Went to Tennessee: He was an overrated coach and an overrated recruiter. Alabama didnt want him anyway.
          Went back to Alabama: Awesome coach and one of the best recruiters in the nation.
          Goes to Auburn: Overrated coach and overrated recruiter. Alabama didnt want him and Saban was going to fire him anyway.

          You guys are worse than a woman.

          1. @peachy

            But…nobody is spinning anything.

            Which, just saying that, you call a spin too, somehow?

            You pick and choose who you get your quotes from. One Alabama fan = all Alabama fans depending on what they say?

            So instead, pick me.

            Pick what I said. I’m an Alabama fan.

            “Went back to Alabama: Awesome coach and one of the best recruiters in the nation.
            Goes to Auburn: Overrated coach and overrated recruiter. Alabama didnt want him and Saban was going to fire him anyway.”

            Who said that? I mean, who actually said anything like that?

            Only you.

            Wow, peachy. I honestly thought you had something to say earlier; now I know you just wanted something else to cry about. You didn’t get it, but that’s some good effort there little guy. You’re a big boy today.

            But you seem to know more about Thompson than anyone (seriously, you do, no matter how weird that is in all sincerity). Why not give us your two cents before bashing everyone for the opinion nobody gave you but you project onto them anyway before juding them for your own prejudice?

  4. lets all remember something here, the “best team in the nation” turned the ball over four times winning the title. OSU wasnt better than Alabama. they wanted it more.

    they didnt fall down covering receivers. they didn’t show up over-weight. (looking at you, Trey DePriest)

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