Circa 1998, my workday at the sports desk at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal started innocently enough as I made what I thought to be a rather innocuous statement.
“You know, if the season ended today, Lubbock High would be in the playoffs.”
Our assistant sports editor, just a loveable, awesome dude with an endearing, perpetually exasperated manner, slowly rose from his chair and sauntered toward my desk. He put his hands on my shoulders as he stood behind me, sighed loudly and made a thunderous pronouncement.
“But the season doesn’t fucking end today, does it?!”
Message received.
The message should also be received by college football fans as they wonder what to make of the College Football Playoff Committee’s initial rankings, which came out Tuesday. The handwringing and member-measuring by fans of different teams — and the projections and prognostications by media — are expected byproducts of the rankings being released, but it’s all still irritating and irrelevant.
Even after Saturday’s showdowns shed some additional light, there are still four full weeks of the season left, people!
Not even Deep Thought, from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, could sift through all the possibilities and definitively predict the 12 teams that will compete in this year’s playoff. Why waste so many barrels of ink and watts of brain power in a fruitless effort to emulate Dr. Strange?
It seems to be a singular need of some college football fans to eschew the journey and skip right to the destination. We wait during the many months of the off-season to enjoy the sweet visage of college football in person and on our TV screens, only to start dreaming about the end of the season as soon as possible.
College football fans should realize the desire to fast-forward to the end of the season is preyed upon by those who control the sport. Why else are there any College Football Playoff rankings other than the one at the end of the season? The committee that makes the rankings even stresses how it rips up the previous week’s and starts anew each time, which means what was unveiled Tuesday MEANT ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Now, even I don’t really take the committee members completely at their word about the whole “start anew each week” thing. Still, using OU fans as an example, it’s silly to become emotionally invested in rankings when a full month of the season remains. Sure, the Sooners are only two spots out of the initial playoff field, but if they win their final three games, it wouldn’t matter if they were 10 spots out in those initial rankings — they’d still be in. Conversely, even if they were comfortably within the field on Tuesday, two losses in the final month would undoubtedly leave them out of the final unveiling.
So, as we head into the final sprint of the season, do yourself a favor and stop to smell the roses on the side of the road. Pay little attention to the early College Football Playoff rankings and consider every remaining game for every team as part of the playoff. Trust me, you’ll enjoy the journey more than you think you will.
Plus, you’d make an old assistant sports editor of mine pretty happy.
With both OU and OSU having off weeks this weekend — again, don’t call it a bye week, dammit — we get to focus on games that involve teams beyond our state’s borders. I enjoy these weeks, because it means I get a chance to relax and watch the fans of other teams have nervous breakdowns and suffer major hangovers.
Speaking of those … here are this week’s Hangover Highlights!
- Texas Tech defeated BYU for its first win over a top-10 team since a rainy night in Norman in 2011. The Red Raiders were never really threatened as they ran an astounding 43 plays in BYU territory, while the Cougars reciprocated with just nine snaps of their own on Tech’s side of the 50-yard line.
- The win stamps Tech as the Big 12’s best team. Victories over Utah and BYU will do that … as will an influx of nearly $50 million in NIL funds, much from booster Cody Campbell, to put together what may be one of the most expensive collections of mercenaries in college football history.
- The reality is, if Texas Tech DIDN’T have the best team in a Big 12 Conference — which smells more and more like a glorified group of mid-major programs — it’d be the biggest waste of funds since the “Moonies” financed the all-time movie flop “Inchon.” Instead of a debilitated Laurence Olivier in the lead role, though, they’d have a group of overpaid soldiers of fortune representing the scarlet and black in a similarly transactional capacity.
- With only games left against West Virginia and UCF — two teams with a combined 8-11 record — it appears Tech will be a presumptive Big 12 Championship Game participant. The question would be if a potential loss there — which would give every Big 12 team at least two defeats within a conference that didn’t exactly cover itself in glory against other leagues — would eliminate the Red Raiders from the playoffs, or would the committee give two spots to a pair of two-loss Big 12 Conference teams?
- It’s at least a legitimate question to ask by and for the Big 12. The ACC and its supporters cannot say the same. In the span of about 30 minutes of real time on Saturday night, both Virginia and Louisville suffered big upsets that essentially eliminated each from any chance of an at-large playoff bid. Virginia lost its starting quarterback and then a 16-9 game against Wake Forest, while Louisville was stunned 29-26 on a gutsy fourth-down call in overtime by Cal.
- Earlier in the day, Duke was beaten 37-34 at Connecticut. That’s the same Connecticut currently without a conference in which to compete. Duke, meanwhile, somehow remains tied for the ACC conference lead with a 4-1 record, although the Blue Devils possess a mediocre 5-4 overall mark.
- I believe the result of all the carnage is the death of any at-large playoff bids from the ACC. It’s championship or bust for its teams, a development the Big 12 and a bunch of potential 9-3 teams in the SEC and Big 10 certainly appreciate.
- I shudder to think I might ever be reincarnated as a Penn State fan. The Nittany Lions, which have suffered through plenty this season and had lost 14-straight games to teams ranked in the top five, were propelled into agony again when No. 2 Indiana scored with seconds left to avoid an upset in Happy Valley. The Hoosiers’ 27-24 win — thanks to a toe-tap touchdown reception by Omar Cooper Jr. with 35 seconds remaining — preserved their undefeated season. It also maintained growing doubts about Indiana’s ostensive dominance this season against a schedule that might be squishy.
- The Hoosiers’ best win came at Oregon. The Ducks, meanwhile, collected their best win — before Saturday — at Penn State. It all sounded like a huge Ponzi scheme to me.
- At least it did until Oregon’s 18-16 win Saturday at Iowa, which had been playing its predictable blend of offensively inept, yet-still-effective football this season. Hawkeyes quarterback Mark Gronowski came into Saturday with four touchdown passes — not in his last game, but in the ENTIRE SEASON. How does a quarterback for a top-25 team in modern college football start eight games yet only have four passing touchdowns?!
- Incredulity about its Neanderthal offense aside, Iowa has always been a tough out at home. That held true Saturday, as the Hawkeyes took a 16-15 lead with fewer than two minutes left before Oregon quarterback Dante Moore threw one of the prettiest passes of the season to set his Ducks up for a game-winning field goal.
- Wisconsin celebrated the retention of its embattled head coach with a 13-10 upset over 23rd-ranked Washington. Badgers coach Luke Fickell appeared to be a dead man walking after six straight losses this season and less-than-expected outcomes in his previous two years at the helm of the program. Bucking recent trends, however, the Wisconsin brain-trust announced earlier this week it would keep Fickell for another season.
- Of course, the Wisconsin punter did lead the team in passing on Saturday, with a whopping 24 yards. So, regardless of the outcome, will Badger fans be happy about the Fickell decision?
- Vanderbilt faced a much-tougher-than-expected fight from visiting Auburn, which resulted in a dramatic Commodores’ overtime escape 45-38. There was no real reason to believe Auburn would be much of a threat to the 16th-ranked ‘Dores after firing its head coach and benching Jackson Arnold as quarterback, all before losing an embarrassing 10-3 game to Kentucky last weekend. Still, there the Tigers were Saturday with a 20-10 halftime lead.
- Diego Pavia, however, had one of the finest games of his entire beloved career. The Vandy quarterback had 377 passing yards and three touchdowns to go with 112 rushing yards and another score. His last throw was a gorgeous 4-yard jump-pass for the game-deciding touchdown in overtime.
- I applaud Vanderbilt’s administration for starting a Diego for Heisman campaign recently. Still, don’t we feel the Commodores are missing the boat a bit? Isn’t a potential “Go, Diego, Go!” crusade sitting right there in their wheelhouse?
- ¡Vaya, Diego, vaya, mi mejor amigo!
