SO FAR, WE DON’T HAVE A COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF AS LANE KIFFIN MAKES SENSE
Three first-round games were romps, with a fourth game coming close, and at least one SEC coach asks why SMU, Indiana (and Tennessee) were slaughtered while we wonder why Oregon-Ohio State are next
The downside of the College Football Playoff, which saw three first-round blowouts in gnarly campus stadiums, is that most of us have TV remotes. So does Lane Kiffin, the Ole Miss head coach, who wants America to think he was robbed after SMU, Tennessee and Indiana were swarmed by Penn State, Ohio State and Notre Dame.
Was he? Throw in Clemson, too, which closed a gap but still lost by 14 points to Texas. Welcome to the profound possibility that SEC coaches, whose teams pound each other all season, have been burned by the selection committee.
How nice to favor the Hoosiers, the billionaires in Dallas and the likes of Josh Heupel and Dabo Swinney when no one is certain they belonged over, say, Kiffin and Alabama. The sport is taking a perception gamble when programs from the ACC and Curt Cignetti’s camp gain instant entry and produce little in the tournament — especially when the NFL attracts serious fans to push living-room devices and watch Kansas City survive Houston and Baltimore beat Pittsburgh.
Roger Goodell produced a monster environment Saturday.
The colleges produced pap.
“Really exciting competitive game. Great job!!” Kiffin wrote Friday night, with a weird-eyeballed emoji for the committee members.
“Way to keep us on the edge of our seats, Committee. Riveting,” he wrote a day later, not bothering to address Ohio State’s 42-17 prime-time blister of the Volunteers.
It didn’t matter when Dick Vitale, fortunately back from cancer surgery, ripped Kiffin along with Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt. “If your team played half as well as you tweet, you would likely be in,” Klatt wrote. In theory, the concept of playing holiday games at universities is brilliant. Unfortunately, teams that don’t belong have us wondering if we’ll watch the early games. No doubt the quarterfinals — which include Oregon-Ohio State in the Rose Bowl and Georgia-Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl — are more than worth our while on New Year’s Day.
But why was SMU, after serving an NCAA death penalty for dirty dealings, allowed to find rich boosters and buy their way through NIL trappings into the ACC? And why did that conference gain two teams when SMU lost 38-10 at Penn State and Clemson lost 38-24? Eric Dickerson, who benefited from gifts when they were illegal, likes saying his team was “the first NIL.” No one cared when the Mustangs threw two pick-6 interceptions and let Happy Valley fans party in 20-degree temperatures. “We don't embrace the mistakes of our past,” coach Rhett Lashlee said. “But we do embrace the history of our past. … We didn’t play well enough to say anything that isn’t going to be written. It’ll be written, should we be in or did we belong? That’s fine. You’re welcome to write it. We didn’t play good today. But this is a quality team. We had a good team. We deserve to be here.”
How about starting with a precious present? Next up for the Nittany Lions: Boise State, in what could be a fun winter for James Franklin. “We’re a college football program that everybody should be proud of because those guys are doing it the right way at a time when it’s more challenging than it’s ever been,” said Franklin, who won his 100th victory at a school once tarnished by Jerry Sandusky and Joe Paterno. “I remember in training camp talking to the guys that, I wanted these type of moments for them. It's emotional for all of us. I appreciate the 100 wins and all that, but to me, I'm at a point in my career, it's all about the players and the staff.
“We’re in a one-game season. And we just extended our season one more game, 65 more plays.”
His players think Franklin deserves national acclaim, though it never has arrived. “He gets a lot of criticism that's undeserved,” quarterback Drew Allar said. “He's done a lot more than people give him credit for. Winning his 100th game is special, and to be a part of that and the team that delivered that 100th win for him and to have it on a stage like the playoffs, at home in Beaver Stadium, it's truly special. I don't care what anybody says from the outside. There's a lot of people out there that don't know what goes on behind the scenes. That's part of playing at a place like Penn State, but it's part of sticking to our guns and sticking to our process.”
All of which happened as Cignetti was defending Indiana, though he punted in the fourth quarter with a 20-3 deficit at Notre Dame. Was he trying to avoid a mauling? “This team earned the right to be here. I’m not sure tonight proved it to a lot of people,” he said. In Austin, Swinney was arguing with a player on the Clemson sideline and allowed Jaydon Blue to rush for touchdowns from 77 and 38 yards. Quarterback Cade Klubnik, returning to his hometown, threw for three TDs and 336 yards. He made it a game. Wow. That’s more than three other teams did.
“You can’t win (the championship) if you don’t win the first one,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “We did that.”
Wouldn’t Alabama, with a victory over Georgia, have provided better competition? Or Ole Miss, which also beat Georgia? Clemson is 0-3 against the SEC, with a 34-3 loss to Georgia. The committee politics must change, when flaws will keep choking with a playoff expansion to 14 teams. The members must pounce on strength of schedule and stop beyond friendly to weaker conferences.
For now, Ryan Day keeps his job at Ohio State until the Ducks haunt him. Why must Oregon, in the second round, take a 13-0 record and a No. 1 ranking against a talented team? That’s another question for the selection committee, which should be enjoying a renaissance but is dealing with too much pain … and Lane.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.