Tennessee AD Danny White suggests two rule changes after latest college football playoff controversy
The Tennessee Volunteers are going to be a part of the first-ever 12 team college football playoff field. However, that still didn't avoid some controversy on Tuesday night when the penultimate rankings were released by the selection committee. Tennessee checked in as the #7 team, but by virtue of conference champions getting a first round […]
The Tennessee Volunteers are going to be a part of the first-ever 12 team college football playoff field. However, that still didn't avoid some controversy on Tuesday night when the penultimate rankings were released by the selection committee.
Tennessee checked in as the #7 team, but by virtue of conference champions getting a first round bye, they're knocked down to the 9 seed, meaning they would have to go on the road to face 8 seed Ohio State in Columbus. A matchup with the #1 overall team would follow. Just a brutal draw for the Vols.
It was Tennessee remaining behind Ohio State in the latest rankings that irked Tennessee fans and some members of the media. The Buckeyes lost at home as a 21-point favorite to five-loss Michigan, one of the worst losses by any team in the field this year.
However, that didn't move the needle much with the committee, who only dropped the Buckeyes four spots. By comparison, Tennessee dropped by five spots after losing a competitive game at 5 seed Georgia last month.
What count more? Bad losses? Good wins? It seems the considerations cited by committee chair Warde Manuel change from week to week on Tuesday nights.
As such, Tennessee athletic director Danny White suggested a new model during his radio spot on Wednesday morning on 99.1 FM in Knoxville: expanding to 16 teams (already a future consideration) while bringing the old BCS computer model back into it and removing the subjective factor of a committee.
"With respect to this process, I would like to see it a little more objective," White said. "I don't think there is anything wrong with the ranking system of the old BCS. The problem with the old BCS is it was only two teams.
"So, we've got the number of teams right now with 12 – I'd love to see it go all the way to 16 – but we've now introduced this really subjective rankings process that I think is unnecessary, and I'm not going to throw stones at a committee that I'm sure they're all doing as good of a job as they can, and they're trying to work through it. I think those are good people working in earnest. I certainly am not going to throw stones at other teams. People want to compare maybe us against one or two specific teams in this moment, but that's not fair to those teams.
"I will, though, criticize the fact that we don't have a more objective computer-based ranking system that just makes it very clear, that everyone understands what the parameters are, and it is what it is. I think it would leave a lot less consternation on the back end that we're seeing all across the country right now."
To his point, the BCS wrapped itself up on controversy when it was a two-team decision for a title game. Those talking points are indeed far less egregious when we're discussing 12 or 16 teams.
What IS a talking point is the obvious bias that the committee has for some of its brands – hello, Alabama and Ohio State – and the obvious favoritism and double standards they have to assist those programs. That's hard to deny after Alabama got yet another favorable break by the selection committee, getting in with three losses – including perhaps the grossest loss of the year at Oklahoma just two weeks ago – over a 10-2 Miami team who lost to two teams with winning records by a combined 9 points.
The committee approach has simply not avoided the controversies it was designed to try to reduce, fueling distrust among fans across the country. Perhaps it is time to go backwards in order to move forwards, as White has suggested.
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